Page 3165 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 17 October 2006
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government. This goes beyond simply seeking national water initiative funding and should encompass continuous dialogue and communication with the Office of Water Resources, the National Water Commission and other relevant national bodies and learned institutions.
Developing and maintaining working cooperative relationships with these groups will assist in ensuring the accuracy of any sustainable water plan. I am quite confident that the people of the ACT would have that expectation because it is an issue which I have become very quickly aware attracts a whole level of interest amongst the people of our community from many different perspectives and is one that I feel confident is up there with economic management. People have an expectation that it must be handled properly and professionally and in a constructive fashion. I certainly know from my meeting with Malcolm Turnbull last week that this is a view shared by the federal government. I encourage the territory government to entertain the same view.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (4.33): This is indeed a matter of public importance as we spend at least the third year of very severe drought. The spring rains have failed us and it is not possible to predict when it will rain again. We seem to be in a permanent El Nino effect, which is enhanced by climate change as the ocean warms. It is fitting that we are talking about this matter today. The ACT is the beneficiary of a very well chosen site. When Scrivener went out in the early days, he was looking for a site with abundant water, and he chose one. He found one here and we are reaping the benefits of that and the government is reaping the benefits of that.
Mr Gentleman talks up the ACT government’s actions on water and Mr Mulcahy talks up the federal government’s actions. It is all quite predictable. What do the Greens talk about? I guess we talk about—
Mrs Dunne: Talk to yourself.
DR FOSKEY: Could you repeat that?
Mrs Dunne: No. That would be disorderly.
MR DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!
DR FOSKEY: The Greens talk about communities. We think that neither the federal government nor the ACT government have the complete answer. I must say that I am a very great opponent of the new dam that I believe the Liberals are still talking about. I did not hear Mr Mulcahy mention it today. It might conveniently drop off the agenda without any great announcement. There is no doubt that there would be a lot of ruined farms and an empty space there right now if we were building that dam.
Mr Speaker, it is an alarming time. The Murray-Darling Basin, which produces 70 per cent or so of our agricultural produce at this time of the year is only 36 per cent full compared to its average of 75 per cent at this time of the year. There are suggestions from CSIRO scientist Albert Van Dijk that the Murrumbidgee is facing a 50 per cent drop in water levels. We know the Murrumbidgee is our river of last resort, and that drop would represent a very severe threat to a secure and sustainable water supply. Groundwater, while a very useful resource, should be kept until a time of absolute
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