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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (9 May) . . Page.. 1304 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

Leave granted.

MR SMYTH: I am pleased to table the government's response to the ACT Commissioner for the Environment's review. Since the launch of the no waste by 2010 strategy in December 1996, the strategy has been backed by broad community support. After three years of waste minimisation programs, the strategy has made significant reductions in the amount of waste generated in the ACT and has a positive impact on resource recovery levels. Over this period, resource recovery has more than doubled.

Now, three years closer to the target, it is appropriate to reappraise the directions of the strategy. In 1999 the Commissioner for the Environment undertook a review of the effectiveness and efficiency of the actions and outcomes of the strategy, with particular emphasis on any impediments to its implementation.

In brief, the recommendations of the commissioner are:

    clarify and publicise the government's goals for the strategy;

    ensure the actions identified for the first two years are completed, in particular identification of full costs of each type of waste and comprehensive benchmarking;

    develop a strong focus on initiatives to engender community commitment to achieving the goal of no waste by 2010. This requires initiatives under "information programs and community support" and "public recognition";

    ensure that development of infrastructure for resource recovery estates and the National No Waste Education Centre is implemented and that the resource recovery estates are managed in such a way that they do not replace landfills as repositories of waste;

    use an appropriate central structure in government, or one that may cross agency or business unit boundaries, to prioritise actions for implementation of the strategy to 2010;

    use an appropriate central structure in government, or one that may cross agency or business unit boundaries, to identify and articulate the socio-economic and environmental consequences for the ACT of moving towards no waste to landfill by 2010;

    use an appropriate central structure in government, or one that may cross agency or business unit boundaries, to ensure adequate and appropriate resources are provided to implement the no waste strategy in accordance with the demands of the operating environment;

    initiate a whole of government approach to achievement of the no waste by 2010 strategy and implement best practice waste management in all government agencies and departments; and