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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Friday, 14 May 2004) . . Page.. 1980 ..

“Bugger” in the margin beside that quote, because they had taken my idea. Then I thought, “No, no—

Mrs Burke: As they do.

MRS DUNNE: As they do, but, then again, imitation is the highest form of flattery. I should not complain because they are at least doing something that I think is a good idea. But then I read the fine print, and somebody in my office did the maths. It is a really good idea, but when you do the maths it works out at $3 per household per year to look after residential greenhouse emissions.

The government has done bits in the past. The solar hot water scheme, which was good enough as far as it went, failed to meet the targets. Most of the money might have been spent but it has failed to meet any of the targets, and the government has had to keep upping the subsidy because the program was so badly designed.

I have been critical of the government for its environmental initiatives. A long time ago I said they were too lazy and too lacking in vision to address real ideas on the environment. I have had to add to that that they are just too cheap. Three dollars a year is just nothing. It is a price tag that is risible. The whole program, while it has good foundations, is a complete joke.

At the last election the government had a list of promises for the environment. There are still a few things on that list, which was a bit on the scant side, that the government and Mr Sustainability—the man who said, “We’re going to do wonderful things for the environment”—have not yet implemented. Every year we go into the budget estimates and we say, “Here’s a broken promise.” They say, “Oh, we’ve got a budget cycle,” which is code for electoral cycle, “We’ve got another couple of budgets in the budget cycle.”

Some of the promises that are outstanding would not be expensive to implement. Before the last election the government promised to ensure that the position of the conservator of flora and fauna is independent of and separate from the day-to-day administration of Environment ACT. They have completely failed to do this because—guess why?—the conservator of flora and fauna and the executive director of Environment ACT are one and the same person. I do not have a big argument with that, I do not think this is a terrible thing one way or the other, but they made an election commitment to separate these positions. They made a big fuss in the previous Assembly about how dreadful it was that the conservator of flora and fauna and the head of Environment ACT were one and the same person. They made a commitment. It is not as though it is a very expensive commitment, but they have not met it.

What other broken promises have we got here? They did actually spend the $1.12 million over three years on household solar hot water rebates. But that was to provide 1,500 people with rebates for solar hot water systems, and they have not achieved that.

They also promised to establish an integrated nature conservation plan for the ACT. When you think about what people have been saying about east O’Malley, the—dare we mention it—Oakey Hill fiasco, Nettlefold Street trees, and attempts last night by the government to take away all scrutiny from licences to kill, you come to the conclusion

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