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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Tuesday, 29 June 2004) . . Page.. 2864 ..

One of those policies ought to be about what you put in the ground after a fire. If you have a pine plantation that gets fried every time you have a fire and you have to salvage it every time with big machines roaring around and creating erosion as well as all sorts of water-quality problems, then maybe we ought to rethink what we’re doing.

The government planned a process involving various stakeholders, and that occurred. From the Greens’ perspective, that scientific analysis should be the priority because that is about water quality, and it is not a negotiable issue in the ACT, as everyone here continually says.

MR SPEAKER: The member’s time has expired.

MS TUCKER: May I take my extra 10 minutes? A number of people have spoken on the women’s policy, and I spoke on it at reasonable length in the initial response to the budget. I will just repeat that the Greens have always said, rather than focusing on women’s statements, we are interested in a gender perspective and a gender audit and analysis of all government policy. It is insulting to be told that 87 per cent of government initiatives go to women. That is totally ignoring the reality of the importance of a gender audit and analysis. Maybe the government or whoever makes these decisions needs to listen to the women’s advisory group that is supposed to be assisting in this. I know that it was pretty surprised to see that kind of comment in the budget.

I have not had time to properly read the response provided to the report on the status of women; I will do that later. It is good to see that at least there is some interest in continuing to look at the issues. As I said, it would serve the whole community much better if we made the focus gender analysis and auditing, because apart from the fact that that produces a real picture of where the money is going and what policies are doing, it is also less likely to alienate men in the community who see statements about women’s budgets and so on as somehow excluding them.

Members talked about multiculture a fair bit. No-one has talked about JPET so I will raise that quickly. It is a Commonwealth program for multicultural youth. It is very important in Canberra. It has lost $30,000. I have spoken to Katy Gallagher about that and I understand she is speaking with those service providers. I am really pleased about that, because $30,000 is not a huge amount in the government budget, but it is very significant to a number of young people, particularly refugees from Sudan. There is a large group from Sudan. The assistance that they can get through this program is critical, given how vulnerable and at risk they potentially are. So it is a very important service that we would like to see supported. I sincerely hope this government will pick up the slack from the federal government on that issue.

When talking about the Office of Sustainability I forgot to mention the rural villages. I have to say again the Greens are absolutely opposed to the current proposal from the government for Uriarra and Pearce’s Creek. Even though there are three fat books of sustainability studies it has not looked at the impact on the national parks of urban development west of the Murrumbidgee, seeing that development in a broader context as well as in the obvious context of the potential for that to become a precedent for further development west of the Murrumbidgee.

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