Page 1717 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 1 May 2012
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extend my thanks to the commissioner Bob Neil and the former commissioner Maxine Cooper and their staff for the work they have undertaken in developing this very important document. I move:
That the Assembly takes note of the papers.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (3.21): I thank the minister for bringing the report to the Assembly today. It is indeed an interesting document. It delivers a clear message that the ACT is currently over-stretching its environmental limits. It is an illustration of how “business as usual” policies are driving the territory in completely the wrong direction. The commissioner’s analysis indicates that our population is growing and ageing, our urban footprint is growing, our climate is warming, our emissions increasing, and our levels of consumption and waste generation are rising rapidly.
It is interesting to reflect upon the recommendations made in the ACT State of the environment 2007 report, as in many ways the current report is a more urgent echo of this and earlier reports. Like the current report, the 2007 report highlights sustainable consumption as our greatest challenge and pointed to the multiple threats posed by the encroachment of our urban footprint upon our natural areas. The latest report indicates that such issues have only amplified. This fact is particularly concerning given it points to insufficient action by the government to respond to the commissioner’s previous warnings.
As our only comprehensive environmental inventory, state of the environment reports should form the basis of the government’s environmental policy. Yet we have seen constant delays in their being publicly released, assessed and responded to. For example, the report the minister has just tabled was handed to him in December 2011, and yet it was not released until just last week.
During this time, a series of important environmental strategies were opened for public consultation, including weathering the change 2. Yet the public was deprived of this latest state of the environment report and its findings during the development of each of these strategies and during the phase in which people could comment.
Such an approach to environmental reporting and consultation is not indicative of a government taking strong environmental leadership. Neither is it consistent with a government that has publicly stated its commitment to the principles of open government.
These issues of process aside, I would now like to turn to the substance of the report itself. A range of serious concerns are highlighted, predominantly concerning urbanisation, biodiversity, consumption, waste generation, transport and greenhouse gas emissions. Taking an overview of the indicators, when it comes to urbanisation, land and water health, and biodiversity, the report indicates that our urban footprint has grown by nine per cent over the reporting period of just four years.
Whilst this growth need not be detrimental were it carefully planned, instead the commissioner highlights that the current scale of urbanisation is placing considerable
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