Page 1397 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 March 2012
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impacts once initiatives have been implemented. This includes things like a poverty impact analysis, which is a much more substantive evaluation of impacts than appears to be proposed in Mr Smyth’s bill.
I would like to say that we are very pleased with the progress that the government is making in developing a comprehensive triple bottom line framework, and of course that triple bottom line includes the economic impacts, the social impacts and the environmental impacts.
It appears as though Mr Smyth’s bill proposes to present much of the information set out in budget paper 3 and put it into a neat little statement or a table. I do recognise that some additional items have been included in the explanatory statement and that Mr Smyth did make a point in his speech that he expected the statement to evolve over time as capabilities and expectations changed.
I strongly support initiatives to assist those who are struggling in our community and to address the long-term cost pressures that we will inevitably face. The Greens are very concerned that we need to take action now to have a look at how we might be able to tackle those challenges and the increasing prices that we know we will have in the future. Rather than focusing, for instance, on artificially deflating the cost of things like electricity in the short term, we believe that the far better way to deal with the issue is to assist people to make their homes more energy efficient so that they do not need to pay for electricity in the first place; so that their bills are cut back because they do not need to use as much electricity. This is going to be a real issue for the future. We need to look at those sorts of programs as well. I also note the report that came out today about the cost of electricity compared to other jurisdictions.
We have also spoken extensively about providing an improved public transport system, for instance, so that people have a choice and are not forced to pay the high costs of car travel, so that families have a real choice about whether they purchase that second car or not. In some cases short-term costs represent a good investment that will ultimately lead to much greater long-term benefits, and we need to consider how these issues should be balanced in any budget statement.
I would like to point out that there is a group that we really do need to be focusing on at the moment. They are the group that just sit above the concession card holders. They are in need of assistance, they do need particular attention, and we really would like to look at the sorts of programs, concessions and so forth that could assist those individuals and those families. I note that the Chief Minister does have a group looking at those issues at the moment, and I look forward to seeing the outcomes of their work, because we know that averages can be misleading in Canberra. That is where I note that Mr Barr was talking about the Western Australian model, which would take, for instance, a family and the characteristics of a particular group. We would need to look at what would be put in place here in the ACT. That has been part of the issue around the affordable housing debate—this idea that there is an average income and therefore it makes housing in the ACT affordable for everyone. It can be misleading and we need to avoid that.
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