Page 1594 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2011
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travel by bike? So is it the time to be planting trees if we are only going to turn around in the short term to make a different decision about design and those trees will have to be ripped out again?
The second issue about waste is what we each perceive is a policy waste. Of course, we would have different views on that. Some others would argue that one person who thinks a policy is a waste, another person may find great merit in. No doubt we will debate this question at great length when the budget is announced. However, there are a couple of particular policy areas that probably should be canvassed today in the context of a general discussion about what is an appropriate fiscal policy for the ACT.
As I outlined earlier, the Greens very much believe that we need to think long term and respond to the issues today in a manner that ensures they are properly addressed and not just postponed. I guess that is why we are so alarmed to hear Mr Hanson say pretty much that anything to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions, anything to do with trying to tackle climate change, was a waste of time. He said that it is a waste of time and money and that we can put that off to tomorrow.
In fact, we know that the experts have told us quite clearly that if we put that off to tomorrow, not only will we have a bigger mess to clean up but it is going to cost a lot, lot, lot more for Mr Hanson’s children and Mr Hanson’s grandchildren to have to deal with. Maybe Mr Hanson really wants to get his head more into long-term thinking rather than the very, very short-term thinking that he seems to be proposing.
The health portfolio is another area I would like to discuss. It represents the single largest expenditure item and the biggest growth area in the ACT budget. We know that health expenditure will represent and enormous challenge in the future. To respond to the challenge, we need to be investing more in preventative health initiatives. The challenge and the required fiscal discipline is to recognise this and forgo other initiatives that might be more attractive in the short term but which in reality will make a limited difference in the long term.
I note the minister’s recognition of the need to do more, but also express the Greens’ concerns that relatively minor changes to existing programs will by no means be adequate to address the enormous problems our community is facing. Preventable diseases are the major contributor to the health tsunami. Not only is it socially responsible to do this; it is also economically prudent. In the long run it will leave the ACT much better off both financially and socially.
Another thing we have spoken about, and I have spoken about it in this place on previous budgets, is the need to shift to a green economy and to ensure that we are in a position to prosper from the challenges in front of us rather than lag behind. This issue is evident in a number of areas of our economy—for instance, the issue of waste. In respect of household and commercial waste, if we really look at this area, we can get a lot of economic benefits from recycling and reprocessing our waste here in the territory, which comes back to how we collect that waste in the first place and how we deal with it as to what economic benefit we are going to get.
That is one example of how we could be shifting our economy to a green economy. Of course, there are discussions going on all over the world by governments, by
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