Page 3758 - Week 12 - Thursday, 22 November 2007
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
pumping capacity and water treatment at Googong. This suite of measures that have been undertaken over the last three to three and a half years have cost somewhere in the order of a $100 million. That is the level of expenditure on securing our water supply.
Mr Stefaniak has mentioned the water restriction regime and the fact that it was eased at a time when, yes, we did think the worst was over and the drought was breaking. Our dams did go to 60 something or other per cent. Then the drought, against predictions, came screaming back and produced the worst ever year of rainfall and inflow in the history of the ACT. It amounted to 20 gigalitres. That was a 90 per cent reduction in inflows, something that we had not anticipated and that none of our advisers or experts or the weather bureau had anticipated. It was unprecedented in the history of the ACT. Inflows into our dams or through our system have never been lower than in 2006. Again, this year it has been poor. It is better than last year, but still poor.
In the context of that changing situation we did have advice as recently as three to three and a half years ago, essentially sourced from CSIRO, that we would not need to consider a new dam for another 15 years. That was the best scientific and technical advice available for government and Actew at the time. The worst case scenarios painted in that advice, sourced from the CSIRO, in fact were exceeded by almost 30 or 40 per cent in last year’s rainfall and inflow. It was as a consequence of that that I directed Actew to facilitate a major reconsideration of what we needed to do to secure our water supply. That has led to the announcements that were made on 23 October this year following the delivery of a report for government in July by Actew.
It was a rigorous, scientific assessment of all that we could do to secure our future. As members know, there are four major initiatives to be pursued: construction of a new dam at the Cotter; construction of a new pipeline from the Murrumbidgee to Googong; development of the legal and administrative frameworks necessary to engage in water trading from within the system; and the launch of a pilot water treatment plan to demonstrate that the purification of water is a possibility, particularly for a large land bound city such as Canberra.
Our strategies have worked. There were a couple of furphies in relation to a non-attention to reduction in water consumption within the territory over the last five years. The overall reduction in potable water consumption in the ACT has been 22 per cent. In one of those coincidences of life, exactly the same level of reduction has been achieved in Queanbeyan. Despite the off the top of the head prognostications of the Leader of the Opposition and others that Queanbeyan, or struggle town, as the Leader of the Opposition refers to it now—I will have to take that up with Frank when I see him tomorrow—the level of reduction in consumption between the ACT and Queanbeyan coincidentally is precisely the same at 22 per cent. That is the figure supplied by Actew. They have got the figures because they actually measure the supply.
Mr Stefaniak: So are these.
MR STANHOPE: No, that is the reduction. The reduction in consumption in Queanbeyan was exactly the same as the reduction in consumption in the ACT. We
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .