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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (17 April) . . Page.. 997 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

A study would also take into account whether collecting the recycling bins every second week is the right way to go. In my household of five people, and sometimes six people, we put our small garbage bin out once a week one-third full or half full, although occasionally it is full. In the case of the recycling bin, we seem to be always waiting for that second week. Perhaps we should do it the other way round. Perhaps we should be picking up the landfill bins every second week and the recycling bins each week.

Mr Speaker, it is quite clear that the Government and the backbencher, Mr Hird, recognise that it is necessary to have an extra transfer station in North Canberra. There is a beautiful site already set up. It does the job perfectly. It is the Ainslie Transfer Station site. While you are considering this you ought to take into account the logical and sensible way of dealing with it and reopen the Ainslie Transfer Station. That is why, Mr Speaker, I have moved the amendment that has now been circulated in my name.

MR HIRD (12.25): I will speak to the amendment. Mr Moore obviously has not read the motion. It is very clear. When the Ainslie Transfer Station was operational there was a recycling centre at Mitchell. The recycling centre in Mitchell is in the centre of the growing area known as Gungahlin. We are talking of a feasibility study. Should it go ahead, it would make more sense to have the facility centrally located so that it would take the pressure off the Gungahlin area, North Canberra and Belconnen. I said that in my opening remarks.

This amendment does very little. Mr Moore does not understand the motion. There has already been a series of inquiries as to whether we should or should not have the transfer station operational in Ainslie. I am not talking about that. The Government made a decision some 18 months ago to close that station. We did close it, knowing full well that we had a recycling centre in a central location. This central location affords all people within that immediate area the opportunity to recycle glass, plastics, et cetera. Now I am asking the Urban Services Minister, Mr De Domenico, to ask his officers to undertake a feasibility study as to whether it is practical to have this facility in a central location. We are not going to turn back the clock. We are not turning back the clock to have the transfer station recommissioned in Ainslie.

This is a nonsense amendment. As its mover, Mr Moore, indicated in the beginning, he was concerned about other matters at the time. He has rushed in where, I suggest, fools would. He has moved a nonsensical amendment. It has not the slightest relevance to the motion that I moved. Mr Speaker, I urge members to disregard this amendment and to stay with the original motion.

MS HORODNY (12.28): This proposal, Mr Speaker, which effectively is about providing more facilities for collection of household waste, is in contradiction of the Government's commitment to no waste going to landfill by 2010, as outlined in their draft waste management strategy for Canberra that was released in January. It is also contrary to the national waste management strategy, which the ACT Government has endorsed and which seeks to reduce waste going to landfill by 50 per cent by the year 2000. What the Government should be doing is examining ways of reducing waste generation overall, not examining ways of making it easier for people to dispose of whatever waste they want to produce.

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