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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 9 Hansard (26 August) . . Page.. 3202 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

stage 3 restrictions. That's a long period of time to expect people to stay water conscious.

Yes, Canberra does have a high participation rate in sport, and that's at all levels. I have to say that I've seen the ABS statistics and standards, and you don't have to do much to be a participant in activity to get measured on the plus side, according to the ABS. I think if you go for a walk twice a year, you're physically active.

Nevertheless, we do have a high level of participation in sport. If I could be a little cynical, I believe that's probably because we are a middle-class town and it's really the attitudes that apply. I think it's a good thing. I don't think there's any better time in Canberra than a sunny Saturday morning driving around the place, with all the fields and netball courts active, and parents out and about taking the kids to and from sport. It's a sight I get a buzz out of and have for many, many years.

We do have a difficulty in trying to make rules that would save us a little bit of extra water to put on ovals; we do have a difficulty in expecting people to agree to some form of inequitable application of the rules. Nevertheless, there is some work being done and still to be done on refinement of these restrictions before they are finally applied. Hopefully, we will get some common sense; hopefully, we will get some understanding by the various stakeholders in the process before the event rather than after. It's usually easier to do things cooperatively, particularly when we're talking about things like restrictions. It's going to be much easier to do it cooperatively than it is just to be straight out imposing the restrictions and then policing the restrictions.

I've heard some costs in relation to oval repair, if we do go for six months and we have a long, hot, dry summer as well, and it may be that's something that the city just has to bear. We have a drought on our hands, and we can't legislate against that; the government can't change that; the Assembly can't change that. Really, we've got to try to implement restrictions that are as fair as is possible to everybody. It won't be the case that everybody will say, "No, no, save my ovals before you save my garden."That won't be the case.

I don't think there will be very, very many people who believe that we shouldn't try to save the territory from reconstituting the grounds after a drought, after some of them do suffer, and who would be happy that we transferred that cost to them by allowing their lawns to die while the ovals stayed green and didn't need to be repaired when lawns did. Remember, once we get past stage 3, we're heading for really strong and severe restrictions.

The limitation on our water supply is as much a function of our capacity to treat water out of the Corin/Bendora system as is the availability of water, even if we do get considerable rains through this spring. This is supposed to be our wettest period now. If we do get considerable runoff, and there's sufficient ground moisture to allow runoff now, we may not be able to use that. Only time will tell. There'll be some tests through this week that will say, with the second decent rainfall since the bushfire, whether we've got immediate increase in turbidity and immediate increase in iron and manganese content in the water, which makes it relatively unusable.

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