Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about water issues, particularly those affecting South-East Queensland which have changed markedly in recent days with the rejection by Minister Garrett of the Traveston Crossing Dam proposal. The Traveston Dam was designed by the Queensland state government to provide water for South-East Queensland, the south-east water grid, and, as a consequence of the decision by the minister, the state government’s water strategies will to have change markedly.

Just to put it on the record: population growth in South-East Queensland is 2,000 people a week. A little earlier in this adjournment debate, the member for Parkes spoke of the township of Lake Cargelligo, which has 1,400 people arriving a week. Some members should reflect on what the effect would be of a whole new town turning up in their electorate every week. That is, in effect, what is happening in South-East Queensland.

In response to the proposed rejection of the Traveston Dam, the Queensland Premier indicated that the state government would go ahead with desalination plants to replace the dam. She announced that she hopes to have desalination plants in Marcoola and Lytton by 2017. She ruled out the sites at Bribie Island and an additional site at Tugun that had been identified by Water Commissioner Nosworthy, but the Premier said pointedly that she was unable to guarantee that a future government would not build desalination plants on those sites.

There are, of course, other options. Queensland does have a water purification plant that is working very well, except that the public of Queensland and, in particular, South-East Queensland are against the use of purified water in their water supplies. It was famously voted down by the township of Toowoomba. They were on the verge of running out of water but they still would not accept purified water as an alternative. That idea has some way to go before it will be accepted by the public. I am particularly enamoured of the idea of stormwater capture. I mentioned my colleague the member for Makin, Tony Zappia, who, as Mayor of Salisbury in South Australia, put in stormwater recapture systems. The entire area of Salisbury is now self-sufficient in water through stormwater recapture, which is put through wetlands and then back into the aquifer.

Bribie Island, a small portion of my electorate and where I happen to have my home, is an ideal location for that. It already has a natural wetland in the centre of the island and the aquifers are already being tapped for drinking water supplies. However, Bribie Island has long been targeted for industrialisation by all sorts of people. Not well known to a lot of people is the fact that Sandstone Point, on the mainland across from Bribie, was one of three locations considered for the capital of the fledgling colony then called Morton Bay, along with Ipswich and the eventual position of the capital. I should say to people that Sandstone Point was ruled out because of the mosquitoes. There are about 30,000 people living on Bribie and at Sandstone Point now.

In the Bjelke-Petersen days there were proposals for a coal-loading port and a woodchip-loading port. In the Mike Ahern days, Joe Emmanuel proposed a 300,000 person supercity for the north of Bribie Island—to Mike’s credit, I do not believe he supported it. During the 2007 election we discussed the issue of a nuclear power plant. In the 2009 state election the idea of a desalination plant on Bribie Island was raised because it was in Liberal-National Party policy. It was first raised by Mick Venardos, the mayor of Gympie, who was opposing the proposed Traveston Crossing dam. His solution to the Traveston dam was to put a desalination plant on Bribie Island—thanks very much, Mick! Now we have to fight against that.

The site at Marcoola will attract some protest, probably the same protestors who protested against Traveston, with claims that a desalination plant cannot exist on an industrial estate adjacent to an airport. We are calling on the people of Bribie Island to again rally behind their members of parliament, as they have done in the past, and reject the notion of industrialisation on Bribie Island. Desalination would be a foot in the door. The infrastructure needed to power a desalination plant would be so vast that other development would need to come to justify the expenditure. I say to the people of Bribie Island: let’s get behind and make sure that, if the Marcoola protest is successful, Bribie is not taken on. (Time expired)

See this speech in context