Page 3782 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 27 August 2008
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One of the great achievements of the previous government was the earth charter. I congratulate Ms Tucker, who brought to my attention that the earth charter was going to fall over because the state Labor government had defunded the program. At very short notice, working cooperatively in the Assembly, we passed a motion which some would remember and some I suspect have tried to forget. There was the Liberal Party and the Greens. I give Ms Tucker full credit for bringing it to my attention. We found the money; we set up and ran a program here. It was spectacular. Yet again, Canberra as a community was doing what a nation’s capital should do: lead, set an example, show how things work. It was not done by the government reading off a litany of its supposed achievements; it was done by a government listening and working together.
What about east O’Malley? The proposal was to develop east O’Malley. I can remember being up there on a Saturday morning talking to the cons council, Friends of Grasslands and the residents. To give him his due, Mr Corbell turned up later. We had a discussion, and we agreed as a community because we consulted. We actually talked with people; we were not arrogant about it. We went out and we came to a conclusion as to what could go ahead and what could not go ahead. It worked very well.
I just remind the government—particularly Mr Gentleman, given that he did not use the word “consultation”; I think he used the words “working together” once—of the recommendations regarding time frames in Your guide to engaging with the community:
It is strongly recommended that the absolute minimum for any community engagement activity be six weeks. For large projects, policies and strategies seeking comprehensive feedback, twelve weeks is recommended
You only have to look at the issue of the power station, which has immense health, environmental and economic considerations to be viewed. The government was dragged kicking and screaming to put in place firstly the health impact assessment and then the EIS. The community had said that they wanted it. Mr Deputy Speaker, I remember you standing in this place and saying: “Let’s have the EIS. Listen to the community, government.” And there they were, dragged kicking and screaming to do something they did not want to do.
It is easy for us to make decisions in here, but we are not the ones who are going to live next to this for 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years. Most of us are in favour of the facility; people just do not want it on that site. They want to be listened to; they wanted adequate consultation; and they wanted the time. The government probably had not even read its own consultation guidelines; it certainly was not listening to the community.
There have been some enormous lost opportunities in regard to developing sustainability industries in the ACT. We have an enormous intellectual wealth in the ACT, from the ANU, the UC and the CIT to the postgrad students at ADFA, the Catholic University and Charles Sturt. Coupled with the intellectual clout in all the federal and territory departments, as well as Canberra being the head office for the CSIRO, that puts an expert next door to everybody in this city. It is great; people have
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