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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 10 Hansard (Wednesday, 25 August 2004) . . Page.. 4264 ..

I am also concerned about the advice she has got in respect of compatible non-warranty voiding devices. Dorf-Clark have said basically that anything that was not their product would void warranty. I think it is very inappropriate to bring this in at this point in time. Even if Mrs Cross can answer those questions and enlighten us on the research she has done, I would certainly want time to check.

Also I am concerned that this amendment was given to us without warning at 12 o’clock, midnight. Certainly, some thought has to be given to whether we should commit to legislation in this way. I would like to know what her estimates of the expenditure are. I would be very reluctant to commit to expending money if I had no idea of the costs.

I was one of the people who originally promoted the notion of the water-wise Queanbeyan model. I have promoted with the government and the Assembly a different model with different mechanisms. I know the costings that came from Queanbeyan but I would certainly want to see a bit more background provided by Mrs Cross. I would also like to have the opportunity to investigate the implications of such an amendment.

MRS DUNNE (12.29 am): Mr Speaker, I will speak again on the amendment. I suppose the real problem is that, as the minister says, the cost of supplying is an unknown quantity. But there is no doubt that the overall benefit of the supply of these devices is high. As I have said before, we have been able to quantify the water savings and the energy savings, and therefore the greenhouse savings, that result from the using of these devices.

We know that humble little Queanbeyan council across the way in little old struggle town can supply these devices free of charge to their householders. Because other municipalities around the country supply them free of charge to their householders, it is not the end of civilisation as we know it.

We have already undertaken, as part of the Liberal Party’s water efficiency policy, to supply these devices when regular maintenance is being undertaken to all government houses over the next three years, and not even this doubting government would think that the world will come to an end as a result of that initiative.

What we would hope to see from the government, which is supposedly committed to water efficiency, is a commitment to lead by example. This is not to say that 120,000 households are going to turn out on the first day and strip the ACT bare of every flow-limiting valve that we have in stock. Yes, we would have to think about how we would implement this initiative, but the argument put forward that we cannot do so because there is nothing in the regulation that says how this would be done, beggars belief.

We constantly pass legislation in this place that says that the government will do X and we do not tell them how to do it. That is done in accordance with the guidelines, the codes of practice and all of the other things most of us in the this place never see that underpin the legislation.

We know exactly how committed this government is to water efficiency when we see the Chief Minister stand up here and threaten us—maybe it was a promise; I don’t know

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