Page 3589 - Week 11 - Thursday, 16 November 2006
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MR STANHOPE: We know Mr Mulcahy’s views on and attitudes to anything that Mr Murphy might say. I am aware of the disinclination of some of you not to take any advice from Mr Murphy or to take seriously anything that Mr Murphy says. But that was not the position that the ACT government adopted in relation to advice on tree plantings in the arboretum.
To answer to your question, the government received detailed advice from a board comprising a number of very significant Canberrans. That board was chaired by Mr Sandy Hollway and included Jim Murphy, Lloyd Whish-Wilson, Eric Koundouris, Sherri McArdle-English, Peter Kanowski, and informed by experts such as Robert Boden. They, in their deliberations, were mindful of the capacity, through the arboretum, to provide significant plantings of endangered trees, most particularly with a view to the arboretum being not just a wonderful recreational resource and a place that would build on the ACT’s community suite of future potential major tourist attractions but also a place that would serve as a true scientific laboratory.
It is interesting that even today—as a result of trees planted in arboreta established by Weston, Pryor and others—there are trees that are so endangered in their native habitat that scientists and representatives come from the US forest service to Canberra to collect seeds from trees planted in arboreta in the ACT by Weston. It is the only source of a pure genetic strain for a whole range of trees now on the verge of extinction in other places around the world. The Wollemi pine is the most endangered tree in the world. I find it passing strange that anybody would suggest that nobody would seek to ensure that this tree is protected. (Time expired.)
MR STEFANIAK: I have a supplementary question, Mr Speaker. Grapes might not be a bad idea, Chief Minister. But how can you justify spending money on this arboretum when you are raising taxes and closing schools?
MR STANHOPE: I repeat the point that I made on Tuesday. The question essentially asked me, similarly, to justify the expenditure on what might be regarded as the Weston Creek arboretum. As a landscape buffer between Weston Creek and the Cotter Road—the proposed new urban area of Molonglo—the government last season, just 12 months ago, planted about 15,000 trees of 11 different species. What is an arboretum? An arboretum is a planting of different species of trees—I believe they are almost all exotics—between Weston Creek and the new suburbs at Molonglo. There are 11,000 trees planted in the Weston Creek arboretum.
Will Mr Stefaniak publicly advocate for the non-planting of trees in arboretum form in areas such as Weston Creek? We can call it the Weston Creek arboretum. There are between 12,000 and 15,000 trees of 11 different species. There are 11 different species of tree and up to 15,000 trees, I believe, watered, let me now confess, over the last summer with potable water. Now, who among you will stand and criticise me or the ACT government for the establishment of the Weston Creek arboretum last summer to provide a landscape buffer for the people of Weston Creek? Are you going to do it? No, because, whilst all trees may have been germinated equally, not all trees are equal. There are non-Jon Stanhope arboretum trees, and there are the rest. The sin, of course, of the poor old arboretum trees is that they have to suffer the odium of having been associated with me. What was the name of the pig? Bonaparte, was it?
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