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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4167 ..

thrown at the problem. Every time it says, “You cannot criticise us for this because we have spent bucket loads of money on it.”

It is appalling to have Mr Quinlan, an economic rationalist from the right wing of the Labor Party, saying that the solution to everything is to measure how much money is spent on it. When we are talking about financial management, which apparently we would not know if we fell over it, we do not talk about inputs: we talk about outcomes. Let’s talk about some of the outcomes here. Let’s touch lightly on the environment and the fantastic contribution made by the former environment minister, Mr Wood, and his principal efforts as environment minister.

The first was to introduce middle class welfare in terms of a solar hot water rebate scheme, which has been a fundamental failure. The government cannot get the required take-up rate and it cannot spend the money. The government keeps upping the rebate and it still cannot get people to take it up. Also, the government is inordinately slow to pay the money to people who do apply for the rebate. I can attest to that.

The second was to oppose an inquiry into renewable energy. The government constantly says that the greenhouse targets are pie in the sky stuff and we have to come up with more rational greenhouse targets. The government will not even try to meet the greenhouse targets.

The best one, of course, was to abolish the environment advisory committee and come up with a whole lot of little, scattered environment committees. We had a rural environment committee, a natural resources environment committee, and an Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all environment committee, instead of having an overarching environment committee from which you might actually get some outcomes and you might actually get some input. Oh, no, we could not have that because somebody might say something inconvenient.

I think the largest single failure of Mr Wood in anything to do with the environment was his complete failure with the no waste by 2010 strategy. Of course, he came out today with the next steps for achieving the strategy and I thought, “Oh, at last he’s going to do something about putrescible waste.” But no, we are going to have a government leadership scheme and a business no waste challenge. I think that is a rebadging of the ecobusiness program.

We are also going to do something about a construction waste program. That is really important. The most important thing that this government could do about construction waste recycling would be to do something to ensure that concrete recyclers actually get a decent lease, rather than having a three-month by three-month lease. The government could go to the Commonwealth and say, “Give them a 20-year lease so that they can make the investment that is necessary so that we can further the recycling of building materials on site there.”

As well, we are going to have community engagement. Of course we have to have community engagement, because this government consults people to death. But we do not have any outcomes listed and there is still no progress on putrescible waste. We still have no progress on plastic bags because the current environment minister is wedded to the national convention and we cannot possibly do away with the national convention.

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