Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In just under seven days time Sydneysiders will be asked to live with tougher water restrictions as dam levels drop faster than expected. And, while they'll do the right thing, Sydneysiders are also right to ask: are they clamping down on water use quicker than they would have to? This terrible drought, which has sorely tested friends in rural and regional Australia, has reached our nation's cities. Sydney's dam levels have steadily been dropping. In over two years they have halved. The Kurnell desalination plant was rebooted in January well ahead of major water restrictions.

I'm absolutely confident residents within Sydney water catchment areas, Sydney and the Illawarra, will do the right thing, their sense of community responsibility will kick in and they will proudly play their part. Many of them will well remember what has now been dubbed the 'millennium drought' where we saw dam levels plummet to 33.8 per cent—levels that some argue hadn't been experienced since around the 1950s. We've lived through water restrictions. We saw residents go to great lengths to save water. We thought bold thoughts: we would do better at saving water, so we could avoid this the next time around, and guess what happened? Governments botched it. Frankly, we should point the finger at both the federal and state coalition governments for repeating past mistakes, because, if residents take responsibility and follow water restrictions, they should rightly ask if they've had to follow them sooner than necessary because governments didn't do their job and think ahead.

At the state level, we needed a much stronger effort on investing in water recycling, especially to benefit residents. In parts of Western Sydney, people promised access to recycled water are puzzled to see drinking water flowing through pipes meant for a recycled variety, all because Sydney Water didn't invest in delivering recycled water.

The feds have completely vacated the field on urban water infrastructure investment. Remember back in 2007 when former Treasurer Peter Costello declared: 'Meeting the urban water crisis was a job for state governments and not the federal budget.' It took a Rudd-Labor government to form partnerships with the states to help water-thirsty communities—backed up, for example, with a $1.5 billion investment in new urban water. But, as predictably as waiting for the next drought, what happened when the coalition was elected in 2013? Programs—

Mr Wallace interjecting—

Could you keep quiet? Others have listened to you guys quietly. Programs tackling urban water infrastructure were cut. The national water restriction was later abolished. Coincidentally, according to writers Ian Wright and Jason Reynolds, in a piece for theconversation.com :

The level of water stored by Australia's capital cities has steadily fallen over the last six years. They are now collectively at 54.6% of capacity—a decline of 30% from 2013.

Since the election the Morrison government has called on its state counterparts to step up with ideas on infrastructure investment, in part wanting to resuscitate a flagging national economy. Weirdly, New South Wales was notably silent when it came to urban water infrastructure ideas. There was nothing about strengthening the ability to deliver greater levels of desalinated water to more of Sydney's five billion population and there was certainly nothing we could see to invest in better access to recycled water in Sydney's suburbs. It wasn't like they weren't warned. In May this year WaterNSW rang the alarm bell, advising the state government to start planning now for water storage levels falling below 30 per cent.

It's not like the Morrison government won't invest in desalination, having just signed off $100 million to the SA Liberal government to help them with their desalination efforts. So why didn't Premier Berejiklian tap the forehead of her New South Wales Liberal partner Scott Morrison and call for similar support? Sure, Sydney Water is looking to double the capacity at the Kurnell facility, but, while that's happening, why can't they look at areas like the Illawarra that, according to some estimates, may run out of water in about two years at the current rate of depletion. It makes perfect sense to ensure that Wollongong and surrounding suburbs have access to desalinated water or to come up with an idea on urban water recycling.

Australians are rightly concerned the coalition has dragged its feet responding to climate change. They should be concerned that lessons from previous droughts have not been learnt and that we didn't prepare, or we're not prepared now, to invest in ways that will ensure that the water security people rightly should expect would happen. We don't need too little, too late. What we need is the right action right now.