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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 8 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 2685 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

but when the majority of people in the ACT do not buy timber from wood merchants who distribute this leaflet it is relatively meaningless.

We need to ensure that there is an appropriate way of providing better education to people on how to use their wood heaters efficiently, and we need to provide greater information to people on the impact of using wood heaters on certain nights of the year when there is a higher pollution risk. In particular, we should be looking at measures, as outlined in Ms Tucker's motion, such as the Don't Light Tonight programs-advisory programs asking people to consider whether or not they need to use a wood heater on particular evenings when there is the capacity for an inversion layer and for pollution to remain in areas such as Tuggeranong but also other parts of the city.

Clearly, there are equity issues associated with this. For those people who rely on wood heating to heat their house, not lighting on a cold winter's night is not an option, and that is completely understandable. That is why it is important to look at measures to assist low-income households and those households that rely solely on wood heating to install other heating devices that do not have the same impact as wood heaters do. Many people in Canberra own wood heaters, but many people in Canberra also use other forms of heating as the main way of heating their house. Wood heaters often perform more of an aesthetic function than a function of heating the home. That is why a program like Don't Light Tonight would have a considerable effect. It would encourage people to use their discretion and not light their wood heaters on evenings when there is a high pollution risk. People in Canberra understand these issues and, with better information from government, there is a much greater capacity for them to respond positively.

The issue is relatively clear. We need to look at ways of responding to what is effectively an issue of market failure as well as a significant environmental issue. The industry is not capable of effectively regulating itself. I think that has already been demonstrated. The level of pollution in the Tuggeranong Valley has increased since the introduction of the firewood strategy. Unless serious moves are made to reduce the use of hardwood timbers as stock for wood fire material, we will continue to see a major impact on the native timber stands of the inner areas of the country which are continually harvested, often in very inappropriate ways, to meet the market demand for timber for wood fires. These are the issues we need to address.

The government strategy is not adequate. A stronger stance is required, and the Labor Party will be supporting this motion and Ms Tucker's legislation.

MR STANHOPE (Leader of the Opposition) (5.27): I wish to speak only very briefly in support of the motion and the comments made by my colleague Mr Corbell, to emphasise, as has already been mentioned, the significant potential health implications of the matter we are debating here. It is, I think, in the minds of many who take great joy from fires in their homes that there is an impact, an environmental price, and that some people, particularly neighbours and others, might be susceptible to the impact of this form of pollution on their health. Therefore, we should seek and search out some responses to a worsening situation here in the ACT.

I am one of those who, along with many of us, have enjoyed an open wood fire from time to time. Perhaps in later years, as we have become a little bit more conscience of some of the impacts, we have dwelt on the appropriateness of an unregulated and

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