Page 2086 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 5 June 2019
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not in favour of more and more regulation and legislation. It is an admirable goal. But what we are seeing today is a political stunt from the Greens, in cahoots with the government, on something that is already in the budget. It is simply another way of amplifying and promoting something that is in the budget. It has been funded, as we saw yesterday in the budget papers.
Reducing waste is everyone’s responsibility. Canberrans are already very good at reducing waste through composting, recycling, reducing their usage and being part of a sharing economy. These are things that are already happening without government intervention. Is more and more regulation and legislation the best way to go? We do not believe that that is the case.
We will not object to Ms Le Couteur’s motion, because we fundamentally agree with the concept of waste minimisation—with those precautionary messages about intervening more and more in people’s lives.
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (10.37): Ms Lawder described this as a stunt. To some extent everything we do in the Assembly is a stunt. Leaving that aside, Ms Lawder has not got a very good grasp of the realities of being a private member in this place, particularly a private member in a party which only has one private member. I have a party—
Ms Lawder: You are part of the government, really.
MADAM SPEAKER: Let the member speak.
MS LE COUTEUR: It would be really polite if you were prepared to listen to me as I listened to you. I only have an item of business every three sitting weeks. Believe it or not, I plan out at the beginning of the year what we want to do and when we can do it. So the fact that this came up after the budget is not because I had any inside knowledge of the budget. I can assure everybody that I did not have any inside knowledge of the budget. I can occasionally observe the moods of people but I had absolutely no idea what would or would not be in the budget as far as waste is concerned.
Talking about that specifically, to achieve the aims of the motion—even the motion as amended with additional time lines by Minister Steel—will probably require more resources than have been put in the budget. I assume that that basically is why Minister Steel wishes to amend my motion. The reason why I have the time lines I have in my motion is, I hope, abundantly clear to everyone. As a member of the Assembly I am very conscious that this Assembly ceases in effect in August 2020. We actually cease in October 2020 but, while asking to do anything after that is something that we can do and something that may happen, we are not in a position to bind future Assemblies to do anything, or future governments to do anything. That is why the time lines in my motion are all in the time line of this Assembly.
While Ms Lawder may regard what I am saying as a stunt, it is not a stunt. It is something that I and the Greens care deeply about. It was really great to hear her quoting previous Liberal minister Tony De Domenico. I must admit that my memory
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