Page 3600 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 21 November 2007
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tool. To suggest that it is vital is simply to completely misunderstand the climate change strategy and the 43 actions. Which of the 43 actions would require or depend on sustainability legislation? None. It is a nonsense to propose positions such as saying that the climate change strategy, which has been rubbished at another level as totally ineffectual, will suddenly become effectual if it is backed by sustainability legislation. How was that explained or justified? It is a nonsense.
There is something to be said for formalising. That is behind the position the government has taken in relation to this. We have done it administratively. We have embedded sustainability principles within our administration. There are requirements on all agencies; there is a specific requirement of Treasury in relation to the budget and preparation of budget papers. There is all the work we have done through our sustainability policy, “People Place Prosperity”.
There is all the work we have done in relation to the Canberra plan and its three sub-plans: the Canberra spatial plan, the economic white paper and the Canberra social plan identify sustainability as the fundamental theme shaping the future development of Canberra. At the core of every major strategic document that we have produced in the last six years—as a fundamental principle of the management of the territory and the business of government—is the centrality of sustainability to everything that we do.
One might identify gaps in relation to that overarching strategic network. Perhaps one of the gaps is sustainability legislation, something which we have identified as another plank in the formal mechanisms for dealing with issues around sustainability at all three levels. We are mindful of that; we have not abandoned that commitment.
In the last couple of months, as members would be aware, I have announced that for the first time we have appointed a full-time Commissioner for the Environment. Part of the restructuring of that role, which is an ongoing function in this determination, is that the commissioner will henceforth be known as the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment. It is a full-time position significantly funded in the budget, to the tune of over $600,000 additional a year. Just this week I met with the commissioner—now the Commissioner for the Environment, but she will be the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment once the appropriate amendments are made to the Commissioner for the Environment Act.
In the context of creating that as a full-time position—a position of commitment to sustainability of the environment—we will amend the legislation, not just to change the title and the name but also to broaden and incorporate within the role and the function of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment a whole range of additional responsibilities. We propose to provide the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment with a formal role in relation to the auditing of the climate change strategy. I foreshadowed that, and it is incorporated within the documentation in the strategy itself.
The Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment will have a role in the auditing of the implementation and the achievement of the action plans—their outcomes and the milestones in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. I have
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