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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 5 Hansard (8 May) . . Page.. 1759 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

I found that we do not have a target any more, because the measure has changed. That seems to happen every year in so many areas and is extremely frustrating.

I could not find a breakdown of the actual cost of the weeds work. That could have been a way for me to work out how much was spent in previous years, but it was not there, either. These are obviously things that I can pursue in the estimates process, but it is of concern to me that we still keep finding it hard to get that basic information from the budget.

What is happening with the implementation of the greenhouse strategy? The strategy is in its fifth year of implementation and it is said to be a priority in 2003-04. Page 192 of budget paper 4 shows a target for 2002-03 of approximately $831,000 and, next to that, an estimated outcome for that year of nearly $1.5 million, with the target for 2003-04 being down to about $900,000. A footnote tells us that the 2002-03 outcome reflects a carryover of activity from 2001-02 and that the 2003-04 outcome reflects a return to normal activity levels. One can only assume that this means that the allocated money has not been spent. The obvious questions are: why is that so? Why hasn't the money been spent? What is the problem in implementing the greenhouse strategy? Where is the progress report on how the greenhouse strategy has been reviewed?

I thought that maybe I could get more information on that by going to the web page and looking at the greenhouse strategy. I do not understand what has happened there, if it just has not been updated or whatever, but the document that I found on the web page says about future review of the strategy, "Regular formal review of the strategy will be undertaken together with an assessment of the international/national situation. The first reviews will be held in 2001-02, and then 2003-04. The timing of subsequent reviews will be determined as part of the 2003-04 review."

It looks as though there should have been a review in 2001-02, but this document obviously has not been updated because it is still speaking as if 2001-02 is in the future, so it does not fill you with confidence in terms of what is happening. I will certainly be asking more questions about that in the estimates process.

The question of reporting in the budget, as I have already said, is a problem. For example, in the budget's measuring of performance against quality effectiveness in environmental management and regulation in relation to water quality and air quality, efforts to minimise smoke problems and greenhouse emissions are shown as 90 per cent for last year's target, 90 per cent for the outcome and 90 per cent as the target for the coming year.

What does that 90 per cent mean? Are we improving? How many days of air pollution problems do we have? We do not seem to have done anything on smoke pollution. We have had some warnings about not lighting up at night, warnings which cannot be evaluated, according to the government. How do we get to that 90 per cent measure? It would be very interesting to know what makes up the other 10 per cent? Were the 10 per cent of people who were not happy people who have a respiratory weakness?

A really interesting thing to do if you wanted a quality measure about smoke pollution would be to speak to people who have a respiratory illness and see what they think about improving the air quality in Canberra. That would be a more meaningful measure than

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