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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 7 Hansard (24 June) . . Page.. 2302 ..

MRS DUNNE

against women, which was a significant issue raised in this report. Not a word. When we asked the Minister for Women why this was the case, the chief executive of the Chief Minister's Department basically said, "Well, I thought about it, it was a pretty tough year, and I decided that women were expendable."That is what it boiled down to, Mr Speaker.

This is a disgrace. This government, which was elected to this place with the support of the crossbenchers by touting its credentials in favour of women, has done nothing, not one iota, not one jot. There is nothing in this budget to support their rhetoric in support of women. To people all around this town their rhetoric is now pretty much dull, cloying and powdery, because it means nothing.

Distinct commitments were made in this place. Motions were passed in relation to outreach workers for women at risk of falling into homelessness. Assembly members voted and agreed that this would happen. But they do not appear in this budget. The women of the ACT have been let down appallingly.

This sort of overarching policy infiltrates every part and every fibre of the government. They set out to have an open, accountable, women friendly, family friendly, workplace friendly government-and every element of the government would absorb and take it on as if it were a sort of living, breathing entity. But it has not happened, and this has been a complete and utter failure-an abrogation of what was promised to all the women of the ACT.

The Office of Sustainability was referred to in this budget and previous budgets. When the Treasurer came into this place in December 2001 and introduced a supplementary appropriation to set up the Office of Sustainability, members asked questions about how it would work and what it would do. In the estimates process that stemmed from that supplementary appropriation, commitments were made that by this budget we would begin to see triple bottom line accounting. This was a commitment made as a direct consequence of us appropriating money to set up the Office of Sustainability. I do not have a problem with the notion of the Office of Sustainability. I wish I had thought of it first. I think it is a great initiative, I think it is a fantastic step forward, but it is hardly even a teeny weeny baby step forward if you are not going to put any money behind it.

This Treasurer made a commitment in the estimates in December 2001 that we would begin to see triple bottom line reporting in this budget. Well, I sat through the estimates, Mr Speaker, I have been through BPs 1, 2, 3 and 4 and the supplementary paper on the bushfire, and I cannot see any evidence, not even the slightest notion of a twinkle in the Treasurer's eye, of triple bottom line reporting. It is not there.

At the time that the Office of Sustainability was introduced, and consistently since then, members in this place-Ms Dundas in particular and I-have said there are just not enough money and people in the Office of Sustainability to do what is proposed. Again, I think for the second year in a row there are recommendations in the Estimates Committee report that we find ways of putting more funding into the Office of Sustainability.

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