Page 2793 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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TAMS is a very important part of the budget. All parts of the budget are important but this is municipal services. This is at the heart of how the city operates—a very important part of the budget. Of course one of the big issues across all portfolios was the savings and how the savings were to be achieved. If members go to page 98 of budget paper 3, a large percentage of the savings comes from the fact that the government is going to rip $11.238 million out of street trees, deferral of tree planting. Of course that is in TAMS.
I did not hear the Chief Minister talk about it. I am not sure I have heard anybody from the Greens talk about it. Indeed, when you go to volume 1 of the report looking for recommendations perhaps for the deferral of this, there is nothing. There is no mention of street trees in territory and municipal services.
I thought that it must be in the environment. So I went to the environment section. There is absolutely no recommendation at all in the environment section of the budget for the Department of the Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Water. Mr Speaker, you, Ms Hunter, Ms Bresnan and Mr Hargreaves would be shocked.
I thought that it must be in LAPS. So I went looking for the recommendations in LAPS, LDA or ACTPLA. There are lots of dot points and there is a nice index to the budget and the estimates but unfortunately there is no recommendation.
So I am quite shocked that those that purport to represent the environment in this place and those that purport to love trees the most are actually not saying a word on the $11.238 million that is being ripped out of this budget by the Chief Minister, a self-confessed lover of trees, without any objection—absolutely no objection. But the only saving, the only significant saving, that can be found is street trees.
This is the bush capital. We are extremely proud of the bush capital. We all talk about Canberra being the bush capital. But the bush capital is slowly being chopped down by the Chief Minister and not renewed. And I think that is a shame. That is an extreme shame and it really is a reflection of the shallow words of the Chief Minister when he says he loves trees. But we are not going to proceed with this program.
I think it is a flawed decision and it is a decision that in fact I would like the Chief Minister to stand up and change. He could reinstate that money. He could take that money out of the arboretum. It will slow down the process of the arboretum some. It would appear that this is a report more interested in vanity projects than looking after the community.
In the estimates response that the Treasurer tabled this morning—it is quite interesting—one of the paragraphs is:
The Government is concerned about the direct criticism of the Chair, who the Government believes conducted the hearings in an efficient and professional manner.
Yet when you look, the efficient and professional manner has not managed to find a single fault or flaw in the environment department or, indeed, in LAPS, LDA or
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