Page 1626 - Week 06 - Thursday, 7 June 2007
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many important decisions that impact on our community are made behind the closed doors of cabinet and presented to us as a fait accompli. I understand that the government needs to have this bill in place by the end of August, as the moratorium on new licences is about to expire, but I would have appreciated more time to consider these issues, as well as having access to the submissions or at least a summary paper of them. I think the government needs to factor briefing the opposition into its time lines for all new legislation.
I support the more equitable approach to improving water access entitlements based on sustainable yield and on a priority of need basis, rather than the first come, first served basis which had its use-by date long ago. I am pleased to see that rural property access where there is no mains access is being given first priority, and public and commercial uses are being given second priority access. In public and commercial places, even when groundwater is being used, it is most important that gardens are designed for low water use. What I am most uncertain about supporting is the fact that some urban residents do have groundwater licences already and will be able to continue to hold them for historical reasons only. Of utmost importance in this case will be the department’s water allocation based on the efficient use protocol, which is calculated sensibly on block size. I still believe that normal water restrictions applied for reticulated water should apply in this case, irrespective of the water source.
I do support the fees and charges arrangements whereby the annual administration fee is set at a low cost, making it cheap for people to have access to the groundwater or stormwater but the abstraction charge is based on use. This will help keep use in check. I was pleased to hear that the department had taken it upon itself to advise rural landholders on more sustainable dam building and I hope that they will take into account the fact that, to prevent evaporation, aquifers are a more efficient storage place than dams.
I am also concerned about licences being issued to pump stormwater from our lakes and ponds. Again, appropriate application and monitoring of the efficient use protocol will ensure that this precious resource is not wasted. But the other important part of this story is ensuring that there are no detrimental effects on the lake and pond ecosystems.
Groundwater is certainly a more complex issue than it first appears. Groundwater and surface water are interconnected and are interchangeable resources in many regions of Australia. This bill takes some of those complexities into account and indicates that there is some understanding that aquatic ecosystems can rely on groundwater, especially during droughts. One of the consequences of the failure to recognise the link between ground and surface water in the Murray-Darling Basin is that some proportion of the water available for consumption was accounted for twice, allocated as surface water and then again as groundwater. This has not been an issue in the ACT, as we do not have the same irrigation pressures as the rest of the basin.
This bill shows signs of an understanding of the concept of conjunctive water management and the consequences for surface flows and environmental assets. Other consequences can be: falling water tables; reduction of groundwater flow to sustain wetlands, springs and rivers; irrevocably salinised or polluted groundwater; and land subsidence. Groundwater relies on rainfall to be recharged, so it should not be seen as
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