Page 5256 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
money and we did it. It was appropriate for the nation’s capital, and I have to say that I was immensely proud when the United Nations Ambassador for the Environment and several well-known international individuals in the environmental movement stood up with Sir William Deane, the Governor-General of Australia, and said, “This is what we can achieve together.”
But what has happened on the earth charter since the Stanhope government has come to office? Absolutely nothing. It was fantastic yesterday to hear about the firewood strategy. There was Mr Corbell espousing how good the firewood strategy was. Who did it? I am quite pleased to say I did it. I did it with the support of the Assembly. Again, I will give Kerrie Tucker her due: we had a lot of discussions about it, but we got together and we did something. The fact that it is still in place today says the leadership showed a decade ago was appropriate, the strategy was appropriate and it was a good thing.
So, Mr Corbell, do not come in here being Mr Environment and saying you are the only one showing leadership. It is not true. We have got on the record things like our high quality design and sustainability, where we said—and I did this as planning minister—“Let us make sure our design is sustainable.” Look at the record of the Carnell government. We shifted a town centre to save endangered species. We put land back in reserve—yellow box, red gum, grassy woodlands, for instance, in Jerrabomberra Valley. I started that process. The former government started that process. There is the work we did at Tidbinbilla to build the environmentally friendly information centre which then fostered and supported the programs to help endangered species like the rock wallabies, some of the frogs and the other species out there.
Something I am particularly proud of is the fact that we put money into the new shed at the tip site for Revolve. Yes, we put the money into the tip site for a new shed for Revolve so that Revolve, a community-minded organisation that employed people with particular problems, could assist the community in recycling. And they did a great job, until they were locked out of their facility by the Stanhope Labor government. I can go on and on. We looked at things like bike racks on buses. Yes, that was a Liberal initiative. Funnily enough, it was stymied by the union for a couple of years because they did not want to do it. We were not helped by the Labor Party to get it up, but bike racks on buses started under the Liberal Party.
One that I have to say is curious is the green bin trial. Should Canberrans have a third bin? Again, we did that in 2000 and 2001. We went to Chifley as an ideal suburb and gave them all a green bin, tested it and got a report back that said green bins were the go; green bins would work; the people of Canberra supported them; people liked them; they actually worked. We devised a system that actually worked, that actually allowed Canberrans to, again, increase their efforts in recycling. Anybody would have had the logical expectation that that idea might have got up, but here we are, eight years later, and we do not have green bins in the ACT.
In terms of tree plantings and all those sorts of projects, we started those sorts of projects. I would say we clearly carried on some of the work of the Follett government, which also did tree plantings. But there was an effort there to get the
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video