Page 4002 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 12 December 2006
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chooks and other sustainable sourcing, because we are in danger of creating a generation of children that do not know where their food comes from.
We are also a city that is committed to consumption. It was bad enough to see the development of the Brand Depot, which unfortunately was out of this government’s hands, but we have seen a similar project duplicated with the EpiCentre project, all of which is emphasising that we have a consumption culture. How can we talk about reducing waste when we are encouraging people to buy goods that are thrown away when they do not work? We should be actually looking at increasing facilities for repairing and reusing. Not only that, the future of Revolve is still up in the air. One of our huge growths in waste is in green waste, but it is actually the waste of items such as household items, hard waste, that we do not really know how to deal with. By the way, when we first started talking about a waste environment system for the Assembly, there was quite a bit of resistance to that. We are very lucky that we have some cleaners at the moment that have such a fantastic system that we do not even have to think about it. I am concerned that if we had to think about it, it would not be happening.
We need a whole-of-government approach. It is not just about planning, it is not just about the department of environment and Actew, though they have a very important role to play in setting standards for energy use and design, managing nature parks, catchment, water supply and electricity generation, and it is not just about the Office of Sustainability, which, by the way, did not even get a look at the utilities bill. It is about Treasury. It is about where we invest our superannuation funds. It is about business and economic development. It is about creating that cutting edge sustainable industry sector. We have the people here. We could be doing it, but we are not.
I really think that the government does not get it yet, and I think that is the problem. The government does not get it. It has got the words. It knows they are important, it knows that they are the words that everyone is talking about, it knows that the people care, but we have really got to take a whole-of-government approach to this issue as it is that important. I look forward to seeing some real action. I am certainly looking forward to the greenhouse and energy strategies. If we are going to have 500 new houses, I will be looking to see how we are going to compensate for the taxing of the environment that they will do, of water and energy use, because we cannot enlarge our ecological footprint any more.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Housing and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (4.23): I thank Dr Foskey for recognising the government’s 23 per cent green energy target. I am sure that accidentally she neglected to mention the fact that we achieved 17 per cent last year, that accidentally she neglected to mention that we have a percentage target for having hybrid cars in our fleet and also accidentally forgot to mention that we are now going to have four-cylinder cars for all of the fleet, unless there is an operational reason otherwise.
I am sure that Dr Foskey really meant to mention that we have so many compressed natural gas buses. I am that sure she meant to mention that the people in the ACT who have taken up green power represent five per cent of the users. We all know that that is not enough, but the national average is 1.5 per cent. I am sure Dr Foskey really
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