Page 1542 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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One of the comprehensive studies done for think water, act water was on potential strategies for demand management. I have heard no talk of measures to encourage reduced water use beyond the excellent WaterSmart tune-ups, which I believe should be provided free and promoted to real estate agents for landlords of private rental properties, because at the moment they are just happy to hand the bill on to tenants. ACTPLA’s water-sensitive urban design principles are promising, but how will we ensure that private developers, given whole swathes of land to turn into a suburb under the in globo principle, will include sustainability in their bottom line?
The Greens believe that if $350 million is to be spent on shoring up our water supply, then, as responsible elected representatives, it behoves this Assembly and the community to consider how that could be best spent to sustain our water supply without harming the environment and reducing the quality and quantity of water for people downstream.
I am not suggesting that we do another Think water, act water, which was very comprehensive and investigated many supply options. But I am suggesting that we look down a track given too little attention in that document, and that is coming up with strategies to reduce water use in ways significant enough to allow us, at the very least, to give ourselves a few years before embarking on this highly expensive technological scheme.
Beginning the process of making our lives and our landscapes less hooked on plentiful water will be necessary first steps in drought proofing our city, as far as that is possible. Meanwhile, new engineering and chemical processes will be tried by other municipalities more desperate than ours, and we can learn from their experience. This option of thoroughly investigating how we can reduce our water use while maintaining our bush capital qualities is not even being offered for consultation by Actew, but that does not mean that a prudent government or, failing that, a prudent Assembly, should not consider it.
Today I am moving to set up a select committee to investigate a number of issues around water that I believe remain inadequately implemented after the think water, act water process and to consider options beyond those put forward in 2004, when we had more faith that our reservoirs would refill.
The terms of reference that I suggest to the committee are broad in order to ensure that the committee’s investigations are thorough and to encourage input from a wide range of people. This is not the inquiry to tell us we need a new dam and where it should be. There was plenty of opportunity for that in the 2003-04 process. I believe that think water, act water gave very good reasons why the new dam, in a drought, was not a particularly good idea.
Setting up this committee provides the Assembly with the opportunity to investigate likely impacts of climate change on the ACT and our region. I have been told that Actew is having this work done, and there are certainly a number of CSIRO studies which provide a reasonable basis for extrapolation. In other words, this part of the inquiry can rely upon a literature search and the views of climatologists and other natural scientists.
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