Page 3497 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.52): I just note in passing that we do find it a bit amusing when Greens members get up and lament that the government have not done something. They are part of the government; they are in alliance with them. If they wanted it done, you suspect that they could achieve it. One of the interesting things in discussing the environment when you have got the Greens with the balance of power, with the Greens part of a Labor-Greens government, is that you would expect, based on what they claim to believe, that the environment would be the one thing that would have improved in these last four years.
No-one is surprised. No-one who views politics and understands anything about the Greens and the Labor Party would be surprised at how much the cost of living has gone up over the last four years. No-one would be surprised that they have mismanaged the budget over the last four years. But perhaps they would be a bit surprised that, with the Greens having their best opportunity ever to influence things here in the ACT, having been at the peak of their powers at the last election, they have not delivered on the environment. One of the reasons I think we are seeing the decline with the Greens is that they have not delivered.
The environment has gone backwards over the last four years. It is not me saying it; it is the state of the environment report that says that during the term of this Labor-Greens government we have seen the environment go backwards in significant ways. Canberra’s ecological footprint is 13 per cent above the Australian average, the second-highest in the country behind Perth. People in Canberra are using 14 times the land in the ACT to support their lifestyles. Over the last five years, greenhouse gas emissions have increased by eight per cent. How is that 40 per cent target going? An eight per cent increase over the last five years. There is a long way to go. Waste generation is up 28 per cent, faster than the rate of population growth. Green space has decreased by nine per cent over the last four years. And there is only a 4.9 per cent take-up rate for green power by Canberra residents.
That is the record of the Labor-Greens government. The state of the environment report says it. I know that the Greens put a lot of store in the state of the environment report; they would like to see more power given to the commissioner, so I know that they take that very seriously. But unfortunately, it shows that the environment has gone backwards at a rate of knots. Maybe it is because of the focus. Maybe it is because the focus has been on tokenism rather than real, practical environmental solutions.
The Greens have denied Canberrans a third bin. They denied Canberrans a third bin because of their support for this Labor government or their failure to force their coalition partners to act on that. They have denied them some of these practical environmental solutions which are on the table. Instead, they have focused on things that do not actually improve the environment, like banning plastic bags. That is the sort of environmental policy which leads to waste generation increasing 28 per cent faster than the rate of population growth. When you focus on things that do not work, there is not enough energy going into things that do work.
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