Page 1420 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 5 June 2007
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has implications for how and where we should build our homes. As a nation we may have to rethink the economic viability of certain industries. There may be health implications that are barely perceptible yet.
And while this is a global challenge, responsibility for wrestling with it comes down to individual nations, individual governments, individual households, ultimately, to each of us as individuals.
This is not a challenge that can be met and mastered in a single budget or over the life of a single government. Nor is it a challenge for which the solution is sitting on the shelf. Human behaviour, we all know, is hard to change. But we must and we will.
Mr Speaker, the government will shortly release its climate change strategy—Labor’s plan for tackling climate change locally, and as a global citizen. Obviously, not all of its elements will be budgetary. It will incorporate legislative change and cultural change. But there will be a cost too. Today, on World Environment Day, I announce $4 million over four years to implement a number of initiatives contained in the strategy.
A further $1 million in capital funding will establish an energy efficiency fund for energy and water sustainability in ACT government buildings.
A renewable energy technology showcase will also be established, with another $1 million in funding.
This $6 million investment will complement other regulatory and legislative actions. These include the Environment Protection (Fuel Sale Data) Amendment Bill 2007, passed today, which will help the ACT accurately measure fuel sales and so calculate greenhouse gas emissions. The use of hybrid vehicles as hire cars in the ACT has been approved. The government is on track to meet its commitment to increase the proportion of fuel-efficient and low-emissions vehicles in its fleet to 10 per cent by 2008.
Mr Speaker, as I said earlier, partnerships are critical to meeting some of the biggest challenges we face as a community. Today I am pleased to announce $350,000 for a joint ACT government-CSIRO project that will showcase sustainable urban design at Eastlake.
Mr Speaker, intimately connected with the issue of climate change is that of water.
Most of us are painfully familiar with the statistics. Last year, inflows into ACT dams were 90 per cent below our long-term average. Over the course of the year we consumed, as a community, 40 gigalitres more water than entered our dams—more water than is contained in Lake Burley Griffin. And this year, to date, our inflows are even lower than last. We are told the drought will break. But what if it does not? The risk may be small, but the consequences of accepting that risk, and of losing the bet, are too great to tolerate.
That is why the government and Actew Corporation have been exploring and implementing a suite of measures to secure our water supply into the future. These
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