Page 3792 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 29 October 2014
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Our engagement with the government on issues like the Nature Conservation Bill over the past few months, including contributing to ensuring greater stakeholder consultation on the Nature Conservation Bill, as well as the environmental protection bill which will come before the Assembly tomorrow, show that we are committed to real improvements and protection of the environment—not political grandstanding and a pointless call on the federal government to do something when, of course, there is no requirement for the federal government to take any notice whatsoever of what this Assembly says.
I think that constituents and even many members opposite know that we are quite fair dinkum about these things, that we are trying to achieve real and meaningful change, and doing things that might make a difference for people in the ACT for the benefit of the environment and the ACT community. It is not about filling up time for the government on private members’ day.
This is a pointless motion, motivated purely to try to get some political mileage by painting all of us on this side of the chamber as climate change deniers. Quite frankly, I am not interested in playing that game. I would prefer to move on to a motion that actually tries to achieve something for the citizens of the ACT and stop wasting time with this politically driven motion which will have no impact on the lives of Canberrans or on the federal government. It makes me feel that Ms Berry is trying to write us into act 4 of a play called Kill Climate Change Deniers.
Many people accuse Tony Abbott of climate change denialism when in fact he has stated that he believes in anthropogenic or, to put it more simply, man-made climate change. However, he does not believe in every hare-brained scheme that potentially damages the economy for no real environmental benefit.
There is a growing group—and I am in that group—that believe our response should be measurable, achievable and realistic. So when we talk about showing leadership, it is only leadership if someone is following you; otherwise you are out in front thinking you are a leader and people are actually standing back and looking at you from a distance.
Maybe one day this government will start listening to the people of the ACT and realise that it is the urban maintenance problems that I spoke about yesterday or the overcrowding at the Canberra Hospital that they care about, or being able to get a job, being able to get to work and to pay their bills. It is a small minority who have the radical environmental agenda as their highest priority and not the majority of Canberra residents.
Canberrans do want and deserve climate change to be taken seriously, and the Canberra Liberals do that. But they also want the balance between social, economic and environmental concerns to be managed, and the Labor-Greens government is not doing that. Rather than an achievable, realistic approach, they are skewing their response too far in favour of one aspect of the equation. We will not be supporting this motion today which attempts to require all members to think and act in a certain way as prescribed by Ms Berry.
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