Page 598 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 30 March 2021
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continue to update people on the actions that we are taking as we go forward. It is part of our approach to climate change that we want to grow our canopy cover and make sure that we are protecting trees at the very beginning.
The number one outcome of the strategy is to protect the existing trees that we have, particularly from property development, and we are looking at a range of ways to do that, including a canopy contributions framework, like the City of Melbourne has introduced, to provide disincentives to remove existing trees. Putting a value on a mature tree both disincentivises it from being removed but also, if it is damaged or removed by a developer, that then funds additional plantings in the area from which it was taken.
Environment—water quality
MR DAVIS: My question is to the Minister for Water, Energy and Emissions Reduction, and it relates to Lake Tuggeranong. Minister, since being elected less than six months ago, I can tell you that there is no issue I have received more representations on from my constituents than the state of Lake Tuggeranong. Can you please outline what work the government has done and has planned in the future to improve the water quality and overall amenity of Lake Tuggeranong?
MR RATTENBURY: I am aware that this is an issue of significant interest for Tuggeranong residents. Unfortunately, Lake Tuggeranong has, for a number of years now, experienced particular problems with blue-green algae. The government has taken a number of steps to seek to address this. Seven of the 20 new assets constructed under the Healthy Waterways program, which is the $93Â million program co-funded with the federal government, have been in the Lake Tuggeranong catchment, recognising the importance of improving that water body and knowing the steps that we need to take. That has included, of course, perhaps the most high-profile one, the Isabella Ponds clean-out, which I know Mr Gentleman has spoken about here a number of times.
These projects are expected to intercept, on average, 732 tonnes of sediment and nutrients a year from inflows to the lake, which will make, we believe, a material difference to the state of the lake. There are a number of other areas of work going on in terms of Lake Tuggeranong. There is further research going on to understand where the nutrient flows are coming from.
Yesterday, I was at Lake Tuggeranong, where we launched a new floating wetland. That has specifically come about from that new research, which identified that that inlet into Lake Tuggeranong was a particular source of nutrient flow into the lake; therefore a particular treatment was needed for that location. This is an example of the sort of work that is going on.
We also need to further educate the community about how to help manage the lake. There is clearly a lot of nutrient flowing into the lake from right across the catchment. We need to do further work to be clear that grass clippings, leaves and those sort of things should not go down the drain, because they are a significant source of nutrients for that catchment.
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