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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3111 ..

end. Rainwater tanks to existing houses cost $4 per kilolitre of water saved, greywater programs in new developments cost nearly $5 and greywater programs to existing houses exceed $5, while things like a water audit/tune-up would cost about 30c a kilolitre.

We are going for the hard stuff, the expensive stuff, when we actually have a whole range of things that we could do to ensure water efficiency that are at the cheaper end of the market. But they are not sexy. People say, “In the water efficiency policy, where’s the sexy item?” Actually, the sexy item is usually a very efficient washer. Washers are not very sexy, but they do the job.

What we need to do here today is tell the Stanhope Labor government that, while we do not have a problem with “Think water, act water” as a document that sits in the same category as the spatial plan, the Canberra plan or the social plan, it should not be considered a disallowable instrument under the Water Resources Act. It is an aspirational document, and it fails many of the tests of what should be in the water resources strategy.

One of the biggest failings is that one of the things that is required under the water resources strategy is a clear reckoning of what the environmental flows need to be to maintain individual waterways and aquifers. By the government’s own admission, we do not have up-to-date environmental flow information. This work is still being done. It is one of the jobs on the never-never being done by this government and, until we can have at least that up-to-date information, we should not be endorsing this document in any way in this Assembly.

I congratulate the Minister for the Environment for going to the effort of coming up with “Think water, act water”. It is a good starting point. I am very critical of it, and other people have been very critical of it, but it is in many ways a good starting point. But it is not, for the purposes of the act, a water resources management plan. Its single biggest failing is that, by its own admission, the environmental flow information in this is out of date and it is highly suspect. Until we have up-to-date information on environmental flows, we cannot possibly endorse this document.

MR QUINLAN (Treasurer, Minister for Economic Development, Business and Tourism, Minister for Sport, Racing and Gaming, and Acting Minister for Planning) (11.11): I have got to say from the outset that I rather think that the opposition ought to go further than simply gainsaying the government, which this particular motion seems to represent. Mrs Dunne said towards the end of her extended speech that it was a good starting point. I therefore do not see the sense in being negative for negative’s sake.

I learnt an early lesson from the man on my right, Mr Bill Wood, when I first came into the place. When he entered debate on something the government was doing, he had the good sense to recognise the sensible and constructive parts of what the government was putting forward and then added his criticisms or reservations. That is a far more constructive approach. Given that we have a minority government, the opposition can from time to time stymie the government. But I do not think it should become an objective in itself, and it has seemed, from time to time, to be an objective in itself.

We have all agreed—we have all got the faith—and realised that water is a critical resource for the territory. I can claim to have been saying that since the 1980s, when I was a representative on a regional council. I said then that water would be the defining

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