Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the opportunity householders have to make a significant contribution to water and energy conservation in their homes, a much different view to the view of the Western Australian state Labor government as expressed recently by the Minister for the Environment, David Templeman. His view was that householders ought to tear out their lawns and gardens and put pebbles, pavers or other such measures in place. I believe that it is possible to retain a comfortable domestic home environment that allows for lawns and gardens and retains the home’s amenity in a way that meets the needs of the occupants. There are a great many people living in the electorate of Hasluck who share my view. I have conducted a number of community water forums in my electorate of Hasluck—in High Wycombe, Thornlie and, most recently, in Kalamunda. The focus of these forums has been water and energy efficiency, rainwater harvesting and grey water reuse. Many residents want to know how they can address these issues, what products and systems are available and where to get them. I take this opportunity to thank the Master Plumbers Association and Tradelink Environmental Solutions for their expert contributions to these forums.

Given my own years serving the plumbing industry, I have become a strong advocate for the reuse of grey water and the use of solar water heating systems. Earlier this year I wrote to the Prime Minister advocating that the government should give serious consideration to actively supporting and providing incentives to support both these measures. I was very pleased when the Prime Minister recently announced further incentives to encourage householders to choose solar water heaters over electrical water heaters by providing a Commonwealth rebate of $1,000 on the purchase of a solar system, reducing greenhouses gases from those households that choose to take up this opportunity by up to five tonnes per annum, potentially reducing greenhouse gases across the program and across Australia by 1.225 million tonnes. Kalamunda residents and others in the electorate have expressed a great deal of interest in these measures.

These forums also discussed the great potential grey water reuse systems have to save water. It is evident that a lot of households would like the opportunity to use grey water to maintain and preserve their lawns and gardens. A great many people love their lawns and gardens. It is a primary recreational opportunity for many, and many take great pride in their gardens and get great enjoyment from working in them. Mr Templeman’s suggestion that they rip them out would be most unpalatable. If state and local governments stopped making the use of grey water so difficult, such drastic measures would not be necessary. After all, these householders have already paid to use this water. Why should they be prevented from reusing it? It was interesting to note in today’s Australian the headline ‘Water to be scarcer and dearer’. The article reads:

Every mainland capital city will be forced to find new sources of water in the next decade, with households likely to pay for billions of dollars worth of new infrastructure through substantially higher water bills.

The Water Services Association of Australia reports that all capital cities will have to find new sources of water such as desalination and recycling. An earlier report by this association poured cold water on the idea of grey water recycling, apparently because of potential health and environmental impacts and that such a measure did not save much water anyway. I think they are wrong on all counts. I am aware of work that was done in the early 1990s in Perth that demonstrated that, with an effective grey water retrofit program, an additional 22 gigalitres of potable water could be created and/or saved. Twenty-two gigalitres is about half the potable water produced by the new desalination plant in WA. Its capacity is 45 gigalitres and cost some $400 million. On top of that you have significant energy costs in terms of greenhouse gases plus some threat to the marine environment. The sophistication of grey water systems has improved greatly and, coupled with appropriate management strategies, threats to health and the environment are negligible. The community forums I have conducted to date have been well attended. The community wants to have—and needs to have—information on all the options available to them and to have a choice.