Page 3815 - Week 11 - Thursday, 24 November 2022
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should do everything in our power to support these hardworking frontline workers. Not only are they keeping our paths, verges and intersections safe but they are also keeping them appealing and good to look at.
Part of our responsibility to our mowing crew is to resource them properly so they can properly dispose of grass clippings and they can carry out their great work without worrying that the clippings might be jeopardising the health of our local waterways. We are not asking our mowing team to do more with less. I would like to see them doing more with more. I understand the government has finite resources and we are not expecting the impossible. As my motion suggests, I have suggested several different possible solutions to support the collection of grass clipping and the safe disposal away from our waterways.
Among these, a street-sweeping program dedicated to removing grass and leaf matter from suburbs near the catchment area could go a long way towards reducing organic waste in our waterways. I understand the government does have an ambitious street-sweeping program. But Greenway, for example, gets this four times a year, while Oxley, one suburb over, gets it just twice. That does not seem like enough to me, especially when some suburbs are getting swept six to eight times a year and they do not face directly onto a major water catchment.
Another thing—and I thank my colleague Ms Clay for suggesting this in the Assembly three months ago—might be investigating training for our mowers to empower them to collect grass clippings as they go. We need to make sure the mowing workload is manageable and the training and equipment are adequate so our mowers actually do have the capacity to collect their clippings as they go. But if collecting as they go is not an option, perhaps a solution to our organic litter problem is collecting mowing clippings after the fact. Whether this is using our street-sweeping infrastructure or trialling a more specialised program, there is a whole host of possible solutions to our organic green waste.
In fact I had a conversation with a constituent of mine at my electorate office last Friday, at Jindebah Café in Tuggeranong, who suggested installing nets or mesh fixtures inside the stormwater drains to try and limit the amount of leaf litter and grass clipping that flow into the lakes. Then we could ask some of our TCCS workers to go around and collect them regularly, particularly at the moment while our mowing schedule is so upscaled to meet the demand. While we need to invest only in evidence-based solutions to cleaning the lake and I am not suggesting the government start making investments based on my thought bubbles, we do owe it to our constituents to listen when they speak up and provide us some really innovative solutions. This motion represents the interests of my constituents and all of those who travel to Tuggeranong to spend time around our lake.
Once again, as much as I would love to be responsible for all the goings on in government as it relates to Lake Tuggeranong—and I am sure we all would—I do not have access to the same facts and figures as the minister. I do not hold that hose, unfortunately! That is why I have purposely left this motion open-ended and I have tried not to be prescriptive. I am asking the minister to work with his directorate and the ACT public service to identify this as a problem, to acknowledge it is a challenge, to acknowledge it risks undermining the hard work of the Minister for Water and the
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