Page 1352 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 June 2020
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and passionate Canberrans like Edwina Robinson of the Climate Factory, who has embarked on a personal mission to plant 100,000 trees by 2025.
We will work with Landcare groups, who already have programs working with farmers to restore our open areas to better environmental health. The Southern ACT Catchment Group are already actively restoring the Griffith woodlands, and I had the pleasure last year of joining them to announce the Canberra Liberals’ commitment to ensure they have certainty in funding over the full term of the next Assembly, rather than the annual cap-in-hand arrangement they have with the present government. We will seek advice from environmental scientists based here in the ACT—experts in the future of our environment who we are fortunate to have in our very own city. We will engage with Greening Australia and local farmers on large-scale, direct-drill tree-seeding projects.
We will seek advice from practical and experienced horticulturalists as to the best species of trees for the ACT to be planting, and where. We will work with seedling nurseries to ensure quality seedstock is available for all Canberrans. We will support local families, local gardening groups and residents to adopt local parks and care for them. We will ensure that ACT government services are appropriately resourced to be able to better manage the ACT landscape. We have been highlighting for a decade how the urban environment is being increasingly neglected and how new suburbs are little more than concrete jungles with mere tokens of green space. It is time we got serious about addressing that neglect.
The Canberra Liberals are serious about empowering all Canberrans to take an active and direct interest in caring for our local environment. We want to engage with and enthuse each and every Canberran to be part of making Canberra the clean energy, clean air capital of Australia, to remain a world leader in caring for our environment. There are times when it may seem too much of a challenge to be looking after and addressing our environment, that it is too big a task, but we can make a huge difference, starting on our very own doorstep, and a Canberra Liberals government will do just that.
One million trees over the next decade. These are real and tangible actions that will empower every Canberran to embrace a greener, cleaner future for all of us. I commend my motion to the Assembly.
MR STEEL (Murrumbidgee—Minister for City Services, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Recycling and Waste Reduction, Minister for Roads and Active Travel, Minister for Tertiary Education and Minister for Transport) (3.25): I thank Ms Lee for bringing forward this motion today, which I believe is the first motion in four years that Ms Lee, as the shadow minister for the environment, has moved in the Assembly about the environment.
Our government is committed to the responsible management of our environment, whether it is our parks and nature reserves or our urban treescape. One of the great things about living in Canberra is our tree canopy. Our government knows how important maintaining Canberra’s tree canopy is. The large canopy coverage is important for the character of our city, the look and feel of our bush capital. It is also
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