Page 4539 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 23 November 2005
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disposal units to the same extent that there is in California and in other places in the United States.
What we had was a modest approach to saving water that was endorsed by much of the rhetoric in the Chief Minister’s and the Minister for the Environment’s think water, act water policy. It is interesting to look at a whole range of initiatives that have been proposed across the country in the last five or so years when the issues about water conservation and whether we have enough water to meet the needs of our growing population have been addressed. As well as all the pious platitudes that we hear in think water, act water, I would just like to refer to some of the issues that were raised in a similar study in Melbourne. They looked at all the mechanisms that needed to be in place to ensure that we arrive at a situation where we save water. One of the most important things that most of the research tells us is that most concern in the area of water conservation is about changing behaviour. Most people find it difficult to change their behaviours, and these would be simple behaviours. If you were not flushing your vegetable scraps and your chicken bones down the sink, you would be saving a lot of water. It is a simple measure. I know that some people find it enormously convenient, but that convenience needs to be married off against the waste of water that it is.
There is a general agreement that in changing behaviour you need to use a whole suite of levers and mechanisms. Those include education. There is a fair amount of education that could go on in this territory that does not go on. There is a lot of it set out in Think water, act water, but there is not much action on it. Another lever is incentives. We have got things like the tank rebate, and the Chief Minister and I have had arguments about the efficacy of that, and regulations. Last year in this place, unanimously, there was an agreement that there should be a small amount of regulation in relation to domestic construction, as a start. There had previously been a few changes, like the very successful and very important introduction of dual-flushing loos, which are now compulsory in new constructions of any sort, be they domestic or commercial, in the ACT.
There have to be a suite of things, and a part of this suite, along with incentives and education, is the appropriate use of regulation. Last year this Assembly agreed that it was appropriate to regulate the installation of in-sink garbage disposal units so that in future there would be declining waste of water. Every household that has one of these things wastes 20 kilolitres a year. It does not sound very much but it adds up across the population; it adds up over the years.
The minister has a few paltry excuses that they do not use very much water so it does not matter. But every drop counts. His policy proposal runs counter to the rhetoric run by his Chief Minister and the environment minister and is an abrogation of his responsibility to implement government policy that should be in favour—it says it is in favour—of maintaining water conservation measures. This government has set the people of Canberra significant tasks to reduce water conservation, and at the same time the Minister for Planning is making it easier for people to unwittingly waste water.
What the minister did on 29 July was the wrong thing. It was a failing on my part that I did not notice it at the time, but it is not too late for the Assembly to direct this minister to withdraw that regulation so that the ACT can continue on the path of appropriate water conservation measures.
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