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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4257 ..

the tap would cause the whole tap to fail. Honestly, I found that the government must have been grasping at straws when they came up with that as an excuse for not going ahead with this. Working appliances have been on the market for some time without problems with warranties, and the government suddenly suggested that people’s warranties would be voided by changing the washers in their taps. That is an example of the reluctance of this government.

Somewhere along the line, for whatever reason, they have changed their approach. I am grateful to the government, because this is a very important measure. It is only a small measure, and it needs to be the start of something much more significant. The ACT government from time to time does good things in relation to reducing water consumption in their buildings by installing the sorts of devices this bill proposes. It was interesting that they did not seem to be concerned about voiding the warranty on all the taps in Macarthur House and various other places where secondary flow-reducing valves have been introduced. But if I suggested it, suddenly it was going to void people’s warranties.

I thought it was rather ironic that something done by urban services for their own use was perfectly okay; but that, if we encouraged the average ACT householder to do it, then that would be the end of civilisation as we know it. We should put that aside and focus on the fact that the government have eventually come to the party and, by virtue of proposing a range of amendments, have made a contribution to this debate. I am very grateful for that and I think the people of the ACT will also be very grateful for it.

I take some of the points the minister made—that this in a sense makes the system more workable. Quite frankly, if parliamentary counsel had had access to the sort of advice the government has, it would have been a much smoother process a lot earlier. There is no lack of professionalism from parliamentary counsel; they have done a sterling job, as they always do. I pay tribute particularly to Sandra Georges and David Metcalf for their assistance and, because this has been such a long process, to the now retired Ivo Astofli, who sort of sat around for weeks saying, “If only I could guess what the government would do; if only I could have the advice I could have if the government were doing this, it would be a whole lot easier.” It was really a matter of trying to guess the best place to do it. Unfortunately, the first attempt was not the best place.

When that bill was introduced the minister still did not say, “Mrs Dunne, why don’t you think about doing it in the Water and Sewerage Act rather than the Building Act?” Perhaps I am paranoid and perhaps I am too old and cynical but there seems to be a view that, if someone who is not a member of the government has an idea, ipso facto it must be a bad idea. We have seen that over and over again. We also see the level of criticism that, “It is an okay idea but the execution is poor.” Sometimes they are right; the execution is poor; but that is because, unlike the government, they do not have access to the technical policy advice at any stage. If this minister as a private member decided to come up with an amendment to the Water and Sewerage Act without recourse to BEPCON, I do not think he would get it right the first time either.

This is an important measure. I will address the government’s amendments in the detail stage. I thank members for their support. I think the people of the ACT will thank members for eventually getting around to doing this. I hope it represents a sort of sea change, dare I say, and that we will see more initiatives in both the domestic and

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