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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 3 Hansard (27 March) . . Page.. 737 ..

MR KAINE (continuing):

One of our bigger concerns in the ACT is ACTEW and, despite assertions by some, environment management forms a great deal of ACTEW's day-to-day operations in all branches. It is not merely an add-on activity; it is part of their management activity. The ACTEW Corporation has an environment management plan up to the year 2000, and each year, under that plan, it establishes an environment action program. They are well aware of their responsibility. They are conscious of it and they plan and manage it.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I think the things that I have described are sufficient to show that this Government, as were previous governments, to give them their due, is well aware of the need to maintain our environment, to protect our waterways, and to take positive action to prevent degradation and pollution. As I said before, I do not believe that Ms Horodny or anybody else can assert that the Government is not entirely conscious of its responsibility and that it is not doing anything to deal with it. I believe that the ACT Parks and Conservation Service, incidentally, who play a significant role in caring for our waterways, are managing those facilities well. I think the excellent quality of the water in our waterways is a true reflection of the way in which the Parks and Conservation Service people manage this resource. I cannot accept that the comprehensive strategy and program in place for maintaining and enhancing our waterways warrants any degree of criticism at all. I think that the Government can honestly claim that they well understand the importance of protecting and enhancing the ACT's waterways, including our lakes, rivers and dams, and they are doing a great deal to ensure it.

MR MOORE (4.33): It is actually a pleasure to stand up and support the intention of this matter of public importance, and that is to recognise "The importance of protecting and enhancing the ACT's waterways, including our lakes, rivers and dams". How could I do anything else? How could anybody do anything else? The statement is such a broad motherhood one that we would not have any choice. One of the interesting things is that Ms Horodny comes into this Assembly and almost suggests that now that the Greens are here we are going to have to begin to protect our waterways. Some of us who are sitting in this chamber today were doing some things about this long before the Greens were conceived of as a party in the ACT. That does not mean that there are not more things to do. Of course there are. There will always be things to do to improve the quality of our waterways and to enhance our waterways, lakes, rivers and dams. But we have been doing things, Madam Deputy Speaker, some of us in our role on our environment committees, which I have worked on for the last five or six years, and some of us in a range of other roles.

Ms Horodny mentioned the issue - she has mentioned it to me a number of times recently - of invasive plants and feral animals. Before the ACT Greens were even formed I was chair of a committee that looked into that issue and brought down a report on what should be done about it at that time. Since that time we have had more information available to us.

Mr Humphries: A very good report, too.

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