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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3116 ..

controlled water, environment allocation, ACT controlled water available for use, existing ACT controlled water use, allocation provision for 2004-2014 and ACT controlled ground water available for use. The remainder of volume 3 describes each catchment and sub-catchment in more detail, including seasonal averages of flow, environmental allocations and amount available for use. Volume 1 of the plan, on page 43, states:

The Environmental Flow Guidelines under the Water Resources Act 1998 are the basis for calculating environmental flows in ACT controlled waters.

This section also explains that the guidelines are currently under review by the CRC for Freshwater Ecology. This review will make use of the data and knowledge developed on our waterways over the past five years. One of Mrs Dunne’s specific complaints is that the revised guidelines are not part of the plan. However, the requirement is not for the guidelines to be reviewed or revised in the new plan.

I will make a quick comment on the whole question of environmental flows. If we go back a step and look at this, we find that the whole concept of environmental flows, in one sense, is quite illogical. An environmental flow is a natural flow. The Murray is currently reduced to 25 per cent of natural flow; three-quarters of the flow has gone. The agreement last week, celebrated by all the ministers as if we had achieved something significant, was that flows will not return by more than 10 per cent over 10 years.

I think the response is not proportionate to the crisis we are dealing with at either a national or a local level. The whole notion of environmental flow is dangerous because of the way it has been manipulated. We really need to get back to a broader understanding of the right of society as a whole to have an ecosystem that is functioning to normal capacity. We are all going to suffer in the long run if we do not. It is quite a concerning argument that somehow it is a selfish desire to have the ecosystem functioning properly. It denies the fundamental reality that we have no economy, no rural sector and no society if we do not have an environment that will sustain us as part of the web of life.

Subsection 19(b) requires the plan to include “the proposed water allocations for the next succeeding 10 years”. Table 4, as I have already described, meets this requirement, with the allocation provision for each of the waterways over the next 10 years, from 2004 to 2014. Subsection 19(c) requires inclusion of “water allocations to be created for urban water supply, industry and other uses”. Again, this is addressed throughout volume 3 of the plan. Subsection 19(d) requires the plan to include “action to be taken by the authority to manage the water resources of the Territory”. This is more general. Volume 1 especially sets out the plans for managing the territory’s water resources. While I have argued that what is in the plan needs to be done quickly, thoroughly and differently—for instance, the water tune-ups could offer a bigger subsidy and certainly, for low-income households, should cover the costs of at least basic upgrades—you cannot argue on this basis that it does not meet the requirements.

Just on that subject, I noticed that Mrs Dunne has spoken about the Queanbeyan model. I have raised this matter for quite a long time now in the Assembly. I asked a question in estimates on this. My question was: in relation to water savings and efficiencies, why are we not doing what Queanbeyan did? The answer was:

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