Page 4778 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 20 October 2010
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aspirations and we need to know what the community thinks it can do of its own volition to conserve water use in the future.
In short, the community needs to own this policy on water conservation measures, because it requires the community to take action for it to be effective. Our community needs to own that policy because we as a community need to be able to uphold that policy and to do something to which all of the community can contribute. Neither the government nor Actew is walking down that path at present. They certainly are not walking with the community down that path.
As my motion notes, this week is National Water Week. The objective of that program is to raise public awareness and improve understanding of water issues in Australia. The program carries a range of programs and resources to underpin that objective. One of them is headlined quite simply, and I quote from the Water Week website, “Anyone can get involved”. That should be our slogan in the ACT when it comes to water restrictions. It should be one that engages the community and provides the community with every opportunity to be engaged, to participate in this policy.
The bottom line of our motion is for the government and Actew to take a step back from what has gone before, to look at what the future holds, to review our water conservation policy, to fully engage the community in that process and to report back to the Assembly on that process. We need a policy that, even against all the external influences and with the present divergence of views in the community, provides us with a sustainable future in our water use, one that allows for our future growth and development as a major city and a major player in the region.
The objective of this motion, and what I hope to see in the policy that would develop from it, is to encourage our community as a whole to get behind and support our water conservation policy and to encourage those in our community to, as it were, sing from the same song sheet. At the moment, they are not. The only way we can achieve this is through a transparent, open process with measurable accountability and community engagement initiatives.
There is much that the community wants to have a conversation about, and it depends where you go. The divergence of views is well represented in this place. Over the lunch break, Mr Speaker, I heard you talking about how we need to be careful about these issues and make sure that we do not get ahead of ourselves and be too profligate with our water. We have heard the minister for water say that we must pull our weight in the basin. I have heard from both sides in the community—some people saying that, no, we should not change our water restrictions regime, and other people crying out for it.
It is time that we found a middle road. There is a general level of agreement that the current permanent water conservation measures are a little outdated. They do send a message that in going from a stage 2 water restriction to stage 1, it is all right to use your sprinkler every day. No horticulturalist will tell you that it is all right to use your sprinkler every day. Any horticulturalist worth their salt will say, “Water your garden deeply—once a week possibly, unless it is extraordinarily hot.” That is the way you maintain a healthy garden.
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