Page 3599 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
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constant striving for better models, more effective models and models that responded to the expert advice which we received.
In everything we have done, we have given significant attention to sustainability, whether it be economic, social or environmental. We cannot separate them. We cannot adopt the attitude that we need to expend, expend and expend on that aspect of, say, climate change—certainly the number one issue facing the nation—at the expense, for instance, of the sustainability of our budget, economic sustainability, the mistakes we have made in the past or perhaps the inability of the previous government to fund its strategy.
We had the much-lamented past strategy that would return to 1990 emissions by 2008. That was quite remarkable. It was entirely unachievable—not just because it was unachievable scientifically, but because, with the available resources from the year 1999, it would have been impossible to achieve 1990 emissions by 2008. It was undoable, particularly without funding. And why wasn’t it funded? It was not funded because the budget was not sustainable.
How can you put a piece of paper on the table and say “Here is our strategy: an aspirational target of a reduction to 1990 emissions by 2008” without a single cent in the budget to achieve it? There was not a single cent there in relation to other priorities to expend. The budget was not sustainable; we had run a series of deficits. At the time the strategy was introduced, the then government was into its fourth major $100 million deficit. No wonder it did not provide any funding for the implementation of its strategy. No wonder it did not provide a single cent in any of the outyears.
When we came to government in 2001 there was not one dollar in the outyears devoted to implementation of the strategy; there were no identified actions. There is not a single identified action in that strategy other than “Oh, let us set ourselves this wonderful aspirational target of a return to 1990 emissions by 2008”—no actions, no time lines and, most particularly, no funding. There was none—not one, and not one cent devoted to any action that might assist in achieving that notional aspirational target.
That is why we have not adopted that attitude. That is why we have devoted significant resources to a climate change strategy that is detailed, that is rigorous, that is backed by science and that is accompanied by 43 actions, with specific funding commitments which we have already made.
Let us not forget that the strategy was introduced only in July. Between July and now, through a budget process in which we anticipated some expenditure and a second appropriation, we committed somewhere in the order of $30 million to a number of the specified 43 actions. That is a sign of our commitment. In a second appropriation bill, $17 million was devoted specifically to actions mentioned within the climate change strategy. That is the level of our commitment and of the resources that we have already identified—within the space of four months—for this most important issue. It is a sign of our commitment to it.
To suggest, as the motion does, that sustainability legislation is vital to the implementation of the climate change strategy is simply wrong. It is not. It is another
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