Page 1719 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 1 May 2012
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dip in landfill to waste achieved between 2003 and 2007 has now been reversed. The commissioner also expressed his concern that the government will not meet its commitment made under action plan 1 to achieve carbon neutrality in its own operations.
That the government cannot meet its own operational targets does not offer the community great confidence when it comes to delivering our ambitious territory-wide targets. These findings point to a pressing need for stronger and more integrated approaches to emissions reduction, resource management and waste avoidance, and reduction strategies in the ACT.
That said, there was some good news in this report. Not all of the findings were as bleak as some of the ones I have discussed. It should be noted that a range of success stories were reported. These largely concern community-based initiatives led by groups and institutions including the University of Canberra, SEE-Change, the Canberra Organic Growers Society, Canberra Loves 40% and others. Promisingly, the proportion of our electricity consumption sourced from renewable energy almost doubled to 8.94 per cent. However, it will require much stronger investment over the coming years to ensure that the ACT can reduce its dependence upon fossil fuels, which currently comprise 91 per cent of our total electricity use.
Let me simply conclude by saying that the findings from the ACT state of the environment 2011 report indicate that the ACT’s environmental trajectory is headed in the wrong direction. The days of writing strategy document upon strategy document must be over. We need real and concerted action on the range of problems the commissioner has identified lest the findings in this and subsequent state of the environment reports grow in severity and extent.
The irony is that many of the problems identified by the commissioner could be simply addressed. Greater investment in public transport and renewable energy, forward-thinking approaches to urban planning and prioritisation of high conservation value areas will go a long way towards reversing these worrying trends.
It is time to stop moving backwards and to start moving forwards. We owe this to the Canberra community, to our children and to the environment itself. The Greens wish to thank the commissioner and the staff of the Office of the Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment for bringing these very serious issues to the Canberra community’s attention. We look forward to working with all members of the Assembly to deliver real environmental leadership in the ACT and to ensure that when the next reform comes out in four years time we can see improvement in a number of these important indicators.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (3.30): I think that this report is a very poor reflection and poor summary of 3½ years of this Labor-Greens alliance. There is no doubt that much of what Mr Rattenbury says in his speech is true. Mr Rattenbury said things like “there are business as usual policies on the environment; emissions are increasing; the amount of waste is growing”. All of this is true, but we have got to ask ourselves: why are the Greens standing here and complaining about it after 3½ years when they have been passing every budget, ticking off on every measure?
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