Page 4005 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 12 December 2006
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front except to dismantle that which the previous government did, or walk away from things the previous government committed to.
I thank the minister for his reference to wood smoke in Tuggeranong Valley. We are very proud of that initiative. I acknowledge the four or five things he mentioned at the start of his speech—in the first minute and 20 seconds. But the rest of the waffle we had was an indication of a government and a minister with no idea on this issue. Ms MacDonald is right about the importance of delivering environmentally sustainable solutions. It is an important issue. That is what the previous government did.
If you consider the record of the previous government and the influence it has had not just in the ACT and surrounding areas of New South Wales but in Australia and around the world, it is not matched by the Jon Stanhope Labor government’s record on the environment. Let us start at the top of the list. In 1997 we put on the table a greenhouse strategy that was a world first. It was a world first certainly for Australia and for the size of the jurisdiction. It actually set targets for 2008 and 2018. It said, “We can achieve these if we want to.” We started to work towards it.
Just recently we heard from the Chief Minister, who said that it was too expensive; yet some months ago he said that the existing greenhouse gas strategy was too expensive. He had costed it at something like $144 million. That is way too expensive—much too expensive—but we can build a prison for $130 million.
You have to question, as he recently said: is climate change the most important issue or not? The words are cheap, but the actions have not followed. Well done the Liberal government that put in place the greenhouse gas strategy.
Then of course there was no waste by 2010. I am pleased to hear the minister say we should be proud of no waste. We on this side of the table certainly are, because what started as a program in the ACT is changing the world. There is nothing the Stanhope Labor government has done on the environment that they can claim is now changing the world in the way that no waste by 2010 has done. The problem for no waste by 2010 is that the minister is willing to stand there and say, “Isn’t it fabulous,” but we see no commitment to achieving it by 2010. He jokes that you cannot sweep putrescible waste under the carpet. He is right, but he has not been able to come up with a solution.
If I could run through the list of all the things the previous Liberal government did, it is an extensive list which cannot be matched by the current government. Ms MacDonald put a flyer out during the 2001 election lauding how wonderful the bio bin trial in Chifley was, but nothing happened.
I mention the firewood strategy we put in place that was incredibly effective in reducing smoke build-up in Tuggeranong Valley; Second Hand Sunday, which was an opportunity for Canberrans to recycle and reuse; the high-quality program that we put in place in planning to make sure we got sustainable design; and the building tune-up program that we started in my then Department of Urban Services at Macarthur House, where we went through and replaced light bulbs and put in place systems to make sure the buildings were as sustainable as we could make them.
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