Page 3809 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 22 November 2006
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Mr Barr: It is good to see you are finally listening, Mrs Dunne.
MRS DUNNE: I listen all the time. I just do not have to agree with it.
Mr Barr: Recycling speeches saves paper.
MRS DUNNE: This is an important matter, but I think the most important thing is the Damascus-like conversion of the Stanhope government, which has suddenly realised that the environment is important. It is interesting to observe that the Liberal Party took to the last election environmental policies that were almost entirely about greenhouse gases, energy efficiency and water efficiency. At the same time the Stanhope government took to the last election environmental policies that were almost exclusively about reserves and biodiversity. While both of those things are important to the environment, it showed a particular preoccupation at the time.
The Stanhope government went to the last election with almost no policies in relation to greenhouse gases, energy efficiency and the like. In the run-up to the election the Chief Minister, at the time the Minister for the Environment, absolutely embarrassed himself by his constant critiquing of the approaches taken on this side of the house to energy efficiency and greenhouse gases. He became a bit of a laughing stock.
Just before the last election I remember being bailed up in the street by a very prominent Canberra scientist whose life’s work has been devoted to issues related to greenhouse gas emissions. He told me that he had been embarrassed to read and hear what the Chief Minister had said about the greenhouse strategy and that it was an embarrassment to think that the minister who instituted the Office of Sustainability would walk away from the greenhouse targets set by the previous government in 1997. Of course, at the time the Chief Minister said that he was not walking away from the targets. He thought it was still a good policy, but it was just too expensive to implement. Since the election, he has abandoned that policy.
In many ways there has been a different approach to thinking since 1997 and the signing of the Kyoto protocol, and it could be argued that there should be a different approach. But I think it is incumbent upon the government to come up with a replacement policy before it throws out the previous policy. I do not think anyone would have a problem if they said they are looking at a replacement policy, but in the meantime they will keep working down those paths and keep doing some of those things. There has been little proposed by the Stanhope government in terms of major policy on greenhouse gas emissions. In the budget before last we had $300,000 for energy tune-ups around the town. That is basically $1 per person in the ACT. You are not going to get very much of an energy tune-up for $1 per person in the ACT.
Mr Gentleman is making a lot of high-flying statements today, but I think he has really got ahead of himself. I will go back and check the record, but I am almost certain that I heard him say that the government has developed a policy to reduce greenhouse gases. I am sure that they have not. A policy may appear, but it has not appeared yet. Mr Gentleman is anticipating the government, so much so that today I heard him say that the ACT government is engaged in a carbon trading scheme. That is not the case.
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