Page 3556 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 25 August 2009
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of water which will be more environmentally effective and potentially cheaper than the potable water supply. So the government is focusing on augmentation, whether it is through the large-scale infrastructure projects or the smaller scale projects such as the Canberra urban waterways.
I note in Mrs Dunne’s comments earlier today that her major critique of the government when it comes to water security is around the issue of delay. Unfortunately, Mrs Dunne’s critique has one fundamental flaw—she assumes that in 2005 the government was told that the expansion of the Cotter Dam should proceed. She then extrapolates from that that it has taken until around 2008-09, depending on which of her speeches you listen to, to move forward with that project.
Her argument is fundamentally flawed because in 2005, Actew, the ACT’s water utility, did not recommend to the government that the expansion of the Cotter Dam proceed. In 2005, Actew advised the government that it was an option that warranted further investigation, and the government agreed with that advice. It was in 2007 that Actew recommended that the Cotter Dam expansion should proceed. When did the government agree with that recommendation? In 2007. So the critique from the Liberal Party is fundamentally flawed once again on the facts. It was not in 2005 that Actew recommended that the Cotter Dam expansion proceed; it was in 2007, and it was in 2007 that the government agreed with that recommendation.
I have talked a little bit about supply augmentation, but I also want to talk about demand management. You can augment supply as much as you like, but if you do not focus on demand management, you are not going to achieve a sufficient and appropriate level of water security and, indeed, defer the need for further augmentation down the track.
It was interesting to look at the most recent report produced by the Water Services Association of Australia which was released in the last month. It is the latest information on water use in the business, industrial and residential sectors right around the country. For the commercial sector, the Water Services Association of Australia, which represents water utilities, showed that industrial use had dropped by an average of five per cent in all major Australian cities over the past five years. Interestingly, the ACT easily outstripped this average level of performance with water consumption in our commercial sector falling by 15 per cent, well above the five per cent average identified in the report.
What was also particularly pleasing was the fact that we have seen similarly good news for the residential sector, with the WSAA identifying a 12 per cent fall nationwide in water consumption in the 2007-08 financial year. We know that Canberrans have shown great support for and willingness to manage their water use and respond to the dry conditions. We know that the ACT during this period used 46 gigalitres of water compared with the historic average of 65 gigalitres.
Demand management through water restrictions and permanent water conservation measures are having an impact. But what is also having an impact is some of the programs that Ms Burch spoke about earlier, the programs designed to provide wide-scale retrofitting of water-efficient appliances in people’s homes and in
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