Page 578 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 22 February 2012
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seems to be blind support of the government in spite of this and so many other issues being simply pushed aside.
Here we are about six months or so away from the next election and suddenly the Greens are realising that all the things that they were promised in the parliamentary agreement and in other forums are not going to eventuate. There is only six months to go. Is the government of the day really going to deliver upon Greens’ election policies from 2008 six months before the next election? Does anybody think that is actually going to happen?
As far as I am concerned, the Greens-Labor agreement is at the end of the line. I do not see any more progress happening on that. Looking at that document and what was meant to happen in 2009, 2010 and 2011, where is the office block for Gungahlin? Where is the shopfront in Gungahlin? That was meant to be delivered in 2009. We are still waiting for the Gungahlin shopfront. There has been feasibility study after feasibility study to open a shopfront.
The Greens have been taken for a ride by Labor. Perhaps for some members of the Greens it has been a willing ride, I might add. But, one way or another, what the Greens were promised in 2008 has not been delivered. Something that the Greens supported which the Liberals promised in 2008, being green bins, could be on the table for discussion. In fact, it could well have been rolled out by now. Yet because of the decision that the Greens made in 2008 to support Labor it means that something as core to their movement as waste strategy and waste policy has been absolutely neglected because of an ideological mission to drive out the Liberals, as opposed to a genuine concern about the policies which they supposedly advocate. The Canberra Liberals will move the amendment to make sure the record is straight with regard to what the Canberra Liberals’ policy was. I hope all in this place remember exactly what the Canberra Liberals proposed in 2008.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ms Le Couteur, are you speaking to the amendment?
MS LE COUTEUR (Molonglo) (11.14): Yes, to the amendment, not to close the debate. I am speaking to the amendment, which clearly I do not agree with. It seems to me that there are two parallel universes as far as waste is concerned. One universe is the draft—I am sorry, it is no longer a draft, it is the waste strategy. The other universe is the Hyder report. And they are actually not totally the same. I suspect the Hyder report is the hard-nosed financial analysis and is the one that we should probably pay more attention to.
The Hyder report is premised on the idea that we will increase waste per capita. I think that is an unfortunate premise but I think it is demonstrating what the government believe will happen. The draft waste—sorry, I should no longer call it the draft. I would like it to be only a draft, but the waste report, waste strategy, intends in fact that the growth in ACT waste generation is less than the rate of population growth by 2020. The two are starting from different premises. If the government actually believed that this was what was going to happen, why didn’t they say this to their consultant, Hyder, when they did the real analysis?
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