Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know that if you are not from Sydney you are camping out, but I am happy to give the member a map of Australia to show him that there are some places other than Sydney in Australia—Perth being one of those and being in a state that punches well above its weight in terms of its economic contribution. As I was seeking to explain to the member, who has never heard of anything outside Sydney, in Perth and in the south-west of Western Australia we have seen, since 1975, a dramatic decline. It is a decline that is occurring exponentially—if you can have an exponential decline—in both our rainfall and our stream flows. As a result, Perth, whose population has been growing very dramatically, was by 2001 facing a very severe water crisis. I want to put on record my congratulations particularly to Geoff Gallop, who was a person who totally recognised in government that this was not just a drought that Western Australia was going through but rather that there was a systemic shift in our climate pattern as a result of global warming.

As a result, we commissioned our first desalination plant—115 gigawatts. In 2001, we made the decision. It was finally commissioned in 2006. Shortly thereafter it became evident that, far from this being some sort of white elephant infrastructure, indeed we needed a second desalination plant. And I think there would not be a person in Perth who would not—

Mr Craig Kelly interjecting—

We have built our second one. We are a bit ahead of you guys over there in, perhaps, your less sophisticated political culture than what we have in Western Australia. We have managed to get on with the job in Western Australia and build those desalination plants, without which Perth would not be able to continue to grow and be predicted, as it is, to outstrip Brisbane as the third sized city. But I am sure the member for Hughes—

Mr Craig Kelly interjecting—

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