Page 2876 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
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The Greens are also very concerned about the lack of funds for waste education programs. The government’s consultancy, the Hyder review, effectively recommended an education program. I also note that the Assembly a few months ago passed a motion recommending an education program. The economic result of this is quite clear: it is digging a new $20 million hole to expand Mugga Lane. This is a waste of money, literally.
The Hyder report certainly recommended that to 2021 education was without a doubt the most cost-effective and most environmentally sound option. Unfortunately, the government seems set on a dirty MRF, and once funds have been committed, which I note fortunately has not been done in this budget, we will be set to waste our organics into the future. Our organics could be turned into highly valuable compost. Australia has real soil quality issues, and what we are essentially doing through this process is mining our soils without replacing essential nutrients. We will continue to look at this issue. We also have concerns about the ACTSmart program and what is going to happen with the reduction in funding and the scrapping of parts of the program.
The budget includes $600,000 for new street furniture and bins. I would have to say I think it would be more cost effective to roll out new bins as part of the street level recycling program, which is yet to expand beyond east Civic despite the positive results from that trial. We are pleased that that trial will be continued, but we would like to see it expand to all of Civic and to the other town centres. Street level recycling bins in town centres were part of the ALP-Greens parliamentary agreement. We are pleased some progress has been made but disappointed that not more has been made.
Of course we welcome the additional one-off amount of $165,000 for the RSPCA. The RSPCA certainly needs it, and this is less than the RSPCA estimates is its current shortfall. Also we are very pleased with the construction of an off-leash dog park in north Canberra and an upgrade of the existing dog park in Belconnen. This is a pet topic of mine and it will be good to see the dogs unleashed, especially the small ones, in Belconnen.
Earlier this year the government released its response to the investigation by the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment into urban tree management practices in the ACT. I was pleased that the government agreed fully or in principle with most of the recommendations but disappointed that it deferred many decisions until later. Now of course the government repeats it is a “key priority” for TAMS to implement the recommendations from the commissioner’s inquiry into tree management practices, but unfortunately it still does not make clear which of these decisions will actually be implemented. It is also not clear if there is any more funding to manage our urban forest, and I am concerned that the previously announced funding is still below what both the commissioner recommended and what TAMS needs. This is particularly concerning because the budget shows funding for “land management” is set to drop, and that covers not only maintaining the urban forest but a lot of other things—weeds, for instance, as my colleague Mr Rattenbury noted.
We are pleased that there is some new funding for active transport—$7.3 million for cycling and walking infrastructure, footpaths, cycle paths and lanes, and lighting. This
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