Page 3619 - Week 08 - Thursday, 19 August 2010
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Mr Seselja: Yes, I’m giving it the thumbs up.
MR HARGREAVES: Good. It grows on you. Yes, it does.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Hargreaves, can we get on with the speech, please.
MR HARGREAVES: Sorry about that, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Mrs Dunne: What? Like algae, like that stuff on your face.
MR HARGREAVES: You know, I can do it on both sides of my head. Mrs Dunne, on the other hand, has only got the one half.
The ACT is the only jurisdiction in the Murray-Darling Basin that recognises the protection of the environment as the first priority of the maintenance of its water resources. Through this amendment, the act recognises the importance of adequate provision of water to the environment as part of its water resource planning for the future.
The transfer of commonwealth water to the ACT will enable the establishment of a single water resource management system under ACT control. This will have several significant advantages for the ACT, particularly as a single system will provide certainty for management decisions made by the ACT on water resource management. A single system will also facilitate improved reporting processes. Currently, there is only a general understanding of volumes allocated by the commonwealth agencies and no knowledge of volumes actually extracted under its control or by the Department of Defence or Canberra airport.
Recent agreement to a Murray-Darling Basin cap on extraction includes the agreement to the inclusion of commonwealth controlled water in the ACT in future reporting. The transfer of water management will allow this commitment to be met. It will also allow the reporting of all water use in the ACT for national water accounting purposes for the first time. I will say that again—it will also allow the reporting of all water use in the ACT for national water accounting purposes for the very first time. Currently, information can only be collected on water use authorised by the ACT government.
The change will result in the commonwealth government purchasing an ACT water entitlement for each existing user authorised by the commonwealth. Each commonwealth agency or private user will be issued an ACT licence to take water, which will be subject to the same conditions and reporting requirements as all other ACT licence holders. This will result in a higher level of knowledge of water resource use, thus supporting the sustainable management of water resource management into the future.
As Minister Corbell said in his opening remarks, the ACT operates a modern resource allocation system for its share of the water resource in the ACT. The commonwealth
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