Page 3442 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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Next, Canberra Connect provides some great services. We welcome increased funding for Canberra Connect in this budget. But I note that this funding is for increased efficiency and effectiveness. As we heard in the hearings, the funding is, in fact, just to service increased demand. We would actually like to see specific projects to increase efficiency and effectiveness, and one would have hoped that that would have been the result of the recent review.
Talking about waste—I am very glad to hear Mr Coe is also concerned about that—we are pleased that the budget includes some funds for increased recycling facilities. However, we remain concerned that the government’s response to waste has missed a number of simple, cheap and effective measures. We welcome the funding for the new recycling drop-off facility in Gungahlin, but we are disappointed to see that this facility, like the existing four, does not contain facilities for materials containing toxins, like recyclable batteries and light globes.
For years we have been calling on the government to do more to keep toxins out of landfill and, once again, they have failed to deliver. I simply do not understand why it is beyond the ACT government to establish collection points at convenient locations such as government shopfronts or libraries. Similar schemes operate elsewhere in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and right here, of course, at the ANU. Indeed, less than 50 metres from here at the front desk of the Legislative Assembly there is a battery collection box. Why can the ACT government not do it?
While the Greens welcome funding to continue street-level recycling in Civic, there is still no expansion in other town centres. This is particularly disappointing as it was part of the ALP-Greens parliamentary agreement to install street-level recycling bins in all town centres. Not only has the government failed to deliver on that, but they also failed to install bins across all of Civic. City west, of course, has no bins. The budget also includes $600,000 for new street furniture and bins. (Second speaking period taken.) Surely it would be more cost effective to roll out new bins as part of the street-level recycling program so we could see some expansion of this beyond east Civic?
However, the main failing of this budget on waste is lack of funds for waste education programs. There is no extra funding for waste education at all, despite the government’s own consultancy recommending one and the Greens’ waste motion calling on the government to start one.
The Hyder report concluded that education is the quickest, cheapest and most cost-effective way to reduce levels of waste going to landfill. So why is the government not acting on its own consultancy recommendations? Why, indeed, is the government not acting on the call of the motion that was passed with Liberal support earlier this year on the subject? Instead, the government is still planning to build a dirty materials recovery facility as a solution. This facility would separate organic waste from household green kerbside bin waste, which represents almost 50 per cent of the weight of the materials currently sent to landfill. This material would be processed into low grade compost.
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