Page 904 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 29 March 2011
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commits the government to making data available on relevant government websites as soon as it is advertised in the media. Yes, the government has said in its response that it will do that, but it has not looked at the second part of paragraph (d), which is to ensure the information is in appropriate formats and retained while useful to the community. This is still not happening, and I mention once more ACTION timetable data, which has not been provided in appropriate formats. Also, DA data is not being retained while it is useful to the community. I understand that the situation at present is worse than usual due to a failure of the SAN that InTACT uses.
Paragraph (e) commits the government to developing a policy to encourage appropriate telecommuting and teleconferencing. That is mentioned in Mr Stanhope’s report, but it is all but a content-free mention. Paragraph (f) commits the government to report back to the Assembly on these issues by 30 March. The government has done that promptly, and I thank it for that.
I will now go through some of the points in the actual report. First of all, we are talking about data from the 2007-08 ACT greenhouse gas inventory. Surely, we have more current data than that. Moving on to page 2, it talks about resource management plans of agencies. This is great, but I would like to see them. In fact, I am contemplating a series of questions on notice to various government agencies about resource management plans.
The next two points are good—setting minimum standards for energy efficiency ratings of office and kitchen appliances and engaging staff in energy efficient behaviour in the workplace. These are good points, but they actually do not have a lot to do with ICT, and I think that could be said about most of this paper, actually. It is a lot of fluff and there is very little in it about ICT.
Talking again about resource management plans, I understand that the commissioner for the environment has audited the ACT government energy use and reporting and that this report went to the Chief Minister last year. Rather than giving us this general information, which is fluffy and not very helpful, it really would be much more useful, Mr Stanhope, if you could provide members of the Assembly with the commissioner for the environment’s report on resource management plans.
We then come to OSCAR, which is the online system comprehensive activity reporting. That really is the first ICT mention, but not specifically green ICT, for the ACT. We then come to the purchase of GreenPower and, of course, the Greens are very much in favour of GreenPower, and so we find are the other parties. In 1999 the Liberals committed to purchasing 100 per cent GreenPower by 2008. Our agreement in 2008 with the Labor Party committed to an increase of GreenPower purchases by 10 per cent annually. Unfortunately, we are well behind both of these commitments. As the paper says, the government only purchases 32.5 per cent renewable energy. I would really like to see the Labor Party live up to its commitment and purchase more. I note very positively that this would be a tripartisan act, because the Liberal Party is committed to it, we are committed to it and the Labor Party is committed to it, at least theoretically.
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