Page 459 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 June 1989
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squandered our energy resources and built up an inversion layer. That fog, of course, is slowly creeping down around that other hill. It is enveloping it. Of course, the fog was very apparent at the ALP conference over the weekend when people referred to the Rally's 25 policies as trendy and not community based. Well, time will tell, Mr Speaker. If this Government does not introduce a realistic environment policy integrated with those other matters I mentioned, the Rally will be back here soon in government with the majority holding in this Assembly. You all know that, and that is the warning the Rally gives.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister) (11.06): I am happy to support this motion of Mr Moore's, as my colleague Mrs Grassby has done. I believe that Mrs Grassby has addressed a great many of the issues concerned here, but I would just like to recapitulate some of them. I think it is important that we all acknowledge that the ACT imports almost all of the energy that it uses, and those energy sources are mainly petrol, electricity and natural gas, but there is also a small contribution from wood and other solid fuels and a very small contribution from solar power.
The fact that we are a user of energy rather than a generator, if I could use that word, has some quite major implications for us as a Territory. I think the greatest implication is that we are very vulnerable to what other people do about energy. We import nearly all of it, so we must of course be vulnerable to what happens to the source of that energy.
It also means that we are obliged to be efficient managers of energy. I think, basically what Mr Moore's motion is getting at is the fact that we do need to manage energy resources efficiently for a variety of reasons. As everybody knows, most energy sources are finite. There is an end, I presume, to the amount of coal and natural gas that is available, and where resources are renewable, such as with wood and solar power, we are not making efficient use of them. I think that has some great implications for the future management of the ACT's energy.
There is also the question of pollution by various energy sources. The motor car in Canberra is by far the worst polluter, I believe, but, as some speakers have pointed out, there is significant pollution occurring from the use of solid fuel stoves. That pollution is mainly seen, and smelt, in the form of a grey or brown haze over Canberra in the winter months. It is a quite visible reminder of the polluting effects of that particular form of energy consumption and one that has come to the notice of a great many people in the ACT.
Mrs Grassby has recently put out a little booklet on the use and control of solid fuel stoves. I think that we might try to see that booklet more widely distributed, more widely used. It is a useful source of information for householders on how their own particular home heating
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