Page 2801 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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role in the carbon cycle. It provides habitat for wildlife species, it improves landscape amenity and it improves the liveability of our city. Yet the government de-funded the future program to manage this forest almost completely. We have $1 million a year instead of $4 million a year. The urban forest renewal program is intended to ensure that a quality urban forest remains for Canberrans in the future.
The government acknowledged in the past how important it is. It has said:
There is a pressing need to commence replacement of Canberra’s urban forest.
Mr Stanhope has also described the problems facing Canberra’s urban forest by saying:
On the basis of expert advice from the ANU and the CSIRO … we face, with our urban forest, something of a tsunami of decline.
Faced with these acknowledged pressing needs and the tsunami of decline, there is no excuse for delaying this program unnecessarily. In addition to tree replacement, this is a program which requires significant planning, education, public education and public consultation. We are very concerned that the momentum that has already started on the program will be lost if it is delayed for a few years.
Momentum could also be lost if the program is delayed beyond the next election. The environment commissioner’s report on this was initially due in July. We now understand it is going to be September this year. As soon as that report is out we do not believe there will be any reason to delay the program. I guess that we do need to read the commissioner’s report but my expectation would be there would be no reason to delay the program.
Mr Stanhope in fact even acknowledged in the estimates hearing that the funding left for this crucial program is not adequate. I said to him:
Do you really think that $1 million is all that we are going to require going forward?
Mr Stanhope answered, “No.” He said that it would not be enough. I would like to now move on to Gungahlin and make a few comments on the initiatives for Gungahlin which are coming through the TAMS budget. We are pleased to see that there is $100,000 for a feasibility study for a Gungahlin shopfront. However, I must say that we do have some doubts about its necessity, given that the correspondence we have received from Mr Stanhope last year suggests that the government had already examined options for the shopfront. We would like to see the shopfront get underway sooner rather than later.
The estimates process established that these studies should be completed by early 2011; so we would expect action shortly after that. Initiatives such as the new leisure centre for Gungahlin are also good and will help Gungahlin develop into a self-sufficient, enjoyable place to live, to recreate and enjoy yourself. I am also curious while I am talking about Gungahlin to see how the government will progress the dirt jumps project in Gungahlin for young people. It is an issue which I and other people wrote about to the Chief Minister earlier this year.
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