Page 1819 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
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(ii) Weathering the Change–Action Plan 2;
(iii) the ACT Sustainable Waste Strategy;
(iv) the Sustainable Transport Action Plan / Transport for Canberra Plan; and
(v) the Review of the Nature Conservation Act;
(b) that the Government has not met a number of public commitments about when these strategies would be finalised;
(c) that the Government has undertaken little follow-up consultation during the ongoing development of these strategies and reviews;
(d) that the development and implementation of these strategies are essential to ensure the ACT Government meets its commitment to a 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions on 1990 levels by 2020; and
(e) that the NoWaste by 2010 strategy expired last year; and
(2) calls on the Government to:
(a) table in the Assembly, by the first sitting day in June 2011, timelines for the public consultation, finalisation and public release of these strategies, policies and legislative reforms listed in paragraph (1)(a); and
(b) complete the strategies, policies and legislative reforms within the timelines tabled pursuant to paragraph (2)(a).
I have brought this motion to this Assembly out of a mounting sense of unease and a need for accountability about the fact that the government are not delivering on a range of sustainability strategies in a timely manner, in spite of their vocal support for the direction of making Canberra a more sustainable city.
The Greens obviously have these issues as a priority for the ACT. It is a large part of our policy agenda, and sustainability issues are a large part of why people support our party and our role in parliaments around the country. We have seen over time that sustainability issues have become more mainstream, both with the public and with governments around the country. The public could be feeling reassured that governments are now taking sustainability issues seriously, yet, strangely enough, we are not seeing a significant shift in sustainability indicators.
Our greenhouse emissions in the main continue to rise, our waste per capita is rising, and we continue to under-invest in public transport while we build more roads and put more cars on the road. We continue to see a demise in our biodiversity with warnings of significant species loss over the next decades, much of which is a result of loss of habitat from urban sprawl.
Here in the ACT we have a Labor government that have certainly professed a strong commitment to sustainability issues over many years. They reflect a strong belief in
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