Page 3750 - Week 12 - Thursday, 22 November 2007
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outline these challenges and the ACT government’s response to these issues during the debate. The ACT government has recognised the value of demand management programs, and in this financial year the government has significantly increased demand management spending across all sectors of water use.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (4.08): Mr Speaker, I thank Mr Gentleman for raising this matter of public importance. It is somewhat surprising that he should raise the question of the ACT’s water security given that the ACT government has failed so monumentally over six years to take this seriously and to take action to ensure that we have a water supply that will sustain the city into the future. Indeed, the government’s inaction has been very, very concerning over a number of years. Whilst there are now some initiatives on the table, it has dallied for well over six years before even taking these steps, and that is a very, very significant problem.
We have maintained consistently over a number of years that the Chief Minister has dallied so long that he has actually put the water security of the ACT in jeopardy and that we are, in fact, in dire straits now. A lot of the reason for that is because the government has taken no action or because when it took some action it took the wrong action. That is quite shameful. I will come to some of those points in a minute.
We went to the last election proposing to build the Tennant Dam, which at the time, according to Actew’s own website, until recently, was the best long-term option for Canberra’s future water needs, as well as a number of other water saving initiatives. It is really quite interesting to look at the government’s attitude to water. On 17 August 2005, Mr Stanhope affected to believe that “the Liberals are so hopelessly marooned on the question of a dam” and argued that there was no need for extra water storage. He said:
We will not do what the Liberal Party said it would do without any study, without any investigation, without any scientific background or knowledge ... We have seen that, through just a bit of simple scientific considered work, we can avoid the need for a dam for at least 20 years and perhaps forever.
I want to repeat that. Mr Stanhope said:
We have seen that, through just a bit of simple scientific considered work, we can avoid the need for a dam for at least 20 years and perhaps forever.
That appears in the Hansard of 17 August 2005. To put those comments in context, he was talking about a new scheme to pump water from the Murrumbidgee River to Googong. I welcome that. I think that is essential, and I suspect that that is why our dam levels are still at 41 per cent and not dropping further because we have had precious little rain over the last few weeks.
But, quite clearly, even only two years ago, Mr Stanhope, with his head in the sand, felt that there was no need for a dam. What absolute nonsense that proved to be! This incredible neglect of our water storage by this government has put the ACT in a position today which is really quite precarious. The fact is that in this prolonged drought from 2007 and continuing, we are far less secure than even a place like
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