Page 181 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 2019
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approximately 6,000 Olympic swimming pools of extra water potentially available for the environment every year.
I would like to again stress that the ACT strongly supports the role of interstate water trading in the southern basin to supplement water needs for the environment, future growth and climate viability, especially with New South Wales in the Murrumbidgee River system. Trade mechanisms exist in all other jurisdictions and will provide a level playing field for the ACT to trade unused water out of the territory and acquire more water, if required, in the future.
It should be understood that while Canberra is the largest urban area in the basin, the ACT occupies only a very small area of the upper Murrumbidgee River system and uses about one per cent of available water in the total Murrumbidgee catchment. We are, however, required to meet a number of basin plan commitments. The ACT, unlike other jurisdictions, has not had an over-allocation of water and therefore has not had the associated problems. The ACT has been forthright in providing priority for the environment through the provision of its environmental flow regime.
As Ms Cheyne has indicated, the ACT government has undertaken a range of actions to improve the health of the ACT watercourses with the ACT water strategy 2014-44, striking the balance, as the platform for policy development and implementation.
The ACT is also implementing its healthy waterways projects across a number of subcatchments which aim to improve the water quality of our Canberra lakes and waterways, the Murrumbidgee River, and hence the basin. The project will reduce the level of nutrients and pollutants entering ACT regional lakes and waterways that, in turn, have a significant impact on the Murrumbidgee and broader Murray-Darling Basin. The first phase of the five-year project was completed in February 2016. Detailed information and community feedback about ACT waterways was gathered and assessed and a wide range of potential water management options developed. The second implementation phase is well underway and will see 20 new infrastructure and water management projects implemented. These projects are on schedule to be completed this year.
As mentioned, I will continue discussions with the commonwealth and state water ministers about the serious issues raised by recent reports. I endorse calls that the water ministers should meet urgently to consider the issues raised through these two very important reports. The ACT government is committed to ensuring the health of the Murray-Darling Basin, an important river system for all Australians.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Social Inclusion and Equality, Minister for Tourism and Special Events and Minister for Trade, Industry and Investment) (4.25): I thank Ms Cheyne for moving this important motion today. It has provided an interesting insight into the respective views of people in this place regarding one of the most significant environmental challenges that our region faces.
The development of the Murray-Darling Basin plan, a plan that was signed back in 2012, was, I remind members, nearly a century in the making. It was the result of
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