Page 125 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 December 2008
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I want to go back to 1996. In 1996 the ACT has a Liberal government under Kate Carnell. It has an operating loss, courtesy of the previous ACT Labor government, of $344 million, or 20 per cent of the budget of $1.5 billion. So the Liberal government has some work to do. We have some problems.
We do some work and we come up with a document called Creating our future: ACT industry development strategy 1996. It is a fabulous document. It was a good document then and it is probably just as good now in the light of what the government has not done. Page 15 is headed “Environmental industries—exporting sustainability”. There it is. Twelve years ago the then Liberal government had a plan to make Canberra a centre for environmental industries.
Let us compare the approach of the “we know nothing” ministry with the Liberal Party of 12 years ago that wanted the ACT to become a centre of excellence. In our 2004 policy we said that environmental industries are key to Canberra’s future, and we said it before the last election. Environmental industries are key to the future of the ACT. We have a government that talks the talk but does nothing. It is a problem because the opportunities are slowly slipping away.
But the government also has a role to play. In the mid-1990s, through our No waste by 2010 strategy, we promoted an attitude inside government that government can fundamentally change the way people think and create opportunities for the private sector to assist government in achieving great environmental outcomes. That strategy has formed an industry around the world. The No waste by 2010 strategy adopted by a Liberal government has resulted in no-waste networks around the world.
I have to say, Mr Speaker, that when you are sitting in your office, as the minister responsible for No waste by 2010, it is an absolute thrill when the no waste network from Wales rings and asks if they can send a delegation from Wales to Canberra to find out how to do it because they want to follow our lead and they want to help change the world.
What happened in 2001? It became “No action by 2010”. In the last seven years nothing has happened to foster the ideas and community involvement that came out of No waste by 2010. The beginning was enormous, with our Australian leading—probably world leading—ACT greenhouse strategy commitments in the year 2000 to reduce the threat of global warning. That strategy set incredibly ambitious targets and we knew that we had to involve industry to achieve those targets, both in the way that it behaved and the way that it received and used energy. Again, there was an aspiration there that these things would lead to Canberra being a centre of excellence.
It is fantastic to hear the Chief Minister now, in 2008, talking about making the ACT the solar capital of Australia. But the opportunity has been lost. In 2006, The ANU’s solar breakthrough—slither technology—went from the ANU to Adelaide because the ANU could not get support from this government to keep it here. It went, with Origin Energy, to South Australia and from South Australia it went overseas. The opportunity was lost.
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