Page 3806 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
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So I thank Mr Gentleman for moving his motion today acknowledging that there is a policy developed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—it was developed by the Liberal Party. We took a similar policy, a very strong policy, to the last election, unlike the policies and the airy-fairy actions that we have from the government. From them we have got a discussion paper that will somehow become a plan. It will go the same way as the economic white paper went, as the social plan went and the Canberra plan went. It will go out the window because of the ineptitude and economic mismanagement of the Stanhope government, which has squandered in the last five years all of the goodwill that the previous government built up and all of the money that the people of Canberra had poured into the coffers. This government have lost opportunity after opportunity to ensure that we improved our environment.
It is interesting that the government moves this motion and—quite by accident I am sure—we get the motion from Dr Foskey to follow. It is an issue that people have to focus on. I want people to cast their minds back to what was called the Asian meltdown in 1997 when the Asian markets went skew-whiff and there was a tremendous fear that, for instance, the incredibly efficient system of collecting waste paper in the ACT would go to nought and that we would for the first time in some years have to dump collected paper in the tip because the market had disappeared. The dismay from the public was enormous, because they knew that they could make a difference on an individual level and they wanted to make a difference. What they are not being allowed to do now is make that difference—because of the ineptitude of their government.
MR BARR (Molonglo—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation and Minister for Industrial Relations) (5.25): I would like to thank Mr Gentleman for bringing this matter to the Assembly today. Paragraph 3 of Mr Gentlemen’s motion refers to the importance of educating the Canberra public about climate change, and I would like to take the opportunity to put on record what is occurring in my portfolios, particularly in schools and at the CIT.
As I think we have acknowledged in this debate, ecological sustainability in an important and very topical issue and the government is seeking to embrace ecological sustainability in our schools. As I have indicated previously to the Assembly, we are seeking to promote a whole-of-building approach to design in upgrading existing facilities within our school system and, of course, in building new schools. The sustainable design approach is about making buildings more energy efficient, improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This approach is being incorporated into existing buildings and new buildings.
An example of this is the new Harrison school, which the ACT government has funded with over $21 million in this year’s budget. It is being built with a green building approach. Emphasis has been given to making the building energy efficient, improving air quality, capturing and storing rainwater for recycling and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The design features of the school include: natural ventilation in all buildings; night cooling and purging by using differences in temperature; individual buildings containing their own gas fired boiler; high thermal mass construction being used to maximise the heat bank characteristics of the building; optimisation of daylight to reduce the need for artificial light and rainwater
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