Page 1439 - Week 04 - Thursday, 26 March 2009
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environment by converting concrete stormwater drains into much more natural creeks and ponds but also they allow us to capture, clean and reuse precious stormwater that falls on our suburbs. There is great potential for this resource to be used to improve our urban environment, parts of which have fallen victim to high level water restrictions. Our playing fields, our community green spaces and treed streetscapes are all things that as a community we value.
There have been government incentives for Canberra residents to include water saving measures into their own homes, but there is room for improvement. The government’s water strategy has provided some limited incentives for householders to subsidise the cost of dual-flush toilets, rainwater tank rebates and to access the advice of a horticulturalist to provide advice about using less water in the garden. I would particularly like to commend the government on that last initiative because a free service for all residents that many garden owners might otherwise never have accessed is a very valuable contribution to helping Canberrans reduce their water use and helping them continue to enjoy their gardens.
However, the Greens would like to see a more comprehensive approach with broad incentives and accessible services that make it easy for Canberra householders to make the changes in their homes that are required. I would like to make mention here of a program that the Greens are supporting for implementation in the ACT and which we also included in the ALP-Greens parliamentary agreement. The concept is for householders to be able to have a plumber visit their house to undertake a water tune-up, to replace washers and to install water saving infrastructure such as toilets and low flow taps. Where this program has been involved in other jurisdictions it was delivered free of charge to householders, and more importantly, was hassle-free as well.
While the ACT may not need a completely non-means-tested program, there is scope for the ACT to comprehensively roll out a similar program to low-income households in the ACT and, perhaps more importantly, to look at ways of making it easier for busy householders to do the right thing. What we know, both from talking to people in the community and from watching how things roll out, is that many people want to do the right thing. They desperately want to make their contribution by being more environmentally friendly, and specifically in this context, through reducing their own water usage. They need to have it made easy for them in a world where people are under time pressure and have a lot of stressors on them.
We need to look not just at the demographic that has the time as well as the inclination; we also need to make it possible for that demographic who want to do the right thing but are time poor, where both parents in a household are working, where they do not perhaps have the technical knowhow to replace a washer. I know many people that would not know where to start to change a washer on their taps and never get around to calling a plumber. If the government provided a service where a plumber just comes by and it happened, people would be delighted to make their contribution. The challenge, when looking at some of these programs, is how we can make them more effective so that we actually get the work done.
With regard to the specific pipeline between Angle Crossing and Googong Dam, the Greens look forward to seeing full environmental impact statements being prepared
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