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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 7 Hansard (5 June) . . Page.. 1959 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

is very significant because it marked the first time that governments of the world came together to formally discuss the state of the global environment.

The United Nations Secretary-General in his World Environment Day message said that the theme of this year's World Environment Day, give earth a chance, is meant to convey a message of urgency about the state of the earth and the broader quest for sustainable development. He said that despite the advances made by some countries, the latest readings reveal a planet still in need of intensive care. Poverty, pollution and population growth, rural poverty and rapid urbanisation, wasteful consumption habits and growing demands for water, land and energy continue to place intense pressures on the planet's life support systems, threatening our ability to achieve sustainable development.

The environment of the ACT is quite good relative to many other parts of the planet. But we still have many local challenges and we still have a moral responsibility to play our part in the regional, national and global challenges faced by the human society in achieving ecological sustainability. This motion highlights the issue of water, which is a local, regional and global issue. Water is one of the essential elements of life-none of us would live for very long if we did not drink clean, fresh water. Yet modern societies have squandered this precious resource.

The United Nations environment program has stated that water pollution, poor sanitation and water shortages kill over 12 million people on the earth every year. Millions are in bad health and trapped in poverty-much of their energy and time is wasted in the quest for clean water. The poor of the world are affected most by the crisis. They rely on as little as 10 litres per capita per day to survive while the rich use as much as 250 litres.

Within Australia the most significant water system is the Murray-Darling Basin, which covers 14 per cent of the country's total area. The basin extends over three-quarters of New South Wales, more than half of Victoria, significant portions of Queensland and South Australia and includes the whole of the Australian Capital Territory. Not only is this basin environmentally significant, it is also economically significant. The basin is Australia's most important agricultural region, accounting for over 40 per cent of the nation's gross value of agricultural production. The total area of crops and pastures irrigated in the basin is over 70 per cent of the total area of irrigated crops and pastures in Australia. Of Australia's total estimated water use, 60 per cent occurred within the basin. The Murray-Darling is now a highly regulated river system with numerous dams, reservoirs, weirs, locks and barrages on all the major and many of the minor rivers.

Unfortunately, there is evidence to indicate that problems with land degradation emerged in parts of the basin within no more than 20 to 30 years of the arrival of the first white settlers. The existing system of water allocations has been shown to be not effective in controlling water use, as the system evolved at a time when water managers had the task of encouraging agricultural development that would make use of the water that was available and not restrain consumption. Audits of water resources in the basin have found that continued growth in diversions is not sustainable and growth of water consumption would have disastrous consequences for the Murray-Darling River system and the basin as a whole.

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