Page 1822 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
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unknown. The minister was concerned that he was misrepresented on this issue when he again answered questions in question time yesterday, but he repeated it. He said:
… it would be prudent to have regard to developments at a federal level before concluding decisions at a territory level. That remains the government’s position.
I take that to mean that the ACT is now waiting on federal government action, and that, as we know, could be a long wait. Yet we are able to go ahead and set a renewable energy target without waiting for the federal government, and we are able to set feed-in tariff policies without waiting for the federal government. I would put it to the minister that the only reason the government is ready to set a renewable energy target by tomorrow is that the climate change legislation obliges it to do so.
Then there is action plan 2, the consultation for which the minister committed to holding in the first quarter of 2011 and which will now be released when the ACT government, according to the minister, “has finalised its consideration of action plan 2”. I do not think that is a very satisfactory response. It is vague and circular and does not really speak to any sense of accountability to the community.
Let me turn to the waste strategy. The government’s no waste by 2010 strategy expired in December 2009, and yet it only released its draft for a new strategy in December 2010. Given how long we know it takes to finalise new government strategies, this leaves the ACT without a waste strategy for at least a year and probably more, and the old one and its accompanying action plan is so out of date it is almost irrelevant.
The resource recovery rate for the ACT has typically been up at around 75 per cent, the best in Australia. But the ACT has now dropped to about 69 per cent, and the target for next year is now 68 per cent, as we discovered in yesterday’s budget. The government has dropped the ball on waste and no longer holds the title for having the highest waste recovery in the country.
What we are starting to see is the delayed impact of not addressing waste policy over the past five to six years. The government have to take full responsibility for this as it has happened on their watch. We are in desperate need of a new waste strategy which reflects current best practice and best technologies.
The waste strategy story is a little like the energy policy story. As we know, the no waste by 2010 strategy ended on 31 December 2009. The government reviewed the no waste strategy in 2008, and money was provided in the 2009-10 budget to develop a new waste strategy. The government had said it would have a discussion paper out for that by October 2009, suggesting that it intended to have a strategy to cover the 2010 year. By March 2010 we still had not seen the discussion paper or the strategy, and my colleague Ms Le Couteur asked where they were. Mr Corbell said the government was still working on them.
When in November 2010 we still had not seen any strategy or paper, the minister said they would be released later that year. Finally on 8 December 2010 the minister released a new draft ACT sustainable waste strategy 2010–25. Comments were due by
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