Page 2829 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 October 1992
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been taken by closed-circuit television so that children, particularly young survivors of sexual assault, can give evidence before a magistrate and be subject to cross-examination without having to confront defence counsel across the bar table and without being in the same room as and in the presence of the accused perpetrator.
The Law Reform Commission has reported that this system has worked extraordinarily well; that the quality of evidence children have been able to give utilising this technology has been better than that of children not able to utilise this technology; and that the level of stress children have experienced in giving evidence under this technology has been considerably less than in an equivalent sample group of children giving evidence in New South Wales without the benefit of this technology. I am delighted to indicate that the Government intends to make this a permanent feature of the legal system in this Territory. I have instructed my department to examine whether this could be taken further, so that adult survivors of sexual assault in particular could be spared the trauma of having to confront the accused perpetrator in the courtroom. I expect that we will be able to bring some proposals before this Assembly next year.
Private Rainwater Tanks
MR WESTENDE: My question without notice is addressed to the Minister for Urban Services. Having regard to the renewed efforts by ACTEW to educate consumers to conserve water, it is my understanding that private rainwater tanks are legal. Is this true? If so, what steps are being taken to advise the Canberra public accordingly? Is there a standard for those tanks, so that they can be properly installed in accordance with the appropriate standard?
MR CONNOLLY: While private rainwater tanks have never been illegal as such in the ACT, the system has conspired to make the use of them rather difficult. It has been necessary to go through a series of bureaucratic hoops in order to get approval for a private rainwater tank. The legislation passed by this Assembly some months ago, providing that minor building works are no longer to be subject to the building approval system, will considerably ease up access to private rainwater tanks. It will mean that someone who wishes to install a private rainwater tank will not have to get the various permits and approvals from Building Control, which in many cases could add up to some hundreds of dollars of bureaucratic permits and may even exceed the cost of the rainwater tank.
It will still be necessary to obtain design and siting approval from Mr Wood's department; but, given that these tanks could be quite ugly if they were placed in the front of a house or, worse still, directly opposite somebody else's front window, that seems a sensible level of requirement for regulation. The design and siting rules have requirements that the tank not exceed 17,000 litres in capacity and that the tank be not more than 2.4 metres above the ground - again for safety reasons. There remains an ACTEW requirement that the rainwater tank
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