Page 623 - Week 03 - Thursday, 15 March 2007
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Whilst the government will lead, can lead, and can show leadership and commitment—and this government has done that—the government will be looking to the people of Canberra to work with us in the reduction of the use of electricity. Sixty-nine per cent of all our greenhouse gas emissions in the ACT are produced from the utilisation of electricity and 27 per cent come from the use of petrol, almost all of them in this town because we do not have a significant manufacturing base. Almost all of that use is by individual citizens in their homes and in their cars. So the way forward requires that we collaborate and that we work in cooperation and consultation with the people of Canberra.
We need continually to work with the expertise available to develop programs to do that. So the Sustainability Expert Reference Group continues in existence. We constantly and regularly review the role and function of all our expert advisory groups, so I am not going to stand here and say it will continue in this form forever, but it continues now and it is an incredibly valuable body. It has produced very significant reports which have led Australia in the People place prosperity report of March 2003; Measuring our progress—Canberra’s journey to sustainability report of 2004, “Water ACT”, a draft policy for sustainable water resource management; and think water, act water, the ACT’s strategic plan for dealing with issues around water.
In addition to that, as I mentioned before, I am more than happy to go through the very significant range of initiatives that this government has pursued to deal with the issue of greenhouse gas emissions: the Electricity (Greenhouse Gas Emissions) Act, the go gas scheme, the single most significant and important initiative pursued by the ACT government; the ACT energy wise program, which continues; the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Act, which was passed in March 2005; the Utilities (Shortage of Essential Services) Amendment Act 2005; and our participation with COAG in the work that it is doing.
I think we need to acknowledge the significance of the commonwealth government in the necessary leadership in relation to climate change; the fact that the Liberal Party refused until two months ago, when the polling told the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party that they were on a loser in continuing to deny the reality of climate change. Of course, the Prime Minister is now incredibly sorry that he has never embraced Kyoto. He has been caught short. The Liberal Party here, of course, in their sycophantic acceptance of that position, are similarly embarrassed. (Time expired.)
Emergency Services Agency
MR PRATT: My question is to the Chief Minister. Chief Minister, last week we saw the resignation of David Prince, the chief fire officer of the fire brigade, in disgust over the Corbell restructure. Today we have seen the unprecedented resignation of a significant number of the captains and deputy captains of the brigades of the ACT Rural Fire Service. Over the past year we have seen the former commissioner and a number of senior officers in the Emergency Services Agency resign over changes to the structure.
Mr Corbell has been the minister responsible for the serious problems in ACT emergency services. Why will you not sack Mr Corbell as the Minister for Police and Emergency Services?
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