Page 2242 - Week 06 - Thursday, 6 June 2019
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MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (3.24): The ACT Greens welcome the 2019-20 ACT budget. This budget delivers for Canberra now and also for the future. The Greens are focused on making sure we leave a territory fit for future generations. We know it is vital that this government addresses the climate emergency, looks after our community, especially vulnerable people, works towards fairness and reconciliation, and looks after country.
This budget addresses the needs of our growing community and city. It has also necessarily had to adapt to the outcome of the recent federal election and the resulting budget impacts on the ACT. It is a balanced budget, viewed across the four years. We are now three-quarters of the way through this Assembly term, and this budget delivers on our parliamentary agreement.
However, for the Greens, the scale of our agenda is unapologetically ambitious. We believe budgets need to go further to address the needs of our community, especially in climate, housing and transport. We cannot simply make decisions based on what is easy or what is popular.
If we are to deliver for the people of Canberra, today and for future generations, business as usual and the politics of old simply will not cut it. Canberrans want a budget which faces up to the big challenges with both a vision and a strategy for how to get there.
Over the past decade, in holding the balance of power the Greens have shown we are not afraid of tackling large-scale challenges. Through our role in government we help shape the budget. We are investing where it matters, taking our lead from the community on the ground, and from the experts and the evidence, to ensure our city delivers for the many, not the few. This budget takes firm steps in this direction and provides a stable strategy in response to the federal Liberal government’s wilful neglect of the ACT. But there is still more we can do to ensure that we are delivering for future generations.
Let me start with the issue that is most important to the ACT and to our planet; that is, climate change. The message is simple. We are facing a global catastrophe, an ecological breakdown and massive impacts on our environment, our society and our budget.
Last month this Assembly agreed that we are in a climate emergency. We cannot let that be a platitude. We are in an emergency. The government and our budgets need to orient around the issue of climate change and impacts on future generations. People who care about the territory economy should be focused on climate change, because without climate action we will face significant extra costs. Already the impacts of climate change are having costs for our community and for our infrastructure—through hotter and more extreme weather, greater bushfire risks, health impacts, and disruption to social and recreational activities.
Unchecked climate change is an economy destroyer. People who care about social outcomes should be focused on climate change, because it is the most vulnerable in
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