Page 2392 - Week 06 - Thursday, 10 May 2012
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Instead of acknowledging the results of the State of the environment report, Ms Hunter’s party blithely blames the government. Here are a few examples of what they have said. They said that the Gallagher government’s policies were “driving the territory in completely the wrong direction”. Who holds the balance of power? They quite proudly stand up and say, “We are the balance of power.” That balance of power has either been complicit in driving or has driven the government in this direction. So there we go. We have got this acknowledgement: “driving the territory in completely the wrong direction”.
They said that the government’s business as usual policies are driving the ACT in the wrong direction. That is a paraphrase, but that is what it means. This is the business as usual. Well, it is business as usual on your watch, Greens, as the crossbench. You put the government there, you maintain the government there and you fail to hold this government to account. So much for third-party insurance policy. It is the third-party betrayal of the environment in the ACT under the Greens.
The good news stories coming out of this report are almost all community-based actions. The failings are largely on the government end—a government put in office, kept in office and aided in office by their colleagues the Greens. They said of the report:
… the Government’s inaction on sustainable transport, organic waste and protecting biodiversity are the clear lowlights.
They said:
What we need the Government to do now is implement recommendations rather than writing more strategy documents.
Clearly, their strategies and their policies have failed.
We have this sort of Greens denial and blame game, but the Greens are complicit in this. I only need to go back to Spark Solar, before the government was formed, when we were talking with the Greens. I assume they had the same conversation with the Labor Party. They asked us if we would help Spark Solar. We said yes, we would. But they got into bed with the government and Spark Solar was abandoned, forgotten.
There was an opportunity to diversify the ACT’s economic base. There was an opportunity to build a private sector business. There was an opportunity to have manufacturing in the ACT. There was an opportunity to have more blue-collar jobs. There was an opportunity to say, “This is a sustainable industry contributing to the protection of the environment in the ACT, across Australia and around the world.” But what happened? Nothing. All the Greens are interested in is keeping the government in power. They have got all the talk, but they completely failed to take the walk.
Ms Hunter’s MPI today is not about the people of Canberra. It is a continuation of the blame game on the government. It is not surprising that as we get closer to the
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