Page 1952 - Week 06 - Thursday, 8 June 2006
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the Department of Territory and Municipal Services, in a different format of course. Talk about confusion! The employees do not even know who they are working for half the time, let alone the public.
Take the parks rangers, for example. First they were working for the ACT Parks and Conservation Service as part of Environment ACT. When they were merged with ACT Forests, they became Conservation and Land Management. Now they are Recreation and Land Management. How is that efficient and how does it help with environment protection?
This problem is not confined to the environment portfolio. The portfolio game is a well-shuffled pack indeed. There are few areas in this budget which take longer-term social and environmental impacts fully into account, although there are a few commendable and photogenic low-cost initiatives, such as endangered species recovery and fencing off a predator-free sanctuary in Mulligans Flat. In most cases, however, environmental considerations only appear as an afterthought to financially driven initiatives, and the closer you look at this budget the less you find. There is certainly no environmental bottom line.
I am glad to hear that “the government's sustainability agenda will continue to influence environment matters on a whole-of-government basis in pursuit of an integrated approach to a sustainable Canberra community.” However, I do not see that reflected in this year's budget.
The functional review has recommended that the budget utilise the GFS accounting system, which will give a better economic analysis. However, all the work of the previous Treasurer on triple bottom line accounting and any plans to use sustainability indicators seem to have been lost. This budget does not take longer-term social and environmental impacts fully into account. Last year, in the annual reporting process, we heard Mr Stanhope threatening agency heads concerning their performance agreements if they did not use the global reporting indicators, yet there is no sign of such indicators in this budget process.
The largest new funding initiative in environment is not actually being spent on environmental protection. This government has prioritised what it calls bushfire management. Funding for upgrading fire trails, as well as pushing new fire trails through our nature parks and water catchment areas, is an activity that the Greens and conservationists do not usually support. New roads open up access for arsonists, pests, plants and animals without actually protecting the bush.
Over the past few years, Environment ACT has spent substantial amounts of money on training staff to gain qualifications in fire management. These park workers understand the environment they work in and have appropriate skills to do fire prevention work. Unfortunately, over the past few years, we have had a significant loss of ranger positions through voluntary and forced redundancies, and hence a subsequent loss of experienced staff. This leads to the need for inexperienced people being contracted over the fire danger period, an approach sadly being replicated in other areas of Environment ACT. Given these ongoing cutbacks, I am pleased to see the government’s continued commitment to seeking community and expert advice on environmental matters. I hope
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