Page 1358 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 June 2020
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review of the Tree Protection Act and a start on changing the Territory Plan to make room for trees with living infrastructure plans. I am really pleased to find that this has been followed up by the Liberal Party’s big, shiny promise for a million trees. This tripartisan support for trees is incredibly welcome.
Mr Parton: Your work is done.
MS LE COUTEUR: I am not quite sure the work is done, because so far we have not planted those trees.
Mr Coe: We did one. We’re on the way, Caroline.
MS LE COUTEUR: Okay, still 999,999 to go. Unfortunately, getting to the details a bit more, as the ALP amendment points out, while one million trees sounds like an awful lot—and it is an awful lot—it is actually not a huge step forward from the position the government has agreed to after years of pressure from the Greens and the community as a whole.
The ALP amendment, being two pages, goes into a lot more detail. I applaud Ms Lee for moving what is probably the shortest motion in this Assembly. That is an achievement to be proud of. But the ALP’s motion covers an awful lot of the things that are needed to deliver more tree canopy for Canberra. That is what I am going to say a bit more about in my speech. Quite a bit of it was covered by Minister Steel, and my Greens colleague Mr Rattenbury will also speak on this.
We all saw this last summer just how brutal climate change has already made our periods of extreme heat and dryness. Young trees find it very hard to get started in this climate. New young trees need to be watered for the first few years of their establishment. Sadly, even some of those will die or be vandalised and need to be replanted. This comes with a cost which, on average, is more than the cost of the tree itself. Then even the young trees will require water during conditions like our last summer, when public appeals were put out by the government and many other people to please water your street tree.
I am concerned that the Liberals have not factored these costs into their promise of a million trees, because I would like to see this promise happen. Mr Coe said in his launch video that the whole commitment would be funded through existing areas of government like the Yarralumla Nursery. I am concerned that possibly he does not appreciate the scale of the costs involved. If implemented just like that, it would cause a huge funding cost cut to the rest of the city services budget which would impact on areas like street sweeping, lawn mowing, playground maintenance and general city maintenance.
Part of the Liberals’ plan is to give trees to young people to get them involved in tree planting. I quote from the Canberra Liberals’ website:
A Canberra Liberals Government will give every child a voucher on their first day of kindergarten for a tree from a Canberra nursery of their choice. Families can use the voucher to redeem a tree, or a pot plant if that is more suitable to their premises, to plant in their own backyard.
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