Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about Appropriation Bill (No. 5) 2007-2008 and specifically about three measures in that bill, three key expenditure items to do with urban water. As Senator Murray says, I have a longstanding interest in this. I chaired and initiated the inquiry into the management of urban water, which reported in 2002. Those expenditure items are, as Senator Murray said, funding of $500 for up to 500,000 homes to have rainwater tanks, funding for a National Urban Water and Desalination Plan and funding for a National Water Security Plan for Cities and Towns—also an election commitment. I congratulate the government on this initiative. Indeed, setting plans and proposing expenditure, and a national concept, were certainly central to the recommendations we made in our inquiry back in 2002. However, I will presume to give the government some advice this evening, and that is that this is not just a set of projects but rather should be developed as long-term, serious, visionary, national strategies and principles. This was certainly part of the recommendations that we made.

Since that report in 2002, a very important document has been prepared and produced called Our water mark. It began in 2001 as an initiative of the Victorian Women’s Trust and was financed with two grants from the Myer Foundation, followed by a number from a group of private donors. That produced a document called Our water mark, as I said, which was released in July last year. It is a world first in the way that people across the broad community have been able to engage in and consider a major national resource issue that must be responded to and soon. It is long term and it is visionary.

Our water mark describes the water situation that is facing many parts of Australia as a crisis that must be responded to by governments and citizens and proposes a national goal: water efficiency in every action and activity that is undertaken. After achieving that, it says that we should then move to super water efficiency. It points to some very harsh realities that we face in this country. Our rainfall and stream flows are highly variable, and that variability will increase with predicted climate change. Over the last 120 years, government responses to this variability lay in the building of nearly 500 large dams to achieve water security for cities and rural enterprises. Most of our suitable catchments and river systems have now been dammed. Projected rainfall decline along the eastern seaboard suggests that the construction of more dams will not guarantee water security.

Coupled with that, our water use has been increasing. Since the mid-eighties, we have been ramping up our water use both in agriculture and in our cities. In just 13 years between 1983 and 1996, water use increased by 67 per cent. It has since levelled off, driven by the past decade of low rainfall. We are one of the highest water users per capita on earth. According to ABS statistics for 2004-05, an average family of four is likely to directly consume over 1,100 litres of water per day, every day of the year. Business and industry in Australia use significant amounts of water. Service industries are emerging as major water industries. The same report indicates that they account for 1,041 billion litres—that is, gigalitres—compared with mining and mineral processing and manufacturing, with 397 and 541 gigalitres respectively.

This document points out, as did our report, that we have been very slow to capture and use stormwater in our cities. While the size of Australian cities has steadily increased, the use of stormwater has been largely overlooked for two generations. In fact, the volume of urban stormwater run-off is only slightly less than the total volume of water consumed by households. For the cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, this estimated volume is 1,285 gigalitres in an average year.

I say this because I want to point to the first item that I mentioned—that is, the $500 rebate for up to 500,000 homes in Australia, and I think that is over a period of some years. What that means is that one in 14 households will get a water tank. I want to point out tonight that, whilst this is a good start and I know that some of the states also have rebates, we have a very low uptake so far of water tanks, and this is not going to make a huge amount of difference to that. We need a visionary target which says that even 50 per cent would not be adequate in terms of storing stormwater on site.

We have also been very loath to reuse waste water, and this is extraordinary for the dry continent that we are. In Australia, 86 per cent of effluent water is unproductive. Sydney alone discharges 450 gigalitres of barely treated sewage to be pumped into the ocean. Melbourne discharges 360 gigalitres of treated sewage into Bass Strait and Port Phillip Bay. And, across Australia, recycling of available waste water from cities is very low: Sydney, 2.3 per cent; Melbourne, two per cent; Brisbane, six; Adelaide, 11.1; Perth, 3.3; and Hobart, 0.1 per cent.

The future supply of adequate water for our city populations will present some very significant challenges over the next two or three decades. Except for Perth and Adelaide, most of the fresh water used in our cities is surface water. With the effects of climate change, the volumes of surface water available to all cities other than Darwin and Hobart are predicted to decline very significantly, so there is a need for rapid repositioning in response to climate change.

The south-east of Australia is now included in the United Nations list of the top 10 global water hot spots. That listing is based on predictions of major climate change in our part of the world, including substantial reductions in the frequency of rainfall events, reduced surface water running into our storages and more hotter days each year so that the land is a lot drier and at greater risk of bushfires. In addition, this part of Australia produces nearly 80 per cent of the food required by our city population, so it is critically important.

We need nothing short of a revolution in our thinking and practices around water efficiency, and we need to start this dramatic turnaround right now. The expectation is that an additional five million people will locate into our capital cities by 2030 and will put an unprecedented pressure upon existing sources of fresh water. If our cities and communities are to position themselves for this impending change in climate, we will need to embrace water efficiency in every single action that we carry out.