Page 2877 - Week 07 - Thursday, 7 June 2012
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
funding will let TAMS get on to some priority works, including hopefully some of the broken paths and areas with very poor lighting that need improvement.
The Greens have been on about sustainable transport for a long time. Transport contributes to about a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions, and sustainable transport has a lot of other advantages, for our health in particular. The upward trend in spending on sustainable transport, active transport, is of course a result of the parliamentary agreement and the positive role of the Greens in the Assembly.
We are particularly pleased to see that the Heart Foundation will continue to be funded by the ACT to promote active living and active transport, and I would have to say that there is a lot more that can be done as long as we put our heart into it.
We welcome the three-quarters of a million dollars to help revitalise Civic and Braddon. But we are concerned at how this large project is going to work. How is it going to work with the Gungahlin to city project office? Clearly the two must significantly intersect. We are concerned that it includes landscaping from Northbourne Avenue to City Hill, which is good, but does not include pedestrian access to and across City Hill, which is appalling. Poor pedestrian access cuts Civic in two and we must address that to make Civic a walkable and attractive destination. The Civic action plan pointed that out a couple of years ago, but we have not seen any improvement to date.
Green ICT, members will know, is something I have been banging on about for years, and I am pleased that this budget announced some improvements, noticeably in extending the life of existing equipment; we will not automatically replace screens, mouses and keyboards every four years. This is something I have been calling for—not quite for four years yet, because I have only been in the Assembly for 3¾, but I am working on making it four years. The government is looking for better energy efficiency in ICT infrastructure as part of its strategic plan for ICT 2011-15 and for better ICT energy efficiency in ACT schools.
There is more that should be done. We need to look at the life cycle impacts of government ICT. In particular, we need to look at teleconferencing. The budget did note that expenditure on travel dropped 10 per cent in the last financial year and it predicts further reductions, attributed in part to increased teleconferencing. But, if you read more into the budget, you will find that the budget predicts that expenditure on travel will increase from $0.8 million next financial year to more than $1.2 million each year over estimates. So it does not really seem that we are planning to do a lot of teleconferencing. I think that is an area where we seriously need to do a lot more work.
My colleague Ms Hunter has already spoken largely about the arts, so, given that I have not got a lot more time, I will not repeat that. Obviously we welcome more expenditure on the arts but we are concerned that it could be described more as construction; there is no actual additional money for any artists in the ACT.
In conclusion, I would like to talk a bit about some of the areas where we have to do more. One of these is urban tree management, following through the recommendations of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment. And
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video