Page 1849 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
point about re-using that water. As that water goes up and down, over the course of 12 to 18 months, you will see plants take hold on those banks in response to those changing water levels. So the concern about having a smelly and muddy bank is not something that is actually the situation in the long run.
I think many of those concerns that were expressed were answered by the departmental staff at those public consultations. I think that residents will, in time, really appreciate those wetlands. Certainly the one on Banksia Street has been heavily embraced by the community and has been a real improvement to that part of Canberra. To some extent, they are side issues.
What this points to is that there is an opportunity for the ICRC—and this is the challenge to them in examining these issues—to undertake that economic analysis that incorporates social, economic and environmental costs and benefits. The ICRC should not simply, to use a colloquial phrase, take a hard-headed economics approach to it but should look at the full range of costs and benefits that arise from these sorts of projects. This is important because in the future we will have more greywater and more urban waterways and we need to get the best results from work of this kind.
When it comes to the minister’s comments about this analysis being premature—and I listened very carefully to his comments and I thought carefully about them—I think we are at a point where a number of the wetlands are now in place. Certainly, for example, for the Flemington Road non-potable water reticulation system, we have got—and the minister’s office has provided them to us—full costings around how the water from that will be charged and paid for. So I think that there is room for the ICRC to start to provide some analysis of and scenarios around these systems because there is an opportunity to make some understandings already.
There may be some limits to what conclusions the ICRC can draw at this point, but I guess that comes back to the earlier conversation around the development of strategies. You can always wait until the end point but I think there is an opportunity for the ICRC to provide some valuable information at this point in time that will provide us with some guidance at this point and perhaps can be added to at a later point in time.
That said, we do have some concerns with the motion and I foreshadow that I will be moving amendments shortly. I think it is important to set out exactly what the motion, if passed, will require the ICRC to assess. In its current form the motion requires a comparison to be made between the greywater industry and urban waterways in four different scenarios: firstly, with all the ACT’s water security projects, such as the enlarged Cotter Dam; secondly, without the water security projects; thirdly, with the Murray-Darling reforms; and, fourthly, without the Murray-Darling reforms.
It spells out a little further that the inquiry would be required to determine what the situation in the ACT would have been like without the water security projects, assess the economic benefit of the greywater industry and compare it to urban waterways in such a situation. Essentially, the inquiry would be asked to imagine what the world would have been like if different decisions were made. That information may be of some academic interest or some historical interest but the Greens do not think it represents the best use of the time and resources of the ICRC.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video