Page 443 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 December 2008
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MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (10.18): I rise to make some quick observations in response to the comments from Mrs Dunne. I agree with her concerns about creating a bureaucracy that does not deliver. I think that is an area that will require vigilance and I am sure that the standing committee on climate change will provide that ongoing scrutiny and I have no doubt that many members of this place will provide that scrutiny on an ongoing basis through the estimates process as well.
However, Mrs Dunne’s example is an unfortunate and most recent example of perhaps what has been one of the interesting trends for us this week, as new people in this place, and that has been the ability of the Liberal Party to choose the most uncharitable of all possible interpretations of the comments that the Greens have made, to take what we have said in this place, turn it around and make it look like something that it never was when it was said.
The reason the ACT needs an improved climate change bureaucracy is amply demonstrated in the document Weathering the change, which has been the official policy of the Labor Party for much of their last term. In that document we saw that the ACT’s official greenhouse target became a process of, I think, sleight of hand. Once you did the mathematics behind it, you saw the ACT was going to be increasing its greenhouse emissions by 14 per cent above 1990 levels by 2025.
I do not want to labour this point but we all know pretty quickly, looking at those numbers, what a poor policy position that was. It has been unclear to me whether that was bad policy advice received by the government or whether the government took a bad decision and ignored perhaps good advice that they got. In having a department that does have strong policy capabilities, is capable of putting forward good policy outcomes, we will have eliminated the first option and will know, if we keep getting these results, that it is the latter.
Subclauses 7(18) and 7(19) agreed to.
Remainder of bill, by leave, taken as a whole.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (10.21): Members, I want to make two final comments. First and foremost, I would like to thank the Deputy Clerk who drafted that motion that led to the expeditious move through this bill this evening. As always, the support from the Clerk and his staff is most welcome. I think the process has worked fairly smoothly and I think we are all grateful for that.
What I would like to say, in closing again, is that what we had tonight is answers to some of the questions that we have asked; but, in my mind, it raises a series of further questions. Some questions have not been answered. Treasurer, I would compliment you on your knowledge. You seem to know more than some of your ministers, particularly Mr Hargreaves, who always has a poor approach to this matter. But thank you for what you did tonight.
I make the point that the problem is, again—and I think we have proven the point tonight—that much of what is in this bill did not have to be done tonight; it could have been done in the third appropriation that we all know is coming early next year;
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