Page 5808 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 2010
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Instead, we have got a government that hides behind its cabinet-in-confidence. The minister can, if he so chooses, release the cabinet-in-confidence document. And if the minister knew that it would have a positive effect on the Assembly, he would be down here quoting from it and distributing it so that everybody would know what the impact would be on us as a community. But the silence from the minister and the very fact that the regulatory impact statement was done after the bill was tabled, after the minister was asked for it and it was pushed through cabinet then, would indicate to me that the minister is not being quite open with this place, as he should be.
The minister will have a chance to close the debate and it will be interesting if the minister stands up and gives us a commitment that he will table the regulatory impact statement sometime today. It will be interesting if the minister stands up and actually shuts the bill down until such time as he has a copy of that to be tabled in the Assembly. But I do not suspect that will happen. We know that when the minister is on shaky ground he does not release that sort of documentation.
It is important that we see that documentation. We see the trend, particularly from this government, of more and more legislation. The only way they seem to be able to do anything is through legislation, instead of, for instance, trying to get the community onboard, instead of, for instance, seeking other alternatives to effect a long-term change without inconveniencing the community.
We know the ACT community is very good at recycling and we know that they accept the need for recycling. And they do so very well. Indeed, for years, we have led the country in terms of effort in recycling paper and recycling containers and all those sorts of things and reducing the impact. We know that because we used to have a thing called no waste by 2010. But of course it got reduced to no waste. I wonder whether, on 1 January 2011, it will disappear altogether. Part of no waste by 2010 was to find credible alternatives to what people saw as problems. The problem for this government is that they have not done anything to reduce that.
The other day there was an Australian firm that came up with what they believe to be a credible starch-based alternative to polyurethane. That is the sort of industry and that is the sort of technology and breakthrough that no waste by 2010 was there to drive. But of course this government abandoned no waste by 2010, the same as they abandoned the previous government’s greenhouse gas targets. For almost nine years, they have done nothing in this field. And that is why we have got the minister standing up, all hairy-chested, dropping his bill, no consultation, saying, “We are going to change the world.”
Take what Ms Le Couteur said. I do know the value of good examples but I just wonder how many of those bags from the ACT travel all the way down the Molonglo to the Murrumbidgee, from the Murrumbidgee to the Murray, from the Murray to the sea and then find their way into the Pacific Ocean.
We all know it is important to protect the environment but let us look at what it is that we are banning today. We are actually banning one of the great recycling efforts of the Canberra community. They take a shopping bag and they use it for a multitude of
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