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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3118 ..

That this Assembly:

(1) expresses its concern at the Government’s failure to provide for the security of the A.C.T. water supply; and

(2) condemns the:

(a) A.C.T Government for its failure to show leadership through the development of a comprehensive water strategy for the A.C.T.;

(b) delay in commissioning ACTEW to investigate options; and

(c) Government for delaying the decision about future water storage until after the next election.

Mrs Dunne: I think you got that out of an alternative universe.

MS TUCKER: Mrs Dunne says that I got that out of an alternative universe. Okay, that is fine. The point I was going to make, which I do not think is out of an alternative universe, is that Mrs Dunne likes to talk about dams. I am wondering if that is part of the motivation for this motion today. I make the point that dams are very big engineering projects. There is a whole culture of dam development, of political expectation that is built up as soon as you begin work on even planning for a dam. We still do not have a thorough examination of the full environmental and social costs for our region, for the Murray-Darling catchment, or any attempt to take significantly more water out of the system, which of course is what a dam represents. (Extension of time granted.)

I would like to quote briefly from page 95 of the Victorian government’s white paper, released earlier this week, “Securing our water future together”. I think they put quite coherently why dams are a problem. The paper states:

New dams are not the solution

Upgrading dam and pipeline infrastructure is appropriate in some locations. However, new dams are not the solution. New dams do not create any new water. They simply take it from somewhere else—either from farmers who currently rely on it or from the environment.

North of the Divide, there is a cap on further allocations from the Murray-Darling river system. As a result, if new dams are built or existing dams expanded for towns, water would have to be purchased from somewhere else, most probably from farmers.

If a new dam were built for Melbourne, it would need to be filled with water that is currently used by rural and regional communities and the environment: it would also take water from our rivers that are already stressed. This would not only harm the habitat of our native plants, fish and animals, but also threaten our waterways, tourism and recreation industry.

The point I would like to make in conclusion—I did seek only a short extension, so I will respect that—is that I agree with Mrs Dunne’s concerns about the quality of the government’s response to the water situation. I refer members to the recommendations in the plan from ACTCOSS and CCSERAC, which have been well received initially as being a good start. They have recommended that there be a 20 per cent reduction in potable water use within 10 years. I think that should be supported and we should have

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