David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Recently in my electorate of Lyne I was delighted to announce $1.47 million of federal funding for the $6 million upgrade of the Nabiac aquifer water supply system, under the latest round of the Building Better Regions Fund. With this second stage, the aquifer will be able to deliver another 6.3 megalitres of water per day to the people in the MidCoast Council area—that is, 95,000 people.

As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, we've been through the worst drought in 110 years. MidCoast Water were down to their last 15 days of water. They'd already started trucking water into some of the communities. So this important improvement in water security is really timely. We had already committed, two or three years ago, to a $34 million upgrade of the same aquifer water supply. This will allow them to complete it and bring it up to its full capacity.

Like fuel in a car, if you don't have water then all life stops. People, farms, industry—everything is water dependent. This water infrastructure upgrade will allow the population to grow and allow industry to grow, and the thousands of tourists who will come back to the mid-coast region after the COVID crisis will have water to use.