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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 7 Hansard (5 June) . . Page.. 1965 ..

MR WOOD (continuing):

responding to community concerns to improve the recreational amenity of our lakes and to reintroduce ecological values into local neighbourhoods and urban waterways;

water supply, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure is expensive to provide and maintain and we must find more efficient ways of managing water so as to reduce these costs;

as population growth continues, it is beholden upon us to make better use of available resources so that we can avoid the need to build another dam, with the consequent environmental and cost impacts;

while we have made significant gains in reducing the demand on potable water supplies, there is still an urgent need to greatly reduce per capita use of potable water.

The need to further improve water resource management was the underlying theme of a presentation given by Environment ACT on 23 May to a Senate committee inquiry into Australia's urban water management. So convinced was the committee looking at that that they wanted the ACT to make a special presentation. I will provide the information on that for members.

An important point made in the presentation is the need to move from treating stormwater and wastewater as waste products to be removed from the urban area as quickly as possible, to approaching stormwater and wastewater as resources that can supplement potable water supplies, enhance urban forms and landscape, support the reintroduction of ecological values into the urban area and reduce infrastructure costs. Through the planning and development process, we are already introducing such water sensitive urban design approaches. However, the government sees the need for the development of a holistic, catchment-based approach to all aspects of water management in the territory. The government plans to approach this through a review of the water resources management plan, which is a disallowable instrument under the Water Resources Act 1998.

I believe that what Ms Tucker is calling for in part (2) (a) of her motion is under way, but we would be pleased to take into consideration all the views that she has presented and report on that process.

While these aspects will remain necessary, the revised plan will include a more strategic element to address emerging issues, for instance:

competing demands for limited resources, such as water for consumptive purposes versus the need to ensure environmental flows;

conflicting uses of water resources-for example, urban lakes are part of the urban stormwater treatment process and also a recreation resource;

impacts on designated environmental values of rivers or lakes by pollution or altered flow regimes;

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