Page 6092 - Week 14 - Thursday, 9 December 2010
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Mrs Dunne: No, we are coming sixth out of eight for our most disadvantaged.
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mrs Dunne!
MR BARR: I would refer Mrs Dunne to the NAPLAN results in these areas where all ACT students are tested. That presents an entirely different picture to the one presented by PISA. So there must be caution when you look at 1,000 students tested in an international program versus every student in the ACT tested against all other Australian students. NAPLAN is a much more robust set of testing data than PISA. NAPLAN is conducted more frequently and involves more students—in fact, all students, Mr Speaker.
So whilst Mrs Dunne may wish to pick over the bones of bad news, as she is wont to do, the government will remain focused on working with the federal government to direct new resources into this area. That stands in marked contrast to the approach of the Liberal Party over 11 long years of federal government where they neglected and continued to neglect education in this country. The test of this is that results in all Australian jurisdictions went backwards over that period because of a lack of leadership from the federal government. We do not have that now. We now have national partnerships.
Waste—management
MS LE COUTEUR: My question is to the Minister for the Environment and concerns the government’s new waste strategy.
Mrs Dunne: It is a bit of a waste, isn’t it?
MS LE COUTEUR: Minister, the strategy proposes a mixed residuals materials recovery facility—otherwise known as a mixed MRF—instead of a third bin for the collection of organics.
Mrs Dunne: Take your own—
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mrs Dunne! I do not want to have to warn you today. Can we hear Ms Le Couteur’s question in silence, please?
MS LE COUTEUR: Minister, is it correct that a mixed MRF cannot completely separate organic matter from contaminates such as toxic batteries and other leachates, meaning that the end product is not as nutrient rich, as pure or as useful as a product created by source separation?
MR CORBELL: The technologies now available in terms of being able to separate organic waste from the general waste stream are well advanced. There are already technologies in place and in operation in western Sydney. It is capable for them to separate those types of wastes, in particular batteries.
Certainly, from the inspection of facilities that I undertook earlier this year to one of the so-called dirty mixed recovery facilities in Sydney—
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video