The ACT Greens have today called for Molonglo to be a genuine model of sustainability with low water and energy use, and clever design innovations that will make it an easy and pleasant place for Canberrans to live.

The Greens Parliamentary team today launched a discussion paper on the planned Molonglo urban district for the Canberra community to debate and provide feedback

“The Molonglo development will become home to 55,000 Canberrans.  We need to take on new design and planning innovations to build an urban village for the 21st century that is low on water and energy use,” Greens Parliamentary Convenor, Meredith Hunter, said today.

“This is an important development that requires a whole of Government commitment to make sure we get the best outcomes for the Canberra community.

“But most importantly, we would like to bring the people of Canberra and their interests, knowledge and expertise into the discussion.”

The paper outlines 11 design and planning issues that address high sustainability, including water and energy use, transport options, design that promotes healthy communities and ongoing protection of our natural areas.

“It is time for us to move towards building zero emissions neighbourhoods,” Greens Environment spokesperson, Shane Rattenbury said.

“We must face up to being the largest inland city on the driest continent on earth.  Water sensitive design and non-potable water use is the only way to sustainably support this growth in the region’s population.”

“Protecting the biodiversity of the Molonglo river corridor is a priority and something we know that future residents will value. A chain of ponds is a far better option than building a dam,” Mr Rattenbury said.

“It’s often said that Canberra is a ‘car city’.  Building Molonglo from scratch gives us a chance to have fast and frequent public transport, on dedicated routes that will provide a very attractive alternative to the private vehicle,” Greens Transport spokesperson Amanda Bresnan said.

“Let’s not make the mistake of trying to add public transport only when demand grows.  It needs to be there from the very beginning to nurture a culture of public transport use.”

Greens Planning spokesperson, Caroline Le Couteur, said that Molonglo could become Canberra’s most truly affordable area.

“Our vision for Molonglo is for a place where housing is well designed so that heating and cooling costs are low, there is local employment, people live close to schools and shops, and there are good bus and bike transport links to the rest of Canberra.

“Molonglo should cost less to live in because it is well designed and these savings will help housing affordability.  In turn, savings in resource use mean that Molonglo will has less environmental impact.

“The Molonglo development has the potential to be a turning point for the ACT and Australia as we design and plan for a world where we need to account carefully for our energy and water use.

“This discussion paper presents ideas to the people of Canberra about an affordable and sustainable way to build and live that we can be proud of,” Ms Le Couteur said.

The Greens will consult on the discussion paper over the next two months, holding a public forum at the Assembly and engaging with community organisations and other stakeholders.

Please click here to view the discussion paper

Submissions will be received until 9/04/10 – send to: LeCouteur@parliament.act.gov.au

The ACT Greens have called for a transformation of the Jerrabomberra Wetlands to build on environmental, recreational and commercial opportunities offered by the area.

Today is World Wetlands Day, and while the government is busy selling its proposals for urban wetlands in the Inner North, ACTPLA is proposing to build a large electrical substation between three ponds at Jerrabomberra and dig large trenches across the site for underground cables.

“The Jerrabomberra Wetlands have the potential to be a jewel in the Burley Griffin landscape, but right now it’s looking shabby and badly managed,’ said Mr Rattenbury, Greens spokesperson for the Environment.

“Jerrabomberra could be so much more. The area is well suited to play a role in improving the quality of water going into the Lake, and provide recreational opportunities to paddlers, walkers and bird watchers. A café or conference centre with educational facilities could provide an appropriate interface with the urban areas developing in East Lake.”

“But instead of articulating a clear vision for the site, the Government has sat on the Draft Management Plan for over three years, and is gradually letting the site fall into disrepair.

“Weeds and feral animals and a general air of neglect are the obvious problems; less obvious is that the water flows across the site are not being maximised.

 “Digging trenches for underground cables may affect those water flows further and until ACTPLA knows more, they shouldn’t be proceeding with their plans for underground cables,” said Mr Rattenbury.

“With today being World Wetlands Day, we need a commitment to transform Jerrabomberra Wetlands from a wasted opportunity in to an asset all Canberrans can be proud of,” Rattenbury concluded.

January marks the last month a new house can be built in the ACT with an inefficient hot water system, due to ACT Greens’ legislation. From February onwards, only low emissions hot water systems, such as solar, heat pump, or efficient gas, can be installed in new ACT houses and townhouses.

“We can save greenhouse gases and money with targeted energy efficiency standards like this,” said ACT Greens MLA Caroline Le Couteur.

“Water heating alone accounts for a quarter of the energy used in an average home. Replacing an electric system with gas-boosted solar uses about 95% less energy and can save around $700 a year.”

The laws also phase in water-saving shower heads for ACT homes. Householders replacing existing hot water systems must now ensure that any attached showers use water efficient shower heads.

“The Greens would like to have seen energy efficient hot water phased in for all existing systems in need of replacement, but neither the Government nor the Liberals would support those changes.”

“This means that many existing homes will continue to waste money and energy on hot water production.”

“The Greens have pushed the agenda on this issue in the ACT – without our Bill, the Government would still have been promising but not delivering on energy efficient hot water for the ACT,” Ms Le Couteur said today.

ACT Greens Water spokesperson Shane Rattenbury has welcomed the referral of the Cotter Dam project to the Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) which the Greens recommended last Friday.

The Greens wrote to the Minister last week and suggested a referral would be the best way forward so the ICRC could fully assess the projects costs, why they had changed so significantly, the process for determining them and whether or not the Cotter Dam delivers value for money.

“We are pleased the Government took this suggestion seriously and believe that the terms of reference are broad enough to allow the Independent Commissioner to scrutinise the Cotter Dam cost blow-out thoroughly,” said Shane Rattenbury, ACT Greens Water spokesperson.

“The ICRC will have the expertise to assess the costs of this major engineering project with full access to documents including those that are commercial-in-confidence. They are independent, can hold public hearings, will call for public submissions, and at the completion of the inquiry, will deliver a public report.”

“It is unsophisticated of the Liberals to say that the only way for the parliament to conduct investigations is to do it themselves. Often there are better mechanisms and better qualified people that can undertake specific tasks and this is one such circumstance.”

In spite of the referral to the ICRC, the Greens remain concerned that ACTEW provided inaccurate information about the original $145m cost of the dam to the public and the Government which may have resulted in a dishonest or uninformed public debate about water policy options for the ACT.

The Greens will pursue this and other questions with ACTEW and the Ministers at the Annual reports hearings on 2nd December 2009.

ACT Greens Water spokesperson, Shane Rattenbury, has called for a more realistic debate when it comes to water security in the ACT.

“There are two issues – we need to have more realistic numbers when it comes to the projected cost of project, and also be more realistic about Canberra’s water future,” Mr Rattenbury said today.

“On cost, the massive increase in the budget was inevitable, and the earlier price figures given to the community were misleading at best.”

“During Estimates hearings in May 2009, ACTEW CEO Mark Sullivan made the following comments when asked about the cost of the Googong pipeline:

‘We tend to always have a low estimate at starts, despite people trying to encourage it to be as reasonable as possible. We have a peer review to have it confirmed.  Then by the time we get to this target out-turn cost, the TOC, we generally see a fairly large increase.’

“For the ACT Government to now claim they are disappointed or surprised by this new cost figure really begs some questions,” Rattenbury said.

“As for Canberra’s water future, Mark Sullivan on radio this morning talked about returning to watering our lawns and other similar uses of water.  The Greens believe it is dangerous to create this impression of ‘water utopia’.”

“Water inflow figures for our dams are at record lows, and with climate change and population growth, we cannot divert from water saving efforts in Canberra.  Our future is one with less water, and we must continue to modify our city to reflect that reality,” Mr Rattenbury said.

Greens MLA for Molonglo, Caroline Le Couteur has again joined Kingston businesses to call for the watering and maintenance of the Green Square lawn to be considered a basic service.

“Green Square has been part of Kingston Shops for a long time. But suddenly the Government had a plan to change things, and when the people of the area object, the businesses of Kingston are told they are the ones who will have to pay every cent of its up-keep,” Ms Le Couteur said.

“TAMS has slowly been handing over basic services like looking after the planter boxes in Civic, and we have even heard that there are moves to hand over essential services like street cleaning to CBD Ltd to pay for. We don’t want to see this extended to Kingston, the businesses of Kingston should not have to pay for a useable lawn for the community to share.

“We don’t agree with Mr Stanhope’s suggestion that pebbles and spiky dry grasses are a suitable replacement for a communal lawn and think the Government should maintain grass for appropriate and popular public amenity, and in this case, it’s very little water for two small grass areas.

“Perhaps the $10,000 a year could be found by taking a tiny portion of the seemingly endless funding for Mr Stanhope’s Arboretum,”

“But it would be more appropriate to give the businesses free water tanks for their rooves than expecting them to continually pay for water tankers to drive around with water.

“It’s also worth mentioning that the Government has agreed to put a new Library in Kingston, and we think that maintaining the grass for kids to play on as well would be appropriate.” Ms Le Couteur said.

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.

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.