Page 2085 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 21 June 2005
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MRS BURKE: I ask a supplementary question. Minister, as money was clearly appropriated, where has this money now gone?
MR HARGREAVES: Those opposite do try one’s patience. I have indicated to Dr Foskey already, and clearly Mrs Burke was not in the room and it was just a cardboard cut-out here, that there was $1.7 million allocated in 2001-02, I think, and a further supplementary allocation in 2002-03 of just over a million dollars. I think it was $1,093,000 and some change, and it was applied to building fit out.
The additional funds in fact were talking about additional lift capacity. We are talking about the provision of disabled access. We are talking about the type of wall that you provide, whether or not it is partitioned, whether it is properly installed. We are talking about additional kitchenette facilities. We are talking about meeting room facilities. All of those need fit out. All of those need facilities contained within them, such as sinks, kitchen equipment, that sort of stuff. What we are not talking about is the equipment, the furniture that applies to individual tenancies.
Business assistance
MS MacDONALD: Mr Speaker, my question is to the Treasurer, Mr Quinlan. Minister, last week you helped to launch the first product of a local Canberra company, Perpetual Water. What assistance has the ACT government given to Perpetual Water over the last couple of years and how does this fit in with the government policy of assisting new and innovative businesses in the ACT?
MR QUINLAN: I thank Ms MacDonald for the question. I think it is important that that question be asked because, unfortunately, the actual product launch was not handled well. Therefore, it is very unfortunate that a very innovative project did not get appropriate exposure. However, action has been taken to try to compensate for what we hope was an accident.
The product Perpetual Water—Home is a fully automated system of treating water from the bath, shower and washing machine to a class A standard, the highest possible standard for recycling water. The water can be reused for surface irrigation, for toilet flushing and for clothes washing. The system can treat up to 720 litres of grey water a day and has the capacity to reduce household water consumption by as much as 60 per cent. There are plans afoot to build smaller and larger versions of this product.
I guess the thrust of Ms MacDonald’s question is what assistance has been provided? The government is very proud to say that we have provided, through the knowledge bank, about $220,000, which is recognised by the owners and principals of the company as being the money necessary to make the product possible. Certainly, they have put their own personal investments on the line but they also recognise that without the assistance they have received through the knowledge bank the product would not exist, or at least it would not exist yet; it would still be in the process of development.
It is also the case that the company Perpetual Water participated in our California bridge program. This is a program that we have built up through associations with the west coast of the United States in particular and business promotion organisations there—
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