Page 213 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 2008
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MRS DUNNE: That goes for all of us. What actually happened was, as a result of that debate and Mr Stanhope’s walking away from the greenhouse strategy, he said all the way in the run up to the 2004 election, “We haven’t abandoned the greenhouse strategy; we are just not going to fund it.” I remember just before the federal election or the ACT election being approached by a prominent academic who deals in the area of greenhouse matters. He came to me and said, “You know, Mrs Dunne, the Chief Minister has made a complete and utter fool of himself. It is an embarrassment to hear things that he has said about the greenhouse strategy.” This is one of Canberra’s foremost academics in the area of greenhouse strategy. The academic community and the community as a whole who knew anything about greenhouse matters thought that the approach taken by the Chief Minister before the 2004 election, the duplicitous approach taken, was shameful and risible and that he had no status and no standing in the community because of that approach.
Of course, what happened was that the Chief Minister who said, “I have not walked away from the greenhouse strategy,” came in here in 2005 within months of the 2004 election when he said he had not reneged on the greenhouse strategy and then reneged on that greenhouse strategy. As a result of that, Mr Speaker, the ACT had no public policy on approaches to climate change, to greenhouse gas emissions and all of the things that were going on. While Nicholas Stern and Al Gore and various other people were out having their say, where was Jon Stanhope? Jon Stanhope had recanted on the only piece of policy that this territory had ever had. He could have said, “We want to do better” or “We want to do more,” but no, he did not. He did not leave it in place and work with that one and improve it as time went by.
This was a man who had no policy, no idea. He had recanted on all existing policy, and he put nothing in its place for two years or more. What we have today in the weathering the change strategy is a cobbled together piece of work that no-one will be able to hold Jon Stanhope accountable to, because Jon Stanhope will not be here in 2060 or 2050—none of us here will be here in 2050. No-one will be able to hold Jon Stanhope accountable for it. His commitments are on the never-never. The first commitments are 2011. It will be unlikely that he is the Chief Minister in 2011, and there will be no-one to hold Jon Stanhope accountable for what he has failed to do.
It is interesting that the things that the Chief Minister did talk about today are, in fact, direct links from the environment policy that the ACT Liberals took to the last election. The Chief Minister at the last election had no policy, not one iota of policy in relation to greenhouse. There was lots of policy in relation to nature conservation, and a lot of it was to be commended.
At 6.00 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted and the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for the next sitting. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly was put.
Adjournment
National Multicultural Festival
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (6.00): I want to speak today about the annual National Multicultural Festival and to congratulate the organisers of the festival for the weekend fair activity. I should say up front that I was not there myself. I was laid up for the entire weekend, apart from one quick trip to a pharmacy.
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