Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a Scottish proverb that says: ‘We’ll never know the worth of water until the well runs dry.’ I am pleased to speak in this place about the tangible progress on water conservation that has been made in the Fremantle electorate. In Hamilton Hill the Pinakarri Community, a co-housing project that partners private with public housing and aims to operate with minimum environmental impact, has recently completed the installation of a greywater recycling and rainwater storage system. This system allows the community to flush toilets, wash laundry and water the lawns, fruit trees and permaculture gardens without tapping into the mains supply. The treated greywater from households and a communal laundry is sent to the garden by a water-wise subsurface irrigation system, instead of literally being wasted into the sewer. Pinakarri’s combined rainwater and greywater system is expected to reduce that community’s scheme water consumption by 60 per cent. It provides a snapshot of what could be achieved by the Australian community in general, should water harvesting and re-use become standard practice.

In North Fremantle, Apace—a self-supporting, community based organisation that propagates native seedlings for public and private revegetation projects all over the state and also runs education programs—is harvesting rainwater from its nursery rooftops and has created an artificial wetland to cleanse the greywater produced by its nursery. The processed water is stored in a treated water tank and used to water the community gardens, replacing bore water, which can become extremely salty during the summer. The Apace nursery waste water demonstration project is a useful educational resource for environmental and horticultural students as well as other groups. The design of 10 separate cells in the wetland also allows for innovation and experimentation with different media, plant species and systems. This project, which uses an Apace-designed water harvester fitted to the nursery tables, is particularly impressive because it is one that can be retrofitted to most nursery set-ups, and I am hopeful that other organisations will take note of what Apace has done and use the ideas to reduce their own water and energy use.

Both the Pinakarri and Apace projects were completed using the federal Community Water Grants, a program established in 2005 to promote the saving, recycling and treatment of water. That program has been discontinued, and I am glad to see that the Rudd government has made a commitment to continue and improve national water-saving initiatives through three new programs: the National Rainwater and Greywater Initiative, the National Water Security Plan for Towns and Cities and the National Urban Water and Desalination Plan. For a long time, Fremantle has been an environmentally conscious and active place. The achievements of Pinakarri and Apace are a further demonstration of a culture that, increasingly, is valuing water more. Indeed, it is a culture that recognises water as the most precious resource on earth.