Page 3798 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
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excessive exhaust emissions and noise levels, with the registration of the vehicle to be suspended. We are going to get stuck into the battlers. The ACT government has looked at these issues in motor vehicle testing for decades, I think—certainly for a long period of time. Apparently this is one of the great new initiatives. And we are going to get stuck into wood-burning stoves. There is a bit of catch-up there too. I think this has been addressed for a very long time in the ACT.
Mr Hargreaves: Eight years, to my knowledge.
MR MULCAHY: Eight years, as the minister has pointed out. We have this sort of vague approach of policy views. Not to be overlooked is the increased funding for community-based environmental groups. One becomes a tad sceptical when one reads this document. I do not think it has ever been subject to any debate in this place before, but I found it fascinating reading.
The other thing I talked about was the need for energy auditing. What do I find? I was told that that was no good and that I was out of touch, but in here I find environmental auditing. Apparently that idea was no good earlier in the week, but it is okay when you go to the Greens’ website. We are going to look at the dioxin levels in the soils around the Totalcare incinerator at Mitchell. That is probably one of the other few profound elements. There is a complete lack of evidence of anything that engages the community in a serious way, but lots of money has gone on bureaucratic interest groups and paper collation.
In concluding, I welcome Mr Gentleman’s motion. Whilst we will argue about whether the government is moving quickly enough, I think it is a more serious approach than some of the stuff we are seeing coming out from the so-called guardians of environmental issues.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.56): I really look forward to Mr Mulcahy’s response to my motion given that he spent most of his time responding to Mr Gentleman’s motion with an unwarranted, and I think unfounded, attack on the Greens. I spent quite a lot of last night trying to work out what Mr Gentleman was hoping to achieve with this motion. I must say I have written this speech in response to the motion and not to what he has actually said today, because what he has said was not indicated from just a reading of the motion.
I think it is great that the climate change words have been important enough to him to make him put his pen to paper and to ask the Assembly to consider issues related to climate change. However, I am disappointed that in his motion there are no actions proposed—not for the government he is a part of nor for the government that he is wont to criticise in this place. It makes my own motion, which follows, even more essential, and I thank Mr Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to discuss the issues in my response to his motion and allowing me to propose a way forward when speaking to my motion.
I am not sure whether there is any connection between Mr Mulcahy’s statement to the media on Monday—which he has backed up very much in his speech today; it looks as though I was quite prescient when I wrote this last night—and Mr Gentleman’s
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