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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3123 ..

resources. By the government’s own admission, and their admissions in this document itself, the vital piece of information that is missing is up-to-date environmental flow information—and it is not forthcoming. That is the principal problem.

I would like to touch on some of the issues. Mr Quinlan did his usual thing of saying, “What it really boils down to is that oppositions should not have ideas.” This was the problem when Mr Quinlan was in opposition when we went to the last election. Those opposite proved that they did not have any ideas because they spoke about their 70-something investigations. We had reviews and investigations—

Mr Hargreaves: How did we win the election then?

MRS DUNNE: Yes, you did win the election.

Mr Hargreaves: What with—no ideas?

MRS DUNNE: With no ideas.

Mr Hargreaves: It says a lot about you lot then. You have got even less than no idea.

MRS DUNNE: You sort of had an idea; you had an aspiration to have an idea. When you had the resources of government, you thought about how you might develop that aspiration into a policy and into an idea. As a result of that, we got “Think water, act water”, which is still not a policy. What are the major activities? They are not programs; they are pilot programs.

When we went to the last election those opposite did not have an idea; they did not have a policy—but they had a whole lot of reviews. The policy of members of this government going to the next election will be to have a whole lot of pilot programs. They are not prepared to commit. They are not prepared to say, “These are the views that we have.” They are not prepared to propagate them. They are not out there saying, “This is what a party with commitment is prepared to do for the people of Canberra.” This government is not prepared to make commitments for the people of Canberra.

I really like Mr Quinlan. He likes to go back to the white paper and say that it is a regional problem. Yes, it is a regional problem. That is why we have been saying for some time that we need to have a regional catchment management approach; we need to have a regional catchment management authority. But where in “Think water, act water” is there even the germ of an idea of a regional catchment management authority? We have the occasional meeting with Bob Carr and, according to the government response to the estimates committee, two ecologists. Today we also have Mr Quinlan meeting with Frank “we’re on top of the problem” Sartor. Meetings with Frank Sartor, Bob Carr and two ecologists do not make an integrated catchment management strategy or an integrated catchment authority that will address the issues.

Instead of our being supine to the New South Wales government, which is in breach of its legislative requirements, we hear, “Oh, Frank, what do you reckon we can do for it?” “Well, Ted, we are on top of the problem! Water is not a problem in New South Wales and Warragamba Dam might be down to 40 per cent—but we are on top of the problem; we have got a long-term plan!” Have you heard it before from somewhere else? You

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