Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House:

(1)

acknowledges that for the first time, Green Roofs for Healthy Australian Cities has been discussed at a conference held in Brisbane;

(2)

notes that there are 15 green roof infrastructure associations representing urban planners, educators, horticulturalists, engineers and architects, which have now formed the World Green Roof Infrastructure Network;

(3)

notes that green roofs provide a range of benefits to help counter climate change through thermal insulation, storm-water management that causes lower run-off at peak times, reduction of ambient temperatures in cities, air and water cleaning effects, direct energy savings for government, visual beauty, habitat creation, long roof life and noise insulation;

(4)

notes that green roof spaces allow food to be grown through hydroponic, aquaculture, aquaponics, vermiculture and insect culture, providing additional revenues for building owners and tenants; and

(5)

encourages businesses and local authorities to seek the triple bottom line from environmental practices, as exemplified by the Ford Rouge Center in Dearborn, Michigan, USA.

In moving this motion I acknowledge the support and advocacy of Geoff Wilson, who, with his wife Mary and a very small band of supporters it seems, has been pioneering the discussion in this country about what green roofs are about. It seems to have come a long way from when we got a small grant from the Australian government to trial, in a feasibility study with the Southside Chamber of Commerce, back in 1999, a proposal at Mount Gravatt to look at recycling of food waste from restaurants via worm farming, using the worm liquor for rooftop hydroponics and selling the green-roof produce back to the same restaurants and so forth, to see whether that could work as a business.

That was where we got to a few years ago. Where are we now? What are green roofs? Well, ironically, we are under the biggest green roof in Australia. This parliament—this building—is covered by grass. It is covered so that the people of Australia can walk upon us and make out that they are very much on top of each and every one of us in our deliberations. It is making use of the roof space of this building in a positive way.

Green roofs exist in other places around the world. The Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam makes good use of green roofs. With a 12-centimetre-deep green roof pad, it has reduced noise by some 40 decibels. There it has been used as noise insulation. In transport areas, train terminals in parts of America have green roofs above them, turning old industrial spaces into green spaces.

The biggest green roof in the world is the Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan. It is a very famous plant next to the Rouge River in Michigan. It is simply the biggest green roof in the world, some 454,000 square feet or 10.4 acres. I apologise to the metric purists but, Mr Deputy Speaker, you and I understand that that is a very large space. Ford have covered the industrial plant where mainly trucks—but also other vehicles—are made. They have turned around what was, 50 years ago, one of the greatest environmental disasters in the world. The Rouge River was so heavily polluted next to the Ford plant that it actually caught on fire. It was so filled with a toxic mix of chemicals that it caught on fire! The Ford company have embraced the concept of green roofs.

Apart from the noise installation that is used at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, there is thermal insulation which reduces fossil fuel energy in the heating and cooling of buildings. By using a green layer of grass or trees above the roof you are actually using nature’s own insulation—the insulation that God designed for the world. There is also stormwater management, the lower run-off of rainfall at peak times. At the Michigan plant, excess rainwater travels through a series of swales and wetland ponds where it undergoes natural treatment before it returns to the Rouge River. Green roof technology is replanting the large roof spaces in our urban environments with productive trees and plants. As I mentioned, at Mount Gravatt years ago we trialled the idea of turning the roof spaces into food productive areas. This is done in many parts of Asia where the net landmass of  spare space in cities like Singapore is very small; so you see restaurants outside on the roofs of large hotels making use of that roof space.

My ambition in sponsoring this debate today is to get the discussion going. There at 18 countries around the world which are involved in an international network dealing with this green roof technology—countries as diverse as Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, Canada, the US, Mexico, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and, indeed, Australia. Only a couple of months ago a national green roof conference took place in Brisbane. Brisbane has a real chance of becoming the green roof centre of Australia. With green roofs there are air-cleaning and water effects, visual beauty and habitat can be created and savings for government can be delivered. In the city of Toronto, eight per cent of roofs are green roofs and this has made direct savings of some $Can12 million a year in buildings due to reduced demands for heating and cooling. Let us get the debate on green roofs going. Let us look at that as a positive and practical way to improve the environment, particularly in our urban spaces. I commend this motion to the House.

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