Page 3631 - Week 08 - Friday, 24 August 2012
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for bringing a diverse range of tourism activity to the city, everything from Summernats to the Folk Festival to the Canberra show. Through this year’s budget, the government is delivering $605,000 in capital funding for the refurbishment of the conference centre and the Parkes room at Exhibition Park, and these works will significantly upgrade existing facilities and help attract more events and exhibitions to EPIC. The conference centre and the Parkes room are crucial to hosting larger events as they link the Budawang and Currong pavilions, EPIC’s two major pavilions.
The works will include new, automated entry doors, an acoustic dividing wall and acoustic ceiling tiles in the parks room. And this work, alongside the low-cost accommodation being built on site, will further enhance EPIC’s ability to attract more events to the city. I commend this appropriation line to the Assembly.
Proposed expenditure agreed to.
Proposed expenditure—Part 1.23—Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission—$527,000 (net cost of outputs), totalling $527,000.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4.27): I wish to make some remarks on a number of areas that the ICRC have been involved in, firstly, their Secondary water use report and, secondly, the preparation of the territory’s greenhouse gas inventories.
On the Secondary water use report, the Greens welcome this report, particularly the clarification around funding for urban wetlands. The draft report appeared to call for an end to further funding for urban wetlands. However, through our submission, we were able to clarify that the commission was in fact recommending that investment in wetlands for stormwater harvesting purposes alone not be made.
Given the many water quality, biodiversity and aesthetic benefits provided by Canberra’s urban wetlands, we appreciate that the commission has clarified this point. It is important to note that other recommendations made in this report are based upon how they measure up economically as a secondary water use strategy and may have a range of other benefits that are not acknowledged in this economic analysis.
We were impressed by the commission’s proposed analytical framework for water supply and demand planning in the ACT. We hope that the government will engage with this useful tool, particularly in light of the uncertainty that climate change poses for managing water security.
We look forward to the government’s response to the report, particularly its recommendations on the introduction of a residential grey-water accreditation system, an approval pathway for multi-dwelling secondary water schemes and a third-party water infrastructure access regime. Each of these recommendations has an important role to play in delivering sustainable water management across Canberra’s homes and suburbs.
In light of the rainwater tank rebate having been cut in this year’s budget, we also await with interest the government’s response to the report’s finding that unplumbed rainwater tanks are in fact cost competitive with Actew primary water prices.
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