Page 664 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 9 March 2011
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personalising the areas. Either way, the residents make a valuable contribution to the community while participating in volunteer work at times of their own choosing. The green streets gardeners in Vancouver get advantages like free compost and plant giveaways. This is a type of community garden, and bearing in mind the debate we just had about community gardens, this is the sort of thing that I would like to see looked at in terms of that agenda.
Of course, we also should look at other things that can be used for mowing lawns apart from lawnmowers and tractors. Sheep and goats come to mind. Again, I will hark back to my youth—there was major drought when I was younger and I remember there was a program for all Canberra residents to adopt a lamb, which we did and many of our neighbours did. There was not any grass for them out there, and the lambs mowed the grass in our backyards, front yards and nature strips. They would, unfortunately, also eat the roses, which was a bit distressing for rose growers.
Goats are also used in this sort of program. Goats are used quite a lot around the world, including by councils. Goats have big benefits: they pick off the flower heads, as do sheep, so that a plant cannot go to seed, and they eat the leaves so that the plant cannot photosynthesise. They leave the stalks—again, sheep do the same—which helps holds the soil in place and prevent erosion. Goats and sheep also fertilize the soil, which especially helps poor soils. Goats in particular eat almost anything, including plants which are poisonous to other animals. A goat is a kind of bio-control that can be used instead of chemicals. Understandably, it is a practice that has grown alongside organic farming, and I would like to point out that goats do not require any food, apart from the grass that they are controlling. While they do require some person power, it is a minimal. That is something else the government could consider in terms of more efficient ways of lawn control, possibly not so much in the rural areas but in semi-rural areas.
I thank Mr Coe for moving this motion, and I thank Mr Stanhope for his amendment. We of course support good urban services in the ACT, and we agree with the importance of mowing in order to maintain the aesthetic, which is important to a lot of Canberrans, and there are safety issues as well. I support Mr Stanhope’s amendment to the motion.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (5.57): I thank Mr Coe for bringing this very important motion before us today and I commend him for his work. I commend him for his work in the community and for his focus on these core service delivery issues. I think there is no-one in the Assembly who works harder for his community than Alistair Coe, particularly as he has such a strong focus on the delivery of core services by the ACT government. So it is a very important issue and I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak about it today.
I think it is unfortunate that the Chief Minister arrogantly dismisses the concerns of Canberrans. He is aware of these concerns in relation to basic service delivery, because they are often passed on to him. That is what this motion is about. And I think that the Chief Minister either simply ignored what was said by Mr Coe or just deliberately attempted to distort. But it is arrogant and it is arrogance directly to Canberrans who care about these issues. It is saying to Canberrans who care about these issues, “You are Canberra bashers.” What a ridiculous statement.
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