Page 1954 - Week 05 - Thursday, 5 May 2011
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The government’s operational plan for weed management for this current financial year shows a shortfall in funding of more than $600,000 for projects that were on the program. A number of those projects were high priority projects and a number of those projects were follow-up projects; they are the most frustrating ones because those follow-up projects often only cost about $5,000 a year. Many of them are identified in the operational plan. These are circumstances where the government has actually spent the money on the initial removal of weeds but, as anybody who has done any of this kind of work knows, you need to keep at it for another couple of years to make sure the weeds do not come back. So it is a false economy to not spend on the follow-up programs and it really undermines the initial spend. This is frustrating, short-term thinking and a really wasteful use of government resources. Hopefully this additional funding can help address some of those gaps.
The removal of weeds in Lake Burley Griffin is helpful and the money for woodland regeneration and rabbits is also welcome. Rabbits of course are an ongoing problem. We have seen in the last couple of budgets this extra little pot of money for rabbit control. Rabbit eradication requires a sustained, concerted effort and this sense of each year suddenly at the last minute a bit of extra money coming in really limits the ability for strategic investment in rabbit control. I would urge the government to be more long term in the way that it funds and resources these kinds of programs.
Over the past two years the number of rangers, the support to park care groups, and government funding have not appeared to be adequate to keep up with the management of significant areas that make up our nature reserves here in the ACT. These are issues that I have raised on a number of occasions and I think that we still face gaps in this area. I am certainly looking forward to seeing the environment commissioner’s report on the Canberra nature park because I think this will offer us potentially recommendations for systemic changes that will bring long-term relief to our areas. I think we will be looking very closely towards next year’s budget to take on board some of the recommendations that come from the commissioner so that we move from a bit of a pattern of year to year funding ideas and a bit of a lack of strategic vision towards a more comprehensive approach to managing, caring for and sustaining our nature parks and reserves here in the ACT.
In the overall sense of looking after the environment, on both the climate change and energy fronts, the budget reminded me very much of the motion that I brought into the Assembly yesterday which talked about the lack of strategic plans and the failure to complete them. I was very much reminded of that in looking through the budget where in places we see, as I said, some quite positive initiatives but really lacking a broader strategic framework and a clear sense of where we are actually headed. That does seem a shame and it is one of the frustrating elements in places in the budget.
Let me turn to the Department of Justice and Community Safety. There are a number of initiatives here. For me the spending on legal services is perhaps one of the most interesting questions in the budget—where we spend the dollars that are available to us. This is a matter I would very much like to pursue through the estimates process because I think there are some outstanding things in the budget which really are worth exploring and getting behind the decisions that have been made.
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