Page 3691 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
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A low carbon, green economy that provides for the community’s livelihood but does not do so at the expense of the environment is the best way to ensure long-term prosperity. We must recognise that the four key forces affecting the Australian economy are climate change, the ageing population, the information and communications technology revolution and the re-emergence of China and India. As much as these are challenges, they are also opportunities.
Climate change is a significant economic risk. We have to fundamentally change the way we power our homes, business and transport networks. In the ACT we are very well placed to be encouraging emerging industries that will diversify our economy and provide greater long-term stability. We now have innovative people in Castlemaine, Victoria, building electric cars. There is no reason why the ACT cannot be cultivating this type of innovation as well.
We have a generous domestic feed-in tariff scheme for renewable energy generation. We now need to be expanding that scheme to commercial scale production to further encourage investment in the energy sector of the future. Solar energy represents a huge opportunity for Canberra.
The information and communications revolution is not over and the low carbon economy is just beginning. The ACT’s resources are not in the ground but in our heads. We are a knowledge-based economy, and we should be investing in our strengths. The Greens support improvements to our IT infrastructure and the national broadband network. It is in both the ACT and the nation’s economic interests to pursue this technology so that we can participate in the knowledge economy and capitalise on our educational resources.
I should make the point that our educational institutions make a significant contribution to our economic prosperity, and the Greens’ view is that greater investment in education will lead to more sustainable, long-term economic prosperity. Other economies have recognised the environmental and economic imperative to shift to a low carbon, green economy and have begun the process.
We have a great opportunity to build an economy that will not only help the ACT prosper but will ensure our fair contribution to a more sustainable world. We need businesses and infrastructure to be delivering better returns on natural, human and economic capital investments, while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions, extracting and using fewer natural resources, creating less waste and reducing social disparities.
The ACT is well placed to become a leader in renewable energy, energy efficiency, sustainable water systems, biomaterials, green buildings, waste and recycling. The ACT has a small but dynamic manufacturing industry, a less than average proportion of industry share, but, nevertheless, a valuable part of the ACT economy. Given that our education services are more than 50 per cent greater than the national average proportionate share, we should be linking these two sectors and creating a world-class and technology-leading manufacturing sector that produces environmentally sustainable products that are also economically sustainable. The Greens’ view is that
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