Page 2571 - Week 08 - Thursday, 30 June 2005
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he had a priority before the election. Mr Corbell often has commitments and priorities before an election that disappear into the ether once the votes have been cast.
Then we have the complete failure of this minister to get on with the job of coming up with a new land act. He has got his green paper and white paper and his consultation exposure draft process, which means that we will still be waiting upwards of 18 months—and possibly two years if anything goes wrong—before the people of the ACT see a proper revised land act. We still have no idea what the content of that legislation will be. We do not know whether his proposals for revision are acceptable to the community and whether a streamlined planning system will meet the needs of the community.
This has been an area of high priority for as long as I have worked in the Assembly. This minister spent three years ignoring the issue. He has put in train a process that is inordinately slow and inordinately cumbersome and will not deliver for the people of Canberra, will not improve their economy and will not improve their bottom line because he does not have the interest or the inclination to make things better for the people of Canberra.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.55): I have a few comments to make on this line of the budget. First of all, I would like to say that I think the allocations for sustainable transport are a positive aspect of this year’s budget. I was pleased to hear that the current studies into the Belconnen-Civic busway will include consideration of all options, including the use of existing transport routes. A recent conservation council and Pedal Power transport card states that “recent statistics indicate that measures that have been implemented to date are moving the city in the right direction—getting consumers into buses and on bikes”. So it is very pleasing that this budget puts additional resources into sustainable transport, and the next transport report card hopefully will show even greater increases in public transport use.
It appears that a key next move will be the introduction of a form of smart ticketing for public transport. During estimates we were told that the ticketing system is ageing and that investigations were under way but that no funds were allocated in this budget. I hope that we see an allocation towards this in the next budget.
Of course, transport planning and the planning of our suburbs and our town go hand in hand and measures are needed in both these areas if we are to create the sustainable city that the government likes to talk about. It was pleasing to see that the government committed funds towards a feasibility study for the building sustainability index. This index, once introduced, will require all new residential developments to meet a certain level of sustainability in respect of energy efficiency, water use, building design, et cetera, before a building approval will be granted.
It concerns me that it is just a feasibility study and that we still await a formal government commitment to proceed, although it is good to see some activity towards this. But I have to say that it is incredibly frustrating to be in the year 2005—where all but the most intransigent experts, who are generally found to have links with the fossil fuel industry, are recognising climate change as a real and threatening, and potentially unknown factor—and yet there are still no mandatory energy efficiency standards for new commercial buildings. Rome burns. Therefore, in my additional comments to the
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