Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome this opportunity to make some further remarks to the inquiry into Sustainability for survival: creating a climate for change: inquiry into a sustainability charter, a report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage. In doing so, I wish to perhaps put in greater detail and context the reasons that this inquiry came about. On 12 September 2005, the House environment committee tabled the Sustainable cities inquiry. At present, the committee, the parliament and the nation still await a response from the government to this report.

In the recommendations of Sustainable cities, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage, under the heading ‘Governance and policy frameworks—developing a national approach’, recommended that the Australian government ‘establish an Australian sustainability charter that sets key national targets across a number of areas, including water, transport, energy, building design and planning’ and ‘encourage a Council of Australian Governments agreement to the charter and its key targets’. Further, the committee recommended:

... that all new relevant Australian Government policy proposals be evaluated as to whether they would impact on urban sustainability and if so, be assessed against the Australian Sustainability Charter and the COAG agreed sustainability targets.

Further, the committee went on to recommend that:

... the Australian Government establish an independent Australian Sustainability Commission headed by a National Sustainability Commissioner ...

It is a little disappointing, when we meet here two years later, to indicate that there has not been a response to those recommendations and the recommendations in toto of the sustainable cities inquiry. In that report, at 3.85, it says:

The committee urges in the strongest possible manner that these recommendations be implemented in totality in the shortest possible timeframe. The time is right and as a nation we need to make the right decisions.

That was two years ago. In the absence of any decisions, that is still the case.

Given that the committee was of a view, what was to be the next step? The next step of course is this inquiry into a sustainable charter, and the committee’s report Sustainability for survival: creating a climate for change. Regrettably, this inquiry arose out of the committee using to the fullest the devices that are allowed by the standing orders. Remember, primarily the way that a committee gets a reference is to have it referred by a minister, a member of the executive. Given that there had not been a response within the time frame to the committee’s report, back on 16 February 2006 the committee resolved under the provisions of standing order 215(c) to undertake an inquiry into a sustainability charter. How did it do that? The standing orders allow that we can adopt a matter arising from a study of a departmental annual report referred to the committee. So the device that was used in the motion to make this reference was that, in the 2004-05 Department of the Environment and Heritage annual report, there was a reference made to a ‘policy approach required to achieve a sustainable Australia’. So, arising out of a report that started in the 40th Parliament, the first public discussions with the community by way of hearings and visits having been in January 2004, two years later after having reported to the parliament—a nearly six-month delay in having any response to that report—the committee decided to go the further step to flesh out what was required of a sustainability charter.

I think that the House committee can be pleased with the report that they have tabled and with the recommendations they have made. It is interesting—in the context of the debate that goes on about matters to do with the environment, matters to do with sustainability and, to the extent that they overarch, matters to do with climate change—that the committee make no apology that they have suggested that the sustainability charter should be aspirational in nature but that it should overarch the technical work that would go into ensuring that there were definite goals that had to be achieved. That has been the intent of the committee right through.

Remember, this is a journey that started in the 40th Parliament. We are now towards the end of the 41st Parliament. The House environment committee, with a number of people being members of that committee, has indicated bipartisan support for the recommendations of both reports that the government needs to show leadership.

Further, we have acknowledged that in the Australian federal system, under the national leadership of the federal government, we require that the federal government embrace the hopes and aspirations of the state government. In fact, this is a problem which needs to be tackled by all—local government, the wider community, industry groups, people, families—under any configuration. There is some discussion, and the chair in his foreword to the report we are discussing today, Sustainability for survival: creating a climate for change, indicated that economic matters have to be taken into consideration and some people might be baulking at those because they think that there is an economic cost. He went on to say that people had to understand that we need to look at what the economic cost is if we do not take action.

But we should also remember that there are plenty of people that think that there can be productivity dividends as a result of the work that would lead to sustainability. I quote from the original sustainable cities inquiry, where Marcus Spiller, the past President of the Planning Institute of Australia, said:

The fact is that, if we had sustainable cities, there would be a significant productivity dividend to the country. In other words, GDP would be greater, other things being equal, if we had better functioning and efficient cities.

So there is the potential, the opportunity—and it is an opportunity that is lost if we see a government like the Howard government not respond to these recommendations. This is an issue where we must ensure that, when we see agreement by parliamentarians across the chamber in this case, executive government does not ignore that body of work. Often it really distresses me that those who by virtue of their membership of this parliament become executive members of government should, once they become executive members of government, turn their backs on the workings of the parliament. This exercise about sustainability is an example of the potential for an Australian parliament to reach out to the community that we represent and to come up with solutions that are valid and that will be successful if put in place.

I want to say something to all those people over these two inquiries who have given of their time, given of their good advice and entered into the discussions, because not of all of them can be satisfied by the deliberations of the committee; that is not the nature of it. These committees have tried to make sure that, by this bipartisan decision to agree with a framework, we go forward. But how are we going to encourage people to front up yet again if government ignores this process? I hope that, when we see whichever government is in place after the election, either the Howard government will have a conversion on the road to Damascus or a Rudd led Labor government will see that these types of exercises are very important. I, for one, look forward to working with Minister Garrett and Mr Rudd’s other ministers in a holistic approach by a Rudd Labor government on the issues that are raised and seeing the sustainability charter being successfully implemented by cooperation across all future governments. (Time expired)

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