Page 1886 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2011
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Recommendations 2 and 7 related to providing collated whole-of-government information on performance against ecologically sustainable development indicators and the territory’s progress towards achieving water saving targets. This is something we have been pushing for some time. We understand that the ESD reporting, for instance, is in each annual report. But we still feel that it would be very useful to have each of those collated into one report so we can clearly see how the government agencies overall are moving towards reducing their use of utilities, water, paper and so forth. It is important that we do have that overall view. I acknowledge they are in each of the annual reports but we still feel that it is an important thing to collate them into one.
We also have raised the issue about clarifying the distinction between ecologically sustainable development reporting and triple bottom line reporting requirements. We did note that with the Chief Minister’s annual report directions there are templates provided for departments to fill in, but there does seem to be a crossover of information and I think what has grown here is a lack of clear understanding about what each is supposed to achieve. One is about looking internally into a department around the use of resources and how they may be achieving savings in the use of their resources.
Triple bottom line reporting I think has become quite confused. What that should be about is how a department approaches the development of the policy or a program, for instance, and applies that triple bottom line lens; that is, looking at the social implications, the economic implications and the environmental implications. We do need to keep progressing this area, we need to get it right and that is what that recommendation goes towards doing.
Recommendations 4, 5 and 6 relate to expediting the release of some key documents that really go towards laying the blueprint, that road map, about how we are going to achieve, for instance, the 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020. Of course I am referring to the final version of the sustainable energy policy 2010-20, and with that one we have included the requirement for an annual review of the policy’s implementation and also expediting the release of the weathering the change action plan 2 for public consultation. We believe this is important. We need to move forward and we have been asking about these documents for quite some time.
Recommendations 8 and 9 relate to the Environment Protection Agency’s complaints and enforcement action data. We really wanted them to include that data and information from previous financial years so that that would facilitate a comparison over years. We do hope that that is taken on board.
Another issue that has been going for some time relates to the expanded role of the Office of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment. We really want to see the government’s response to the September 2009 report on the expansion of this role. We are now in May 2011—it is really overdue—and again we have put in a recommendation that we want government to expedite its response to that report. We need to be moving on that issue.
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