Page 4928 - Week 13 - Thursday, 12 November 2009
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MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Corbell, I think Mr Seselja has a point of order. Mr Corbell—
MR CORBELL: and we have seen consistent interjections from the opposition.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Please! Mr Seselja.
Mr Seselja: Madam Assistant Speaker, on the point raised by Mr Corbell, I think it has been relatively mild. If you compare it to what Mr Rattenbury allowed to go on during the supermarket debate with Mr Stanhope, I think it is far lower and far tamer than what we have been subjected to in recent days.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Mr Corbell, I think that you have only been egging them on with your comments, I am afraid. Please, I would ask the members of the opposition to listen to Mr Corbell in the silence he deserves.
MR CORBELL: Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. The think water, act water strategy has been a detailed process that has been put in place since April 2004. Future water options reports were presented in 2004 and 2005 assessing a total of 25 variations and recommended the options of an enlarged Cotter Dam and the implementation of the option to pump water from the Murrumbidgee River near Angle Crossing to Googong Dam with technical analysis to be followed up on these options.
In 2006 Actew undertook the Cotter-to-Googong bulk water transfer project. This infrastructure development was an interim but very effective measure to augment and make optimal use of the ACT’s water storage systems. From March 2007 to 22 June 2007 Actew conducted extensive community consultation on a range of options to provide government with an informed view regarding potential water recycling in the ACT. In July 2007 Actew completed a detailed review of the ACT and region’s water supply and submitted four key recommendations for securing supply to the ACT government.
So you can see that there has been a very detailed process of analysis to date. On 23 October 2007, the Chief Minister announced that following the advice, that analysis by the Water Security Taskforce, a range of initiatives would be considered. They included the enlargement of the Cotter Dam from four gigalitres to 78 gigalitres, the installation of infrastructure to increase the volume of water transferred from the Murrumbidgee River to the Googong Dam, pursuing the possibility of purchasing water from Tantangara Dam, designing a demonstration water purification plant, increasing funding for demand reduction measures, investigating the extension of permanent water conservation measures, a pilot smart metering program and the voluntary offset of additional greenhouse gas emissions associated with these projects.
This has been a detailed and lengthy process to get to the point that we are now at, which is the establishment and construction of the first of these major infrastructure works, the enlarged Cotter Dam project. As I was trying to say before, the key issue here is that if there are concerns about the project, its cost, its scope and the issues
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