Page 2914 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 30 June 2010
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The issues have become blurred. The program that was de-funded in this budget was the urban forest renewal program. The urban forest renewal program is about addressing, as Mr Seselja said in part of his speech, that Canberra’s trees were planted in two big batches. As one was native and the other deciduous, they are coming to their peak age simultaneously. This is going to cause a big problem. It means that most of our forest needs to be replaced over the next 20 to 30 years.
I listened to Mr Coe yesterday. He said, “This is a line in the sand; if the Greens support the budget, then they are not supporting the families who want to keep their street trees in the front of their homes.” Mr Seselja said similar things. I am afraid this is wrong. I do not think the Liberal Party understands what the budget issue is here.
There are two programs we are talking about here. There is a completely separately program for normal maintenance of management and replacement of trees which is run by Parks, Conservation and Lands. This program is still ongoing. The Canberra family with a dying tree out the front of their house will still be able to have it replaced, even with this budget, as they have done in previous years.
I initially wondered why Mr Seselja had chosen to word this motion by saying that the program that had been gutted is the one to replace existing street trees and also to say that there must be sufficient funds to replace the street trees where necessary. But I think, from what we are hearing from the Liberal Party today and yesterday, that they actually do not understand there are two different programs.
Normal street tree replacement will still occur. What will not occur is the specific new program, the urban forest renewal program. That is about planning for a new and different approach to tree management because of the emerging problem of ageing trees. As long as that is the point that Mr Seselja is making, we agree. But we should not be pretending that there is going to be a halt to the regular tree planting and replacement program.
We agree to the motion to the extent that it expresses, although not very well, a condemnation of the government’s decision to de-fund the urban forest renewal program in this year’s budget. The urban forest renewal program had originally been funded through the 2009-10 budget with $18.7 million over four years. This year the funding was reduced to $1 million per year for the next three years. It would not be planned to return to full funding till 2013-14.
I have already made this point a number of times since the budget was handed down. I have expressed this in the media, in my budget response speech yesterday and, indeed, in questioning in estimates. For a year or so prior to the budget, the government acknowledged the importance of beginning the urban forest renewal program. It has stated, and Mr Seselja mentioned this too, that there is a pressing need to commence replacement of Canberra’s urban forest under this program. Mr Stanhope also said:
On the basis of expert advice from the ANU and the CSIRO … we face, with our urban forest, something of a tsunami of decline …
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