Page 3819 - Week 11 - Thursday, 24 November 2022
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Water quality is a complex area. Poor water quality can be attributed to a number of different factors, and Lake Tuggeranong is no different. There are however a number of things that I believe we could do to improve the health of our lake. Whilst I agree with the intent of Mr Davis’s motion today, I do believe it goes far enough. It calls on the ACT government to “consider and explore options to improve the collection of grass clippings from its mowing program to protect ACT waterways; consult on the Urban Open Space Management Plan through YourSay and publish the plan upon completion; and report back to the Assembly by the last sitting day in September 2023—and I support those suggestions, absolutely.
I would like to quickly note that today I am not going to talk about mowing, per se. I know there is a lot of long grass around. But I acknowledge that there has been a lot of rain, there is a lot of wet ground and a lot of growth. I am sure it will come, but not yet. What I do what to talk about it is grass clippings and other nutrients entering our stormwater assets and waterways, which results in nutrients negatively impacting the water quality of our lakes and waterways.
On grass clippings specifically, as I think Minister Steel alluded to, back in March I raised during question time the issue of grass clippings entering our lakes and waterways. At the time, he assured me that there are procedures in place to prevent this, which led me to provide him with photos of workers mowing grass clippings which went directly into Lake Tuggeranong. During the estimates hearings in August and early September, via a question on notice, I asked what action had occurred since March, when I first asked the minister about mowing clippings entering Lake Tuggeranong. He provided me with a general response about mowing in September, about mowing practices in relation to grass clippings and the stormwater system. During the recent annual report hearings, I again asked the minister more specifically what action, if any, had occurred as a result of these photos—was there education, or training provided? What exactly had happened? This is on something that was first raised with him in March, and I had to ask again in November.
Just this week, I received a response saying that the area is managed by the Suburban Land Agency, and TCCS would have to speak to the Suburban Land Agency regarding clippings entering the waterway. So it took from my raising this issue in March until this week for it to be acknowledged it was a different area and for the minister to respond saying that “We will have to speak with them,” implying that nothing had happened so far, in six months or more. If that is not the case, the minister’s response to me was wrong and he should correct the record. But it appeared from the answer to the question on notice from the annual report hearings that nothing had been done since I raised this in March. So we see this type of activity occurring over and over again, damaging our lakes and waterways.
In November last year, November 2021, I moved a motion about mowing in our city. Amongst other things, this motion in November 2021 called on the Labor-Greens government to investigate how to better prevent grass clippings from entering stormwater drains and waterways. Clearly, given the length of time and obviously no action on this motion from a year ago, Mr Davis has felt the need to raise a similar issue once again a year later. Unsurprisingly, my motion of a year ago was rewritten
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