Posts Tagged ‘water’

MEDIA RELEASE | It’s All About Demand - Greens promise free water efficiency for households

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

Candidate for Molonglo Shane Rattenbury has today launched the Greens Water policy, focussed on reducing water demand.

“The future predictions for our part Australia point to a hotter and drier climate. With increasing population, future water security will be dependant on managing demand for water, particularly increasing our water efficiency. The Greens are determined to work with Canberra households and businesses to tackle that,” said Rattenbury.

“In order to cut water use, the Greens want a funded program where a qualified plumber visits houses and undertakes maintenance and repairs such as fixing or replacing leaking hot water systems and pipes, installing dual flush toilet systems, fitting low flow taps, shower heads and other water savings devices.”

“Our target is to deliver this to 25,000 households over the next four years, around 20% of Canberra households. This program will cost approximately $8 million.”

We also want to investigate similar initiatives with the commercial sector.

Other key initiatives in the Greens water policy include:

-Replacing the current staged system of water restrictions with a permanent strategy to achieve water conservation targets;

-Establishing a Legislative Assembly Inquiry to consider the best options for ensuring a sustainable water supply in the ACT. During the current Assembly, Labor refused to support a Select Committee on this, and the Inquiry they did establish never reported before the Assembly finished;

-Accelerating the program to replace stormwater drains with urban creek and wetland systems, beginning with the completion of the Sullivans Creek wetland network;

-The new urban development of Molonglo to be built with a ‘third pipe’ installed at the same time as other infrastructure. The third pipe provides treated recycled water to recreational areas and all households for non-potable use;

-Encourage further uptake of urban water tanks by:
-Removing the requirement that they must be plumbed into houses to gain the rebate;
-Removing the planning stipulation that tanks can only be sited in the backyard or hidden from view; and
-Reviewing whether rebates need to be increased.

“This package of measures is designed to cut demand for water use, and ensure that Canberra has a secure water supply in to the future,” concluded Rattenbury.

Water inquiry stagnates

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008

5 Aug 08

Deb Foskey, ACT Greens MLA, today said that the Planning and Environment Committee’s decision to ditch its Inquiry into water might have been the ACT Government’s plan all along.

“When I proposed in July last year that a Select Committee be set up to inquire into water management and use, the Government referred it to its Standing Committee on Planning and Environment instead,” said Dr Foskey.

“It was clearly afraid that a non-partisan select committee would come out with recommendations it wouldn’t like.”

“I said at the time that the Planning and Environment Committee was too busy to take on this important issue.”

“I wanted a short sharp Inquiry to feed into ACTEW’s Water2Water process - instead, the 16 or so people who made submissions to the Committee and appeared before it must be wondering why they bothered.”

“Today, in the Assembly, the Government even refused me leave to make a statement after Mick Gentleman’s announcement that the Committee had dropped the Inquiry.”

“Clearly, it didn’t want to be reminded of my concerns, a year ago, that a majority government with a majority on committees - as it has on this one - doesn’t lead to the best outcomes for the ACT.”

“Meanwhile, our water use goes unscrutinised - let’s hope that the next Assembly has the numbers and good sense to ensure that we get a non-partisan inquiry into water, because this will continue to be an enormous issue for the ACT,” said Deb Foskey.