Page 4085 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 20 September 2011
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We must look at whether what we are doing is sustainable in the short term and the long term. We must also look at whether it is equitable in any way for the people of Western countries and Canberra in particular to consume at a rate which is vastly higher than that of people in other parts of the world. I very much regret that the Liberal Party has refrained from engaging on the actual issues—that we have a limited, finite world and we must live in it.
In terms of the limited, finite world, the Greens have often raised the point of peak oil and peak phosphorus. They are major issues. Our finite stocks of cheap oil and rock phosphorus are declining, and the world is dependent on both of those. Rock phosphate is particularly important. I believe we have got between 30 and 70 years left of it. Without phosphorus, agriculture in Australia is going to very much slow down, if not grind to a halt. We have already spoken at length on peak oil, so I will not speak at length on it right now. Water resources are another key concern. I am glad that Mr Corbell spoke on this. With a decade or more of protracted drought, it is a big issue.
Food miles are something which the ACT community is becoming more aware of. The ACT imports a very large percentage of its food, with anecdotal evidence presented in the Canberra Environment Sustainability Resource Centre’s submission to the ecological carrying capacity inquiry estimating that more than 90 per cent of Canberra’s food is produced outside the ACT region. The distances used to source our foods are increasing as good local food production declines or is displaced by development. This points to the need for a “grow and buy locally, naturally” campaign to be launched in the ACT. When I was a child growing up in Canberra we all grew our own vegies. There was no choice. What you could get from anywhere else was very poor quality and very expensive.
Looking at it from a wider, global viewpoint, the wholesale conversion of our forests for agriculture and then the loss of agricultural land to urban development is a matter of serious concern. It contributes to a reduction in ecosystem services provided from forests, such as biodiversity, air and water regulation, natural pest control, habitat and gene pool.
Another thing I will touch on is the need for more sustainable transport. The Greens have been pushing for an active living approach to be built into our transport for a long time. This is encapsulated in our active transport plan released in May 2010. There are many social and health benefits of cycling and walking as a means of transport. Encouraging more people to get on a bike has economic benefits, as people save on fuel, parking and health costs. In the longer term, you can save $5,000 to $10,000 a year per household, which over a lifetime, as people have said, is in the order of half a million dollars of superannuation savings. This is very relevant to our ecological footprint.
Another one is waste. Mr Corbell touched on waste and said that the long overdue waste strategy will be released in December this year. In the waste strategy, one of the most significant issues, which it does not appear we are taking up, is the opportunity to recycle organic waste. Currently, organic waste makes up about 40 or 50 per cent
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