Page 5255 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 18 November 2009
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target of being carbon neutral by 2060. In 2060, I will be 101. In 2060, my son who is currently three—what will he be? What will that make him? Let us see—he will be 54. It is ambitious! Most people in this Assembly, more or less, will probably be dead, based on current life expectancies, by 2060. I hope we are not. I hope the technology keeps us all going for as long as we can. I hope to be a feisty 101 year old. But let us face it: ambitious and 2060 do not match.
You would think that Mr Corbell is the only one to discover leadership on green issues because he is heading these ambitious targets. I am quite proud of the fact that I am the first minister in the country to have set a greenhouse gas strategy in place. You would think that, until Mr Corbell had discovered these issues and they had established their department, nobody had done any work on this. This Assembly has been working on greenhouse gas issues since I have been here and since Mr Corbell, who predates me, has been here.
Some of the things that we did, some of the things that I was the minister for, I am extremely proud of. What disappoints me is that Mr Stanhope, when he was minister for environment, abandoned and betrayed so much of it. This Assembly had a government, this territory had a government, that was willing to go to Kyoto and sign up, put money where its mouth was, put a draft out and then put a strategy out that set targets. We had it a decade ago and it was abandoned for seven or eight years by the Stanhope government, which has only just discovered the greenhouse gas issue.
NOWaste by 2010 epitomises this government’s approach to climate change, because they abandoned it—through Bill Wood, then John Hargreaves, then Jon Stanhope. They abandoned NOWaste by 2010. We led the world on the issue of motivating communities to do their bit. Why? Because the community said that was what they wanted to do. They wanted to do something real and practical, and they wanted an opportunity. We came up with a strategy to match that. We spawned an industry around the world. Everywhere from Wales to Mexico City, from Singapore to the Solomons, people adopted no waste by 2010. In the city that put it together, the Labor government abandoned it, paid lip-service to and did nothing to further the position of the NOWaste by 2010 strategy since they came to office.
As we left office in late 2001, a request for tender or expressions of interest was out on the next step of NOWaste by 2010 to build a facility to assist in mechanical sorting. Give Bill Wood his due: he continued it and went around some of the various jurisdictions in this country and looked at facilities that they had built. That was as far as it got. Labor’s commitment to NOWaste by 2010 was a road trip by the minister, and then it got killed by Jon Stanhope and his cabinet.
So do not come in here and talk about leadership and ambitious targets. Fess up to the fact that for the last eight years you have done nothing. We said we would sign up to the earth charter. Give Kerrie Tucker her due: the earth charter was initially to be discussed in Adelaide. The South Australian government pulled out. Kerrie Tucker came to me and said, “For a small amount of money, we can hold a forum here on discussing the earth charter. We could have the honour of that discussion and, indeed, we can be the first jurisdiction to sign it and pass it,” which we became. Give Kerrie Tucker her due: she gave me the idea. She said, “We need some bucks.” I found the
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