Page 2376 - Week 06 - Friday, 27 June 2008
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They did not bother to model the seasonal changes for times around the annual cycle. So it was a hell of a flawed test. And even that flawed test still showed that the nitrous oxide omissions were one-half of one per cent below a national standard. By the way, it is a national standard which is held up to ridicule by a lot of environmental scientists, who say that our standards for that particular gas emission are far below OECD standards and other international standards.
ActewAGL have not covered themselves in glory with this particular project, and they have now stirred up a hornet’s nest of residents from southern Woden and northern Tuggeranong. How the hell they think they are going to push through this scaled-down project is anybody’s guess.
This government ought to take note of the planning processes that we have seen in play and the performance of ActewAGL. A lot needs to be done to sort that out. It is a $2 billion dollar project, and something that really needed that little bit of extra care. We needed to step outside the square and add to the processes we currently have in place. They needed to bring the community along with them. Of course, the consequences are that the government may well have stuffed a project which would have been well suited if it were sited elsewhere, and of great benefit to the ACT.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (1.49 am): I am going to talk about water, not gas. Actew and the water security projects team were tasked with finding a source of water that was not rainfall dependent. Their solutions were to either purchase water from outside our catchment or build a water recycling plant and, of course, enlarge the Cotter Dam.
I want to respond to what Mrs Dunne said. I thought it almost seemed like she was claiming victory for the Liberal Party because the government has decided to enlarge the Cotter Dam. That enlargement of the Cotter Dam was on the books before I even came into this place. It is not as though the government just decided to build the Cotter Dam. The decision to do so has been the result of a very rigorous process which involved a great deal of community consultation in the Think water, act water days. The logical conclusion, after looking at all the environmental impacts and other impacts of enlarging the Cotter Dam, was drawn. So it is interesting to see the Liberals’ segue regarding the enlargement of the Cotter Dam being somehow equivalent to building a new Tennent dam. It is a very dodgy segue.
Mrs Dunne: It is a dam. There is a bit of sophistry in saying that it is not a new dam so it is all right. It is a dam and the people need it.
DR FOSKEY: I think the Liberals have been deliberately blind to all the arguments that we have put up against the Tennent dam. However, I do not think their other solutions are quite as elegant. I do not think that Actew has really put in place the other part of Think water, act water, which was about water efficiency.
The best way to deal with our water issue is not just to increase the supply but also to reduce the demand. It is a little concerning that Mrs Dunne is looking at the new dam as a way of ensuring that we can just keep using more water. We have not really got the luxury of changing our permanent water conservation measures which Actew has introduced. While there are still people putting in private pools, I do not think we have
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