Page 3621 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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are using less water, yet on the other, our water resources face growing pressures, such as population growth and climate change.
These pressures have prompted investment in water security projects such as the Cotter Dam enlargement, but such investment certainly is not cheap and so the community is faced with rising bills. How do we avoid this paradox where the community is not reaping the financial rewards of saving water? I think this is a really challenging issue which does not present an obvious answer, although it does link back to my point about utilities developing strategies to become service providers rather than resource providers.
The more that Actew does to shift its business model away from profiting from the sale of water towards providing services to encourage sustainable water consumption, the more likely it is that the current pricing conundrums we face will dissipate. And we need to see this issue in perspective. We are at a difficult crossroads, where we have to front up large money today so that we can meet the challenges of tomorrow. Over time these investments will pay off, in the form of savings on our water bills from using water smartly, a safe environment for our children and water security.
Turning to how we can soften the blow of the price rises forecast for 2012-13, I do believe that the current five-year pricing model has a lot to answer for. The ACT’s climate has shown itself to be highly variable in recent years, from above-average rainfall to serious drought. Such fluctuations should signal to regulators that the ACT needs a much more responsive approach to water pricing. It is no wonder that, at the end of these past five years of drought and heavy rains, we are about to see a water price shock, which is certainly compounded by the capital investment. If we had a price-setting model that made more appropriate adjustments on an annual basis then these shocks could be minimised.
Finally, I want to touch briefly on the encouraging steps that Actew are taking as a company to minimise the environmental impact of their operations. These include efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of Actew’s operations—for example, the preparation of greenhouse gas inventories, the use of biodiesel for construction vehicles, construction of a mini hydro generator for the Murrumbidgee to Googong transfer, and the purchase of contracts to deliver 900,000 tonnes of carbon sink forestry over the next 30 years, requiring the planting of over 80 hectares of native forest in New South Wales and 2,600 hectares in Western Australia.
Actew has also been implementing strategies to ensure optimal water quality and biodiversity outcomes. Some of these are quite well known, such as the fish management plan as part of the Cotter reservoir enlargement, monitoring of environmental flows, efforts to reduce nutrient loading from the lower Molonglo treatment works discharge, and ecological monitoring in the Queanbeyan, Cotter and Murrumbidgee rivers and Burra Creek. Indeed, we understand that Actew plans to spend an additional $3.5 million in the coming year to meet specific environmental objectives. This will be money well spent, an investment in the protection of the ACT’s environment and an investment that will ensure our children and their children will have access to clean and secure water resources.
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