Page 3237 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 13 November 2007
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here within the ACT, has been particularly effective. There is no doubt about that. In 2005, for instance, the scheme achieved a greenhouse gas emissions abatement of 316,362 tonnes—the equivalent of the annual emissions produced by 73,000 cars, an audited reduction in emissions. That is the success of this scheme. That is the nature of the scheme. That is why this government has committed to it with New South Wales. That is why at this stage, to avoid risk, to put matters beyond doubt, we all hope, of course, for a national approach to this issue and we all hope that it can be achieved sooner rather than later. It will be achieved sooner rather than later with the election of a Labor government federally, a government that is genuinely committed to climate change, that is prepared to engage with the states and the territories and that will do something about a national emissions trading scheme.
But, to put the matter beyond doubt, all we are doing today is extending the length and the life of this particular scheme—and why wouldn’t you? It is effective. It has worked. It shows our commitment. It is the single most effective process we have had in place to date. That will soon change as a result of initiatives we are pursuing through our climate change strategy, a climate change strategy which just today, through an appropriation bill tabled by me this morning, receives an additional $17 million in committed funding.
Go back and have a look at the funds. See if you can find funds specifically committed by the previous government, the Liberal government of the ACT, to climate change or greenhouse gas reduction or abatement. You will find nothing in any budget. You will find nothing in any budget of the Liberal Party in this territory, when in government, to address issues around climate change. They introduced a strategy with a target. This is what they do: they develop a strategy, they concoct a target, they dine out on it, but they have no intention, and had no intention in government, of ever seeking to meet it. They appropriated no moneys to achieve a reduction in greenhouse emissions. When they left government, with their target and their particular policy it would have required in the order of $100 million a year over the space of five years to meet their target. And of course when we came to government—
Mrs Dunne: Not true. Not true. That is just a figure that you pulled out of the air.
MR STANHOPE: I am happy to go back and have a look at the budget in 2001 and count up the moneys that were appropriated in that last year, the moneys that the Liberal Party in government defined as committed to meeting any target for the reduction of greenhouse gases in the ACT, and I can tell you now what it was—it was zilch. It was zero—a number consistent with the level of their commitment to climate change as reflected most specifically by their leader, the great greenhouse sceptic of Australia, John Howard, leader of the Liberal Party and of course the person in whose light the party in this place basks.
Having said all that, despite the rhetoric and the rumblings I thank the Liberal Party and the Greens for their support of this bill today.
Mrs Dunne: Mr Speaker, I seek leave to speak again under standing order 47. I contend that I have been misquoted and misrepresented.
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