Page 1848 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
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single use before seeing it washed down the drain. Environmental issues of water over-allocation of our rivers will be compounded by climate change and that makes re-use even more important.
The motion today calls on the government to commission the ICRC to undertake an assessment of two specific water re-use models: firstly, the greywater industry and, secondly, urban waterways. And then the ICRC would be asked to compare the relative benefits of each. At the heart of that, there would be a very useful piece of work for the ICRC to undertake, and the Greens do support that work taking place.
When it comes to greywater, we are concerned about the lack in the ACT of opportunities that we see attached to greywater. Certainly with the development of Molonglo, the Greens have particularly pursued this issue to ensure that our newer suburbs are as water efficient, as water conscious, as possible. And I think it would be fair to say that we have been frustrated by the lack of perhaps imagination, the lack of forward thinking, that we have confronted when it has come to the possibilities for greywater use in Molonglo.
Just recently I met with a local engineer and local businessmen who are investigating a household water re-use system. In fact, more than investigating, they actually built one in their own backyard. And it was an extraordinarily inspiring visit to this example of some local Canberra people doing something that really is globally cutting edge in terms of the environmental and economic opportunities that they were, I guess, imagining in the technology they have invented, which not only was recycling water but was also making use of the waste heat being generated by that process.
On the subject of urban waterways—and this is one of these areas where I think that perhaps we are coming from a rather different place than Mrs Dunne—the Greens see great opportunity in urban waterways. I note the comments Mr Hanson made, on Mrs Dunne’s behalf, about the concerns over Lyneham wetlands. I guess we all have a different understanding of what we see taking place.
I went to some of the public consultations on the Lyneham wetlands as well and I received representations from the community. It would be fair to say that members of the local community did have a set of concerns. I think some of those concerns were very diverse and some of them were perhaps even contradictory. But I believe that many of the questions raised were answered. I think that issues around something like the Lyneham wetlands also demonstrate the notion that sometimes the community can be concerned about problems that are imagined but perhaps when a project actually gets underway many of those will be addressed.
Certainly the issue of removing a stand of pine trees is a different set of values. To remove a stand of pine trees to put in an outstanding native wetland that will attract biodiversity and provide a range of benefits—social, environmental and economic—is a point of there simply not being a lot of room for agreement. You either want the pine trees or you want the wetland.
But issues were raised around the water level changing. Certainly my understanding of these matters is that the water levels will change in a wetland. That is part of the
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