Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 8 Hansard (27 June) . . Page.. 2359 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

The government made an election commitment that it would pursue the concept of sustainability in its decision-making. I note that the word "sustainability" is mentioned many times in the budget, but I get the sense that it has been thrown in on many occasions to give the impression that the government is thinking about it, rather than with any real sense of what it means to apply the concept in practice. It is rather like how the previous government used the term "social capital". It was ironic to hear Mr Humphries being so seriously critical of the use of sustainability after seeing what his government did in previous years here with social capital. At least the ALP is prepared to put some effort into examining sustainability through its funding of the Office of Sustainability, something that I would never have expected the Liberals to do.

The ALP does, however, still have a considerable way to go in turning this budget into a triple bottom line budget where environmental, economic and social factors are integrated into determining its spending priorities. The budget documents are very much a continuation of the style developed by former Liberal governments. I hope that by the next budget we will see a revamped approach to formulating the budget within an overall sustainability framework. As an example, budget paper No 3 has for many years contained a chapter on the government's actions on the environment which, from memory, was started as a sop to people such as the Greens who regularly complained that the environment was being left out of the budget.

While I very much appreciate being able to read this information, it has always seemed like an add-on and not really part of the budget. If one were to take a sustainability approach, information on the government's environmental priorities would be up front in the budget strategy and overview section, alongside and equal to social and economic priorities. The government has made a weak attempt at that through its overview section and supplementary booklet on shaping Canberra's future. In fact, the extra booklets on the government's policy focus for the coming year have become such a common thing in ACT budgets that we may as well call them budget paper No 5.

This statement on shaping Canberra's future highlights the government's failure to grasp what sustainability means, or perhaps indicates that the bean counters are still in control. In this statement, sustainability is listed as just one objective amongst many others, rather than recognising it as an overarching framework that should guide the development of all aspects of government. Sustainability is more about shifting the paradigm to thinking about how all of our decisions today will affect future generations of people living in the ACT and whether we will be making things better or worse for our children, their children and so on. It is not about what we can do over the next financial year, or this term of government.

The juxtaposition of the sections on sustainability and economic growth is a prime example of the government not understanding what sustainability means. In fact, the booklet starts using the term "economically-sustainable growth" as a perverse mixing of metaphors. The literature on sustainability or ecologically-sustainable development makes clear that you cannot have indefinite economic growth within a finite environment. One can have changing economic activities or developments in technologies and industrial processes, but not growth in things such as resource consumption, land use change or waste production. I just hope that the new Office of Sustainability will have sufficient resources and influence to do a better job with the next budget.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .