Page 2321 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 29 August 2007
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accept mixed waste from skip bin and trash pack operators and separate out the various materials for recycling.
This is yet another positive example of the government’s commitment to no waste. I believe that the government has achieved great success in progressing the no waste strategy with commendable gains in resource recovery. We are international leaders in waste minimisation, something about which the ACT community should be very proud. I look forward to seeing further waste minimisation gains to be made under initiatives currently being implemented and, importantly, to the next no waste action plan that will take us forward on our path to a no waste future.
I trust that I have been able to address most of the things that Dr Foskey raised with me. I again thank her for raising the issue because I welcome any opportunity to get the no waste message into the community. That is why we hand out no waste awards, that is why our officers go and talk to businesses and that is why we are signatories to the national packaging covenant. There will always be a little something like asbestos that will need to go to landfill. We cannot do much about that, which is a frustration. But I think that a 76 per cent achievement at this point in the cycle is a good response to the target, and something that is not matched anywhere else in Australia.
MR PRATT (Brindabella) (12.16): I welcome Dr Foskey’s motion. In the nanoseconds available this morning in this rather rushed debate I discussed with the minister the points he raised that are relevant to his amendment and I have given his amendment the quickest consideration I can give it in light of this compressed debate. I endorse the minister’s statement that, if we had known about this motion a little earlier, we might have been able to come to a more sensible arrangement in relation to the issues we support and the issues we seek to amend.
Given the opposition’s criticism of the government for not having moved quickly enough on the no waste strategy, the opposition will not be supporting the government’s amendment to Dr Foskey’s motion, nor will it seek to try to amend it. That brings me back to this point: In general, we find Dr Foskey’s motion attractive but we will seek to amend it. Therefore, I seek leave to move my amendment, which will add value to Dr Foskey’s motion.
MR SPEAKER: There is still a question before the house, that is, Mr Hargreaves’s amendment. We have to dispose of that.
MR PRATT: You are quite right; we are discussing an amendment to the motion. I foreshadow that the opposition will not support the government’s amendment. As I just outlined, I will circulate my amendment which seeks to add value to Dr Foskey’s motion. I will, therefore, talk to Dr Foskey’s motion and to my foreshadowed amendment.
MR SPEAKER: You can speak only to the question that is before the house, that is, that the amendment be agreed to. That is Mr Hargreaves’s amendment.
MR PRATT: I will do that, Mr Speaker. I will commence by reiterating the opposition’s position on the no waste strategy. I would like to quote some elements of
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