Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a certain synergy which sees this motion, which covers sanitation and water quality, amongst other things, following the speech of my good friend the member for Leichhardt, the Chief Opposition Whip, in relation to tuberculosis and community health. Community health is based in much part upon having a sound and safe sanitation and water system. In this motion, I want to address four things briefly: firstly, Australian urban water supplies; secondly, Australian rural water supplies; thirdly, international safety and sanitation; and, fourthly, the protection and care of our marine environment and, in particular, marine animals such as turtles and dugongs, which we have seen featured just this evening on the 7.30 program in relation to their slaughter and poaching.

This motion reads:

That this House:

(1) recognises the:

(a) importance of World Plumbing Day on 11 March and its aim of highlighting the role that the plumbing industry plays in relation to health, through the provision of safe water and sanitation; and

(b) environmental role of the industry in water conservation and in energy efficiency and the increasing use of renewable sources of energy;

(2) notes that it is estimated that 3.1 million children die each year as a result of water related diseases; and

(3) congratulates the World Plumbing Council on its role in promoting the importance of the plumbing industry both in developed countries and in developing countries where good plumbing could save lives.

The subject of this motion combines the portfolio for which I have responsibility with the work of a former member for Hasluck, Stuart Henry, who is now a leader in the World Plumbing Council. The motion starts with the proposition that safe water and reasonable drinking supplies are fundamental to the safety of children and adults throughout the world.

We on the coalition side have a four-pillars plan at the urban level to ensure that safe water is in place. The first pillar is to ensure that there is an adequate supply of water through dams, and in particular through new dams. We are not afraid of supporting new dams. We have lived through a period where it was famously said by a previous Victorian premier that dams do not create water. Actually, they do store water. We have seen the extraordinary volumes which can be stored in the wet times, and they carry us through to the dry times. We have also seen the flood mitigation value of dams over recent times. So we do support new dams where they are environmentally appropriate and they will have a genuine benefit to the community.

The second pillar is to replace potable water where possible, to husband and secure our potable water resources through a greater use of stormwater for non-potable purposes—for watering our parks and gardens, for taking care of irrigation needs. Right around Australia, there is the potential for an extraordinary increase in stormwater capture and recycling through the underground aquifers.

That leads me to the third of the urban pillars, and that is recycling. Again, this is recycling for potable replacement rather than for use as potable water. There is an understandable community concern. We should be recycling water, as we can do in all of our cities. We have seen significant progress in some but a large failure in my home state of Victoria, in Melbourne, and in New South Wales, in Sydney. There should be much greater recycling, as opposed to desalination, which is an incredibly energy-intensive and extraordinarily expensive way to produce water.

The fourth pillar is water efficiency. There is an enormous amount to be done. We saw in my home state of Victoria the great strides forward in water efficiency that people made during the dry times. We should not lightly give away those forms of water efficiency. This brings me to the second of the great areas where this motion is concerned, and that is the adequate supply of rural water. I know that we have many people here from different parts. The member for Mallee, whom I have spent time with in his own patch, is one of the great water engineers in this parliament. He understands the DNA of the water engineering process. Our goal, our task and our responsibility is very clear: rather than to have a buyout of rural Australia it is to have a once-in-a-century replumbing of rural Australia. This replumbing of rural Australia is the great vision. It is the possibility of what we can and should be doing. We set aside $6 billion for replumbing rural Australia prior to the 2007 election. The vast bulk of that money remains in effective escrow in the hands of the government and has not been used. It should be used rather than being held back on ideological grounds. It is far preferable to a buyout of our farms, our farmers and our food security. This once-in-a-century upgrade of our channels and our irrigation systems is a shared project, public and private, which can save literally hundreds of billions of litres which can be shared on a permanent basis between farmers and the environment. Ultimately it helps provide greater food security and water security.

This brings me to the third of our great responsibilities, and that is international assistance. As we know, 3.1 million children die on average each year as a result of water-related diseases. This is the 21st century and we still have these losses. We cannot try to be the problem solver for all of the world, but our great task is to ensure that in our own region—in particular in Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea—we are playing our role to ensure that there is a treatment regime available to kill the waterborne diseases, to kill the pests and to make sure that there is adequate treatment. It is treatment that is critical both for the drinking water and for the sewerage systems, because when they fail that is where we see that we have the great spread of waterborne illness as well as the inability to get safe, clean drinking water and all of the issues that flow from that.

Of course, the great despoiling of our coastlines is linked to the health and heritage of our great natural marine icons. I have myself been very engaged with the issue of the turtle and dugong populations. Only this evening, what we have seen is the disclosure—the second in a series by 7.30of the slaughter and poaching of dugong and turtle populations in Far North Queensland. This is against the will and wishes of the traditional owners, and I want to note that it is also a result of wilful blindness by certain members of the state government in Queensland. I wrote on three occasions to the Premier—almost 18 months ago, and then on 6 April 2011 and 15 November 2011—warning of this practice of systemic slaughter, of poaching and of carrying the turtle and dugong meat away from Far North Queensland. This was not for traditional purposes, it was not for the allowed uses and it was certainly repeatedly done in ways which have now been revealed on 7.30 to be cruel and inhumane.

Unfortunately, the Premier ignored all three letters and the call for a Crime and Misconduct Commission investigation. The then environment minister, Kate Jones, said that it was a myth that there was slaughter of turtles and dugongs. I want to repeat that: the then environment minister said to the Queensland parliament on 29 October 2009 that it was a myth. Evidence and facts were presented, it was undeniable that this practice was occurring and the then environment minister of Queensland, Kate Jones, said that the slaughter of turtles and dugongs was a myth. This was clearly wrong. It was wilful blindness. It was an unacceptable approach to dealing with the truth. This week, before the election, that minister, now a candidate for re-election in her own seat of Ashgrove, should make a statement on the reasons why she denied the poaching of turtles and dugongs. The former minister should make a statement this week on why she turned a blind eye to the slaughter of turtles and dugongs, against the wishes of traditional elders, and allowed this shocking crime to continue. The Premier should also make clear why she refused to take this strong evidence to the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission. Protecting our marine life is important; even more important is protecting the health and safety of young people around the world. I commend the motion to the House. (Time expired)

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is unusual for a member not to be relevant to his own motion, but I would like to support the member for Flinders's acknowledgement of World Plumbing Day and start by highlighting the important work of the Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre in my own electorate of Wills. The Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre is a high-profile facility with ongoing promotion both to the general public and industry stakeholders. It is a world-class facility with a high level of water and energy savings and with a commitment to continuing performance improvement. It is a world-class facility in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It is a public building used by diverse stakeholders and it is an educational and research facility.

The establishment of the Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre has allowed the plumbing sector in Victoria to keep up with the increasing need of the community for sustainability, in addition to furthering the career options and industry retention of apprentices and plumbers. As the Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre has pointed out, an adequate supply of plumbers to meet the challenges of climate change is as important as making sure that our current workforce has the skills they need. Young people enjoy the positive consumer reactions to the new green plumber image, which is particularly relevant to young people considering their career choices. We also need to retain those who are established plumbers, and the green aspects of plumbing add another dimension to their skill base and expand the role of experienced plumbers.

The Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre offers a range of courses not available elsewhere in Australia. This is a centre of excellence supported by all, an initiative that has brought together the plumbers union with other key industry employee and employer groups as well as training bodies so that building design meets key sustainability requirements now and into the future. It is a collaborative project which at its core has had stakeholder engagement essential in delivering effective outcomes for the centre now and into the future.

The vocation of plumbing is at the coalface of sustainability. Whether plumbers are dealing with water, sanitation, gas or solar, raising plumbing industry standards and becoming a venue for innovative research and development of sustainable practices are paramount for the industry and for government. In delivering on this vocation the Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre has committed to the construction of a new climate change academy and industry innovation centre that will focus on delivery of green plumbing pre-apprenticeships for Indigenous, female and other students, followed by apprenticeship training delivering dual qualifications in certificate III plumbing and in Green Plumbers Environmental Solutions.

The vision is the establishment of an academy which would see a large number of Indigenous apprentices trained in vital skills for remote communities and to meet the challenges of the mining boom, building on the success of the Indigenous Community Sanitation Program. In an application for financial support from the Australian government, the Plumbing Industry Climate Action Centre highlighted: 'Whilst the program places great value on the employment and training of Indigenous Australians placed in apprenticeships, the greatest value will be to those communities desperately needing trained generalist plumbers able to maintain proper sanitation and clean water. Australian government funding to assist in the construction of this facility would have a profound impact on real job creation across all areas of the youth population, particularly in mitigating Indigenous disadvantage by increasing the number of Indigenous apprentices to between 20 and 50 over a four-year period.'

I want to turn now to the broader worldwide issue of water and sanitation. I believe it is important that the Australian government take action to provide assistance to transform the lives of people living in poverty, especially in our region. Taps and toilets save lives and transform communities. Investing in water and sanitation is a proven way of achieving results for poor people.

The joint monitoring program of UNICEF and the World Health Organisation released its latest report on 6 March confirming that the millennium development goal target for drinking water has been reached. Improved drinking water sources are now used by 89 per cent of the global population, and this is one of the first MDGs to be met. However, 780 million people worldwide still do not have access to safe water and over 2.5 billion live without proper sanitation. Huge disparities exist between urban and rural areas, rich and poor, and on-track and off-track regions. The human cost of this lack of basic services is very significant. Diarrhoea is the biggest killer of children in Africa and the second biggest killer globally. Whilst the water MDG target may have been met, the sanitation target looks as though it will be the last to be met. That is not to say that no progress has been made, because 1.8 billion people have gained access to improved sanitation since 1990. Globally, 63 per cent of the population now use improved sanitation facilities. However, unless the pace of change in the sanitation sector can be accelerated, the MDG target will remain unrealised.

Some of the current issues are: (1) in sub-Saharan Africa, 45 per cent of the population use either shared or unimproved facilities, and an estimated 25 per cent have no facilities; (2) in southern Asia, while the proportion of the population using shared or unimproved facilities is lower, one-third of the 2.5 billion people without improved sanitation live in India; (3) in Oceania, in the Pacific, progress is, once again, slow—access to improved sanitation was 55 per cent in 1990 and some 20 years later, in 2010, it is still 55 per cent; (4) in the 50 countries designated by the United Nations as the least developed, much of the population has not benefited from investment in sanitation. In those countries, only 35 per cent of the population uses improved sanitation.

According to WaterAid and the Water and Sanitation Reference Group, access to water and sanitation have far-reaching positive impacts, contributing to all areas of development, and are one of the keys to achieving all of the millennium development goals:

MDG1: eradicating extreme poverty. The economic returns from investing in water and sanitation are strong. For every dollar invested the World Health Organisation estimates an economic return of $8, mainly through time savings and reducing productive days lost to illness. The benefits are pro poor because the losses are borne disproportionately by poor people and women.

MDG2: universal education. More girls stay in school when there is access to water and sanitation in their school and community. Girls miss school because they must spend hours fetching water for their families and, with the onset of puberty, unisex toilets and a lack of proper hygiene facilities deter attendance. In 2000 a UNICEF school sanitation program in Bangladesh was instrumental in increasing the number of girls enrolling in school by 11 per cent.

MDG3: gender equality and women's empowerment. Access to water and sanitation frees women and girls from the burden of water and sanitation poverty. Seventy-two per cent of the population tasked with water-fetching labour are women and girls. In much of rural Africa and South Asia women and girls spend, on average, two hours a day collecting water, often from dirty unprotected sources.

MDG4: reducing child mortality. Access to water and sanitation addresses the causes of diarrhoea, which is, as I said before, the biggest killer of children in Africa. A recent study of the causes of child mortality, as studied in The Lancet found that diarrhoea was killing more people than malaria, measles and AIDS combined. Some 90 per cent of diarrhoeal deaths are caused by inadequate sanitation, unsafe water and poor hygiene. A World Bank review ranked sanitation as one of the most cost-effective health interventions available.

MDG5: maternal health. Similarly, water and sanitation access is a foundation for improved women's health.

MDG6: combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Access to water and sanitation enables people living with HIV/AIDS and their carers to maintain basic hygiene and to keep healthy.

MDG7: ensuring environmental sustainability. Basic services, such as water and sanitation, are key elements of resilience to climate change. The poor are most at risk because they are already the least able to cope with seasonal change and extreme weather. Water and sanitation access improves their resilience and their ability to adapt to climate change. In a few weeks time the Sanitation and Water for All Partnership is holding a high-level meeting in Washington. Ministers from donor and developing countries will be there to generate the political will, commitments and action to tackle this crisis. Last year, Australia participated as an observer. I believe this meeting is a genuine opportunity to tackle the global water and sanitation crisis and I believe that Australia can play, and I hope it will play, a positive role in making that happen.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I compliment both of my previous parliamentary colleagues on the comments and points that they have made in addressing this motion. I rise to acknowledge the importance of World Plumbing Day. When I announced on my Twitter account that I was going to be speaking about this in the coming weeks I was met with some mixed responses to this news. Most people were positive, which was tremendous, but a few were not. One person in particular criticised the decision to speak on this matter and said it was trivial and a waste of parliament's time.

When you consider that water is a precious commodity, which covers 70 per cent of the earth's surface but only 2.5 per cent is fresh water and only 0.77 per cent is easily available as potable water, a civilised society or one that is developing cannot survive and function effectively without adequate plumbing infrastructure. Plumbing systems allow people to live together in larger communities as fresh water is easily pushed into a community, used and then waste is extracted and removed. Little consideration used to be given to the community downstream. We take this for granted every single day when we turn on the tap, have a shower, clean our house or use sanitation services. In Australia, our children for the most part are able to grow and enjoy early childhood, go to school and become healthy. That pathway is due to our technological advancement in the areas of sanitation, waste disposal and access to clean drinking water.

This does not happen by accident. It requires a highly trained plumbing sector that works with all levels of government, industry and community to ensure that adequate plumbing facilities are in place. There are many different types of plumbers: highly skilled tradespeople, contractors to install pipes and fixtures, engineers to design the projects to ensure correct water pressure and volume flow and inspectors to make sure it is done correctly. This also requires a level of professional support in skilling and training people. I was interested in comments by my previous colleague, making reference to the initiatives that are being undertaken to ensure that these skills are not lost but are perpetuated in order to provide these opportunities to the Australian community and, much more broadly, outside with the proximity of our near neighbours.

I have been working closely on a range of issues with training providers at schools in my electorate. Plumbing is one of the areas that we have in discussion, along with its opportunities. If we lose this knowledge, or the capacity to deliver quality plumbing infrastructure in this country, productivity and even people's lives could be at risk. It is so serious that, once again, I thank the member for Flinders for bringing on this private member's motion. A significant part of the motion acknowledges the World Plumbing Council and its role in promoting the importance of plumbing in developing countries, where it helps save lives. I believe this is a critical part of the aid programs that Australia provides and it is often forgotten in the discourse about the developing world.

According to the World Health Organisation, 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe water supplies, 2.6 billion do not have access to improved sanitation and 3.1 million children die each year from water-related diseases. So the whole concept of plumbing and potable water that is fresh and provides a safe drinking source is extremely important. Even though plumbing is a trade, I will call it a profession because of the range of skills required for the delivery of water at all points. When I was in Indonesia for the Australia-Indonesia Dialogue, I was informed that 25 per cent of a family's income was geared towards buying bottled water because their source of fresh water was not adequate to enable safe drinking or for their health and wellbeing.

I am pleased to have the opportunity of acknowledging World Plumbers Day. I acknowledge all of those who are associated with that work and with the contribution they make to a healthy society, which we take for granted, and their contribution to the AusAID program and to neighbours immediately to the north of us and, more recently, Africa and other countries where Australia plays a significant role.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Having lived through the 1974 floods in south-east Queensland and then the 2011 floods, I can, from personal experience and observation, note the importance that the plumbing industry plays in the health of people in south-east Queensland, through the provision of safe water and sanitation, and the benefits of that to the health and safety of people in south-east Queensland—and the consequences to people when they are exposed to floodwater.

Previous speakers have talked about the role of the World Plumbing Council in developing countries, but I want to concentrate on that part of the motion that talks about promoting the importance of the plumbing industry in developed countries, particularly in my home state of Queensland. World Plumbing Day on 11 March 2011 was established in 2010 by the World Plumbing Council to help promote the role of the plumbing industry in public health and safety, particularly through the provision of clean drinking water and sanitation in both developed and developing countries.

People are vexed during times of flood. I can recall that on numerous occasions during the 2011 flood whole communities were without adequate water or the water was unsafe to drink, and it had to be trucked in in bottled form. I can recall that on numerous occasions I had to carry cartons of bottled water in Fernvale, Lowood and other places in my electorate of Blair where it was just so critical.

In my home state, plumbers are well represented by the Plumbers Union Qld. I want to pay tribute to the Plumbers' Union for its advocacy on behalf of workers and its cooperation in the role of vocational education and training. I want to thank the Plumbers' Union, particularly, for the nearly $33,000 that it contributed to the industry flood relief appeal, which helps people in south-east Queensland particularly. The State Secretary of the Plumbers Union, Bradley O'Carroll, tells me that local plumbers are generally too busy to stop and celebrate World Plumbing Day, although I believe they did hold some events over the state. I know that the union runs terrific courses in areas such as back flow prevention, back flow revalidation, basic rigging, Certificate IV in OH&S, Diploma of Project Management, domestic waste water management, elevated platform work, first aid and other areas. The union plays a big role in the promotion of safety—health and safety, particularly—for those people who work in the industry.

Brad is right; in Queensland, every day is plumbing day, and we saw that during the floods and elsewhere since. But, in Queensland, we live in a state where, sadly, we have a shortage of skilled plumbers. The union's role it is to ensure a secure and productive workforce for the future, and the union takes that particularly seriously. Skilled Queenslanders from all trades and professions are heading to the mines. In any country area we know that. The member for Capricornia would know that, and I know that. I want to commend the plumbers for the work they do. I want to commend them particularly for the work of Joint Industry Services Training, known as JIST, for its work in providing industry-specific training for the fire, mechanical and plumbing industries. This is done through a partnership arrangement between the Plumbers' Union; the National Fire Industry Association, Queensland; the Hydraulic Contractors Group; and the Air Conditioning and Mechanical Contractors Association of Queensland.

JIST operates from an industry owned skills centre and construction centre in Salisbury in Brisbane. I have been there on numerous occasions. It trains both men and women in the area of plumbing. The skills centre infrastructure has been designed to make sure that industry input is realistic, with on-site simulation. Currently, the centre delivers training to over 150 Queensland apprentices in fire prevention, mechanical plumbing, sanitation plumbing and fire alarm technician trades. Presently, it provides interstate training for 30 Western Australian fire protection apprentices. More than just focusing on trade skills, all JIST apprentices attend the MATES in Construction Life Skills Tool Box. This is an accredited course encompassing suicide awareness and prevention, self-esteem, diet, budgeting, anger management and how to deal with a range of work and social issues. JIST also has a comprehensive host trade program to cater for the changing skills required by the industry. I want to congratulate Bradley O'Carroll and the CEO of JIST, Trevor Torrens, for his management and oversight of this excellent facility. The industry works cooperatively with the union, as it always should, in making sure that we have the best apprentices possible. I congratulate them for the work they do in my home state of Queensland.

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Australian Association of Master Plumbers advise me that there are 525 master plumbers in the federal division of Mallee. So I wish to support this motion on their behalf to celebrate World Plumbing Day last Sunday week, on 11 March. Today I salute them, for they have come from a long line of plumbers who for millennia have delivered safe water to their communities and disposed of waste.

The simplest and most primitive forms of plumbing and water delivery were first used in Egypt, Assyria and Babylon. More complex delivery systems called qanatswere later used in Persia, as Babylon became, which is now known as Iran. But it was the Romans who took plumbing to another level. Over some 500 years the Romans built 11 major aqueducts. By 226 AD Rome was being watered by up to 830 kilometres of aqueducts, delivering 227 megalitres of water every day. The Romans also built aqueducts in other parts of their empire, including France, Spain and Northern Africa. The Romans used lead in their pipes, unfortunately, and poisoned themselves in the process. It is interesting to note that the word 'plumbing' comes from the Latin word for 'lead'—'plumbus'. Some say that the regular use of lead in plumbing was a contribution to the downfall of the Roman Empire. That is subjective, but lead is a very toxic heavy metal, has no safe level in the body and affects the nervous system—causing behaviour disorders, seizures, coma and death.

So whilst there have been many mistakes in the past, we have learnt from them. Plumbing by definition is a utility that we use in our buildings, consisting of pipes and fixtures for the distribution of water and gas and for the disposal of sewage. The word 'sewer' comes from the French word 'essouier', which means 'to drain'. Among the early plumbers of note were the Incas, who used stones for drinking water and sewage waste. As a civil engineer myself, I was fascinated to view some of their ancient work during a visit to Machu Picchu many years ago. The Incas of Machu Picchu built numerous water fountains, and these were interconnected by channels and drains excavated in the rock, that were designed for irrigation and direct supply to individual dwellings.

Plumbers on a larger scale are generally known as civil engineers. They were first employed by the Roman military but it was when they were engaged in municipalities that the word 'military' was dropped and they became civil engineers. They produced great engineering feats in those times and, in 2012, we need to use similar engineering to fix the problems and meet the challenges we confront in the Murray-Darling Basin. Security and supply to irrigators and the environment is about dams and storage, and efficient water supply is about fixing the leaks in the channels. In the Murray-Darling Basin we seem to be stepping backwards. The Romans dealt with their water challenges without hesitation and so should we if we are to be a proactive nation. It was Julius Caesar himself who said that the security of the latest new city he created was best assured by securing the water supply. 'Secure the water and you secure the citadel,' he demanded.

We have to look for large-scale engineering solutions to address the needs of the river community as well as the environment. People forget the Murray and Darling rivers are drains carrying water, silt and nutrients to the sea. If Australia is to prosper, we need to look at plumbing on a large scale, to ensure water security for our river communities and our environment. We should consider more storage to conserve huge volumes of water for the environment and economic prosperity when the Murray-Darling Basin is awash, as it is now in 2012, so the environmental releases can be more natural to the seasons. We have come from drought to flood in 2012. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has a long way to go before it meets its purpose, but we need the large-scale plumbers of the land to design and build modern water storage in the mode of the Romans. I would like to recognise the contribution that plumbers and engineers have made; I dare say that their contribution to human longevity has been greater than that of the medical profession. Today I salute them and join in the comments from other members in recognising that safe and secure water is the key to good health.

Debate interrupted.