Page 2754 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 23 June 2009
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The arboretum is one of these projects that the Greens have always had some concerns about. Firstly, we were concerned about the location, the water usage, the cost and the diversion of resources away from other horticultural assets in the ACT. Once the project started, it seemed sensible to get behind it at least. While it is hard to imagine that we will ever see the arboretum as a significant part of the government’s climate policy, if all goes to plan it may well be a significant tourist attraction and probably a very beautiful spot.
I would like to read from the arboretum’s website, which states:
The goal is to create a place of outstanding beauty, of international standard and interest, that is a destination and recreational resource in its own right, and which is welcoming to locals and visitors alike.
But many of the concerns that we raised at the beginning are ongoing, and the cost of the arboretum, particularly at a time when the territory is going to need to tighten its belt, is going to continue to seem excessive, I imagine. Indeed, the Chief Minister’s passion for spending money on this project is probably going to appear more and more incongruous as the years pass, especially as the government finds itself cutting other programs when the GFC rubber hits the road.
But, of course, the issue that the Greens were keen to note at budget time this time around was one that we had already raised with the government in last year’s budget: that the government should not be able to get away with calling the arboretum a climate change project. Yet that is exactly what they have done again this year. They did it last year, and this year they have done the very same thing despite the evidence being put under their noses.
Perhaps it is even worse this year, as the Chief Minister, in estimates, appeared unaware that this was the case. I refer to the estimates hearing when this was raised with the Chief Minister and he had to take the question on notice. It seems strange to me that he had to take it on notice given that he was the minister responsible for climate change in the previous administration when the $100 million funding bucket was announced. Here is a question the Chief Minister was unable to answer in the hearings that points to why so many questions had to go on notice.
Out of that $100 million bucket, about $60 million of the climate change spending has gone towards some kind of tree planting, whether it be the arboretum, the urban forest renewal or, perhaps less controversially, the tree planting in the Murrumbidgee corridor.
Why is this point important? Why do we care so much that the government should not get away with funding what is essentially an urban monument out of a bucket of money that the same government has identified as climate change? The reason is this: it is time that voters—taxpayers, citizens—are clear about what they are getting when governments tell them that they are getting action on climate change.
For a decade or so people have been told by government that there is money being spent on climate change. The Howard government was supreme at lauding its
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