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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3112 ..

parameter in many a program that decided what would be the capacity of Canberra and the region. That last word is so important: region.

We have an opposition that have decided, “Bang! We’re going to fix the problem straight away. We’re going to build a dam.” I am of a mind that it is beyond the point now where we need to recognise what is said in the economic white paper and recognise that for many reasons the borders of the ACT are fading and that the solution for water in the ACT is not going to be an ACT solution. The solution is going to be a regional solution. That is why I have already had discussions with two New South Wales ministers—David Campbell, regional development; and Frank Sartor, utilities minister—regarding the joint development of a strategy that will address not only the ACT but also the region. The Chief Minister has had some preliminary discussions with the Premier of New South Wales along similar lines.

What we see from the opposition, unfortunately, is pure negativity on the one hand and this “we want to be the ones that solved it first” competition on the other. “We won’t shillyshally around. We’ll just build”—without the benefit of what one would think is the basic scientific research—“We’ll just make a decision. We’ll show you how good we are.”

That might have some populist appeal. It might. But it is dumb. For the long-term future of Canberra, it is not the right thing to do. I was involved in electricity and water—I happened to have the job of putting ACTEW together once—and I was surprised in the first instance when I met these fellows called hydrographers. And there are people called hydrologists. I probably had the same simple view of water supply that underscores what you are putting forward now. But I soon came to realise that there is a lot more to the process of water supply than simply saying, “Let’s make a decision and get on with the job.” You might be getting on with something that is, if not a bad decision, a suboptimal decision.

What this territory needs, and what the region needs, is some commonsense applied, a complete analysis, an examination of the breadth of the problem and joint decisions taken between us and parties beyond our borders as to how co-operative we might be and how co-operative the New South Wales government might be. It may well be that when all that is cobbled together the solutions could be a whole lot different to the ones that are obvious if you have done precious little homework.

Returning to the “Think water, act water” paper, Mrs Dunne referred to leadership and then decried the fact that the document is aspirational.

Mrs Dunne: But that’s all it is. Nothing wrong with aspirations.

MR QUINLAN: Are you saying, Mrs Dunne, that your party remains the short-sighted party it was when it involved us in the disasters that were the hallmark of any of the major things that you tried to do? Have a look at them. Have a look at the record of the major projects that a Liberal government in this town attempted, and have a look at the result. There is a common thread there, and the common thread, in its own way, still pervades the actions that you are taking today. Have you learnt nothing?

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