Page 1721 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 1 May 2012
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gone backwards on. A Labor-Greens alliance is not just bad for the economy, not just bad for your hip pocket; it is also bad for the environment. We are now 3½ years into this arrangement. We are 3½ years into this arrangement between the Labor Party and the Greens. The Greens are now going to be going to the community and saying, “Vote for us because of all we have achieved.”
Yet they have acknowledged here again today that when it comes to their core issue, their number one issue, their reason for being a green party, actually they have failed. When they have had the most opportunity to do something about the environment, they have acknowledged today, they have acknowledged in their response to this report, that they have failed. We join with them in acknowledging that.
We know that the Labor Party has failed to deliver on a whole range of areas. The environment, again, is one of the issues that the Labor Party talks a lot about. But instead of actually doing things to improve the environment, it focuses on tokenism and it fails to deliver. It focuses on emissions targets that either it cannot reach or will be very expensive to reach instead of practical environmental solutions.
We will have more to say in the MPI about the cost impacts on families of bad government policy. It is, I think, quite an eye opener. I think if you were to ask the community, “Do you think that the Greens having power might be good for the environment?” there would be many in the community who would probably say yes to that. They would think, “A party that is founded on the basis of supporting the environment probably would get something done when they have some influence.”
Here it is. The evidence is here for us all to see. Not only is the Labor-Greens alliance shocking for the hip pocket; not only does it place all sorts of extra cost pressures on the community and Canberra families; it is also bad for the environment. I think that is a major embarrassment for this alliance. It goes to their real reason for being. No doubt, the community will be asking themselves the question why they would bother voting for this party that claims to be committed to the environment but is happy to see the environment go backwards on their watch.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Canberra Institute of Technology
Papers and statement by minister
DR BOURKE (Ginninderra—Minister for Education and Training, Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Corrections): For the information of members, I present the following papers:
Canberra Institute of Technology—WorkSafe ACT report—
Canberra Institute of Technology Act–Canberra Institute of Technology Ministerial Direction 2012 (No 1)—Notifiable Instrument NI2012, dated 12 April 2012.
CIT Improvement Action Group—Terms of reference.
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