Document Index 1999-2000 Ministerial Statements Investing in our Natural and Cultural Heritage Chapter 2

INTRODUCTION

Achieving ecologically sustainable development requires the integration of environmental considerations across the range of Commonwealth policies and programmes. This Commonwealth Environment Expenditure Statement describes the full range of Commonwealth environmental programmes and activities. It builds on such Statements in the two previous Budgets.

This Statement highlights new measures in the 1999-2000 Budget, while giving a broad outline of environment programmes, and programmes and activities that contribute to better environmental outcomes, across all portfolios.

Financial information and descriptions of programmes represent the information currently available within Commonwealth reporting systems. Identification of what is environmental expenditure depends on the extent to which spending can be ascribed to environmental purposes or outcomes. This varies with programmes. Often environmental aspects are difficult to separate from other outcomes, being fully integrated into activities. While this is consistent with the principles of ecologically sustainable development it can restrict the ability to document all environment expenditure. Inevitably, some expenditure cannot be accurately recorded. For this reason it would not be meaningful to provide a total of all the programme expenditures identified in the tables in this Statement.