Page 2218 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2018
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The Greens are committed to sustainability, and you must have that in your budget as well. This government, with Greens support, has achieved this while also keeping Canberra focused on sustainability and supporting vulnerable Canberrans. The ACT is showing that it is perfectly capable of pursuing bold policies like major investment in sustainable transport, renewable energy and climate change mitigation, whilst supporting the vulnerable people in our community and still having a strong economy and a balanced budget. Our renewable energy leadership and subsequent considerable industry investment show that these are, in fact, complementary.
In relation to our strong economy today, the Chief Minister has highlighted how well the ACT is doing, which is due to the growth of gross state product, of consumption and thus GST revenue, of construction, and importantly, of significant and higher than expected population growth.
The unforecast population growth has contributed to our economic growth and the budget performance. But the Greens understand that sound economic management should not rely simply on population growth. There are downsides. Higher consumption contributes to higher household debt—Australia has the second highest household debt in the world—and it is also increasing our environmental footprint.
While the ACT government is working hard on sustainability initiatives, it must also manage the increased levels of waste, water and energy use, car use, residential construction and so on. Reducing climate emissions with our ever-increasing population is a growing challenge for the ACT. As we shift towards 100 per cent renewable electricity, we are directly addressing one of our key impacts on climate and our footprint, but there is so much more to do.
The ACT is now forecast to hit a population of 500,000 people in the next decade. According to the ABS population clock, Australia currently has nearly 25 million people, and we are due to click over that 25 million mark sometime in June.
While our human population grows, the number of critically endangered animals is increasing. The IUCN lists 86 critically endangered species for Australia. And, sadly, we are part of the top seven of the world’s countries that have contributed to 50 per cent of the world’s biodiversity loss in the past decade. We know that the rate of population growth has created massive ecological issues for the megacities of the world. While population growth has brought about a positive outcome for our budget this year, globally and locally it is really time to focus on planning for a more sustainable future.
The Chief Minister has pointed out many other impacts on the ACT of this population growth: increasing school enrolments, increasing hospital presentations and, sadly, increasing inequity and its symptoms such as homelessness numbers. Meanwhile, Newstart, which many vulnerable people rely on, is simply not increasing. It has not increased for two decades.
Our economies cannot be reliant on infinite industrial growth driven by rapid population growth and high consumption. In fact, we believe that this is an
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