Page 5064 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 26 October 2010

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The Labor Party and the Greens have chosen to go for the absolute upper end of the target. They have chased that headline. What we have said, and what we did through our amendments throughout this debate, was that we will hold you to account for that. We will seek to improve your bill where possible and we will actually stand up and say that someone has to consider the costs. Someone has to consider the costs. You can advocate strong targets, as we have, but you have to actually also balance what the costs are to the community? How can it be achieved? Is it achievable?

What we have come down to, we believe, is a far more sensible path. It is not a path that is blinded by ideology as we have seen from the Labor Party and the Greens. It is very clearly informed by the science but it is also informed by our responsibilities to the community not to saddle the people of the ACT with a target that is too burdensome and in fact does not achieve the environmental benefits because of what is going on, particularly nationally and internationally.

We are very pleased to be the party who stands up for that, who are informed by the science but who are not in any way carried away by the ideology so much as the Labor Party and the Greens are—to get to a point where they say that the only way to do it is to get the absolute highest target in the IPCC’s band. We have considered it very carefully. We believe that 30 per cent is a far better way to go. We believe our legislation is the better way to go and I commend the bill to the Assembly.

Question put:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

The Assembly voted—

Ayes 5		Noes 9
Mr Coe	Mr Seselja	Mr Barr	Ms Hunter
Mr Doszpot	Mr Smyth	Ms Bresnan	Ms Le Couteur
Mrs Dunne		Mr Corbell	Ms Porter
		Ms Gallagher	Mr Rattenbury
		Mr Hargreaves

Question so resolved in the negative.

Planning and Development (Public Notification) Amendment Bill 2010

Debate resumed from 26 August 2010, on motion by Mr Barr:

That this bill be agreed to in principle.

MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (5.00): The Canberra Liberals will support this bill today. The bill, if passed, will make a very small but important amendment to the Planning and Development Act 2007 in regard to the public notification of applications for development approval. As we are well aware,

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