Page 3814 - Week 11 - Thursday, 24 November 2022
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
Most recently I have been thrilled to further this campaign for better amenity about the lake by sponsoring my constituents petition to redevelop Tuggeranong’s 25-year-old skate park. I would encourage anyone interested to jump on to the e-petitions website and add their signature; 620 and growing, Madam Speaker!
But let me get back to the weeds. Lake Tuggeranong was originally designed to be a catchment. In that regard, it is great at gathering sediment. As my motion states, during the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 periods sediment in Lake Tuggeranong released more than 110 kilograms of phosphorus each time. Modelling shows you only need 80 to 100 kilograms to maintain algal blooms, which we have comfortably exceeded each year.
I was surprised to learn that the public and water scientists seem to have very different ideas of what the biggest risks to the lake are. Reading the State of the lakes and waterways in the ACT report released by the Commissioner for Sustainability and Environment, I learnt that the community considers litter to be the biggest problem to water quality, followed closely by blue green algal blooms and pest fish species, like the mammoth carp we find. However these water scientists are telling us that the single biggest concern is actually organic matter from leaves and grass clippings. The sediment that settles in Lake Tuggeranong then provides the perfect storm, nutrients for the blue-green algal blooms and in spite of our best efforts, they have become synonymous with our lake.
We already have measures in place to start to combat the sheer volume of leaves and organic matter ending up in the lake. In fact my colleague the Minister for Water was able to secure funding for the Leaf Collective that I mentioned earlier. The Leaf Collective are brilliant. They are a community-minded and community-run organisation working with Canberrans to help keep up to 200,000 litres of leaves out of our waterways. They are encouraging all of us, telling us about how we in the community can adopt a tree or a drain to keep clean and providing us with the tools and information we need to act on the issue.
But my concern is that it risks being hypocritical—or at least being perceived as hypocritical—when people in the community see the government helping the community make better choices for themselves that they do not necessarily see the government making. We need to acknowledge the effect that our widespread government mowing program has on our waterways. Then we have to try and mitigate that effect, given all the hard work that we are doing in this space and the money that we are spending.
It is really important for me at this point to clarify that the last thing I want to do is to diminish or dismiss the incredible work of frontline TCCS staff, who have been working around the clock over recent months to keep our nature strips and footpaths clear of grass. Any member in this place has been reminded of our dual responsibility as a city councillor and as a state MP in the state of our grasses at the moment. I would hate to do an all-word search for mowing in my inbox. It would probably come up with most of the emails I have received. About a year ago in this chamber Minister Steel was kind enough to give us the figures. We have 73 mowers and between them they have managed to mow a whopping 72,000 hectares of public space in the last two seasons. That averages to 68 hectares per mower, per month. I think we
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video