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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 6 Hansard (15 June) . . Page.. 1869 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

Members will recall that amendments were recently passed to the Commissioner for the Environment Act 1993 to ensure that a state of the environment report was prepared within each term of government. It was clear that in passing this amendment the Assembly wished to have an environmental report card available to it to inform policy-making. With this in mind, the commissioner's report was tabled on 2 May 2001, shortly after it was received. I have also brought the government's response here today as soon as possible.

This report represents the culmination of a massive amount of work by Dr Baker and his hard-working staff. The document you have before you is only the written executive summary of a much larger report, where the commissioner will bring together his findings under the following themes: atmosphere, biodiversity, land, human settlement, water and towards sustainability. The bulk of the work, amounting to hundreds of pages of information relating to specific environmental indicators, will be published electronically as part of the commissioner's Australian Capital Region report that is expected to be completed in mid July 2001.

Mr Speaker, this is the first time that this report will be produced both as a hard copy executive summary and in the CD format. The production of the report has been assisted by the development by the commissioner's office of the SoE Author software package that provides a standard template for the preparation of the ACT and each local government area report in the region. This approach is particularly innovative in the use of IT and has attracted local and international interest.

In summary the commissioner has found that the quality of the ACT's environment remains generally as good as in 1994 when the first report was made. The commissioner has also reported that "the Government has demonstrated significant leadership nationally, in finalising the ACT Greenhouse Strategy and commencing its implementation". He has also commented that the ACT is, and again I quote, "a pace-setter in other top issues, such as municipal waste management and waste water treatment". He has made, through his recommendations, a range of constructive suggestions about how we may continue to improve our environmental performance.

Mr Speaker, I am pleased to report that the government is able to agree to all but one of the 25 recommendations and will now work with the commissioner and other stakeholders on strategies for their implementation.

The government disagrees with the commissioner's recommendation about the need for an independent study of the extent and quality of ACT groundwater. Based on the advice from an independent expert scientific panel, the ACT has adopted a very conservative approach to groundwater management, allowing for the use of only 10 per cent of the recharge of any catchment. The government will commission studies of groundwater potential on a needs basis to effectively inform decisions about best water usage.

The commissioner also included in his report details of his 1997 report recommendations and his comments on government action in relation to his recommendations up to 30 June 2000. While most of these recommendations have been implemented to his satisfaction, the government will continue to address the

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