Page 184 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 14 December 2016
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that services all people, no matter how they wish to get around. We are improving community consultation. We are improving services for mental health. I could keep going at great length but I will concentrate on a few issues.
Establishing the 100 per cent renewable energy target is something that is particularly dear to my heart. As I have said on many occasions, the reason I stood for election as a member of this place is because I think climate change is the biggest issue for Canberra and the world. If we do not fix climate change, it does not really matter in the long run what happens to the rest because our environment is going to become so different, so changed, that it will be overwhelming for us and all other species.
When I entered this place in 2008, the Greens were the only party that was calling for an emissions reduction target of 40 per cent by 2020. We led the debate; we established a committee to set the ACT’s climate change targets. This was part of the first parliamentary agreement. The Greens and Labor, in the face of significant criticism from the Liberals, passed legislation and set targets, and they both took a 90 per cent renewable energy legislation target to the 2012 election. Subsequently, this was increased to 100 per cent in 2016, and I am very pleased to say that, as we all know, the ACT is on track to meet that target ahead of time, which is really great.
Obviously, there is still a lot more work to be done on renewable energy and climate change, and that impacts on planning, on transport, on what we do with waste—on a whole heap of things that happen in the ACT. The Greens are really up for this challenge. On that, I would have to say that I am incredibly pleased that my colleague Mr Rattenbury has the honour of being the ACT’s climate change minister. I think that the ACT, from that point of view, is in very good hands.
One of the other things that Mr Steel talked about and which I am very pleased about is the renewal of public housing. Mr Steel probably is not aware that in our first parliamentary agreement in 2008 one of the things included was an aspirational target of 10 per cent of ACT housing to be public housing. We have not reached that, and it was clear that it was an aspirational target. But I want to put on the record that the Greens have been pushing for more public housing for as long as there have been Greens in the Assembly to push for it.
I would also like to acknowledge the passion and commitment that Minister Berry has brought to the role, and her work in supporting the much needed renewal of our ageing and out-of-date housing stock. Her work has been a continuation of the commitment that Minister Rattenbury secured from cabinet in 2014 when he had the privilege of being minister for housing. This commitment to have an overall increase in housing stock was the first such explicit agreement since the Rudd government’s stimulus package after the GFC, when a lot of money was spent on public housing, and the ACT was a significant recipient of it.
As part of the 2014 decision, we were also pleased to see an ongoing commitment to rehousing the tenants that may be moved as a result of the urban renewal program along Northbourne Avenue to within 800 metres of the light rail corridor, where possible and appropriate. Clearly, not every tenant wants to remain there, but for those who do, and with an eye to the future social mix that our city should strive to maintain,
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