Page 4655 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 27 November 2019
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answer is that governments need a bit of courage to go about building some of the dams that were planned. Dams were planned up and down the coast which have not been built because of the failure of courage of successive governments.
The other thing we must do is not take off the agenda any possible dam. It has been said to me by a large number of water experts in the ACT that eventually we will have to build the Tennent dam and we must not take it off the agenda. At some stage, if our population is going to reach a million, and that seems to be everyone’s expectation, we will need more water supply. Next time we have the discussion about whether to build a dam, I hope that the Labor Party comes early to that debate, not afraid of the consequences but able to clearly articulate how important it is that we look after our water security.
Water security is like hazard reduction burning and hazard reduction clearing generally. If we are facing a dry climate—and it is certainly the case that, despite snow showers and flurries, we in Australia are facing a dry climate—we have to be even more prepared than we were in the past. That means that we have to have better and more reliable water supplies, and larger and more reliable water supplies, to get us through the dry periods. If we are facing dry periods and the prospect of more forest fires, more bushfires and more houses being put at risk, it is incumbent upon us to do everything we can in relation to hazard reduction. Mrs Jones is right to call out this government on their failures in this regard. What we do not want to do is put our precious water resources onto fires that could have been avoided or ameliorated if we had done proper hazard reduction.
I commend Mr Gupta for bringing this motion here today, but when he writes motions like this, I think he needs to go back and get the real history.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (3.51): I welcome the opportunity to discuss water policy in the Assembly. I enjoyed Mrs Dunne’s history lesson; it is always fun to look back with the benefit of hindsight and offer your judgement on it. It reminds me of the promise the ACT Greens took to the 2012 election where we identified $88 million of commonwealth money available and we proposed that that be used to rebuild urban waterways in Canberra, build some of the wetlands we are now seeing across the city and do some projects to help protect our lake. I cannot remember the exact words, but suffice to say both Mrs Dunne and I think Mr Corbell for the Labor Party were highly uncharitable about that proposition and said it could not be done. We have now seen some years later Senator Seselja cutting the ribbon at these projects that have been funded out of that $88 million of commonwealth money. History is always fun to reflect on.
Water is without doubt our most valuable resource and we have an obligation to use it wisely and ensure we take good care of our water catchments. Our water resources should be managed in a way that maintains and improves ecological health and provides for human health and wellbeing in the long term. The quality and availability of our water and how we choose to use it affects every aspect of our lives.
How we use our water will be increasingly important, and this has been touched on in the debate already, as our climate changes. We are fortunate to have a large water
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