Page 2875 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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We welcome also the government’s use of lease variation charge remissions to support developments that achieve carbon savings of least 30 per cent above the current minimum practice. We supported the lease variation charge legislation only on the basis that there would be remissions for more sustainable things. I would note that we are still looking for remissions with respect to the location of transport corridors.
We are also looking at the developments in Molonglo valley with interest. We are very concerned to ensure that adequate biodiversity protections are included in the planning and development processes. We have continued to push for improved environmental standards for new housing in Molonglo and are pleased to see that the home advice sustainability program continues, to help home owners and builders incorporate sustainability measures, as well as multi-unit developments needing to meet the mandatory seven-star energy efficiency rating. The Greens are particularly pleased to note that there will be 70 innovative sustainable houses built as part of a compact sustainable living community in the Molonglo demonstration precinct.
There are many other improvements that need to be done from a business point of view to ensure that the government does support a clean, green economy, but at least these steps are steps in the right direction.
I will move on to waste, and this is an area where my colleague Ms Hunter spent some time, so I will not repeat what she said, except to point out the bleedingly obvious point: we have got a problem. We used to be doing very well from a waste to landfill point of view, but the government is now expecting that we are going to move up to 0.9 of a tonne per capita to landfill. We are going in the wrong direction. We are wasting more, literally. And as a result of this we are going to have to spend $20 million on a new landfill cell. This is not good.
We do, however, welcome some of the things the government has done. We welcome the new recycling drop-off facility in Gungahlin. I very much hope there will be some community consultation on its location, as I am aware there has not been to date. But we are also disappointed to see that this facility, like the existing four, does not include facilities to recycle batteries, apart from car batteries, and light globes. We have been calling on the government to do this for years, and once more it has failed to deliver.
We have been pushing for the establishment of collection points for light bulbs and batteries at convenient locations such as government shopfronts or libraries. At the least the government could provide these facilities at the drop-off facilities. Currently only the Mugga Lane and Mitchell transfer stations take fluorescent light globes. None of them take household batteries; by that, I mean the button batteries—little A4s, AAAs et cetera. They only take car batteries. The mercury in one fluoro tube, for example, has the potential to contaminate 30,000 litres of water and can lead to serious toxic effects on people, wildlife and habitats.
Similar recycling schemes offering conveniently located drop-off points already operate elsewhere such as in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and even in fact at the ANU. In fact the Greens’ office has a battery and a compact fluorescent recycling facility. We can operate it. We can do it. Surely the government can do it.
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