Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Science and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I want to speak briefly to this interim report of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee on water policy initiatives. I begin by saying that, since this inquiry began, water has become one of the most hotly discussed topics in Australia. It has been a quite beneficial process for those involved in the inquiry to have such a level of public debate about the vexed issue of securing Australia’s water supply. I congratulate the chair, Senator Siewert, for her great competence in dealing with this vexed issue. We had a few tetchy hearings, some witnesses who were aggrieved and certainly very conflicting evidence to the inquiry, but we seemed to be able to get through some of those issues. The report pays testament to the calm approach that Senator Siewert provided for the inquiry. The report raises the very important issues that we are all confronting and will continue to confront under the new committee arrangements when they come into place.

As Senator Siewert said, ‘Managing our water resources is an extraordinarily difficult balancing act.’ Our nation is a dry continent. We are now experiencing extraordinarily variable rainfall patterns and we are now seeing quite significant water supply security problems in many of our cities, our agricultural industries and our major regional centres. Addressing Australia’s water crisis is an urgent task. It requires leadership and action from all levels of government, particularly from the Commonwealth government.

As a nation, until now, until this suddenly became a pressing issue, we have never really valued water in the way we should. Our water supplies have been taken for granted. They have been undervalued, they have been overallocated and they have been misdirected—and we heard plenty of evidence about that during the inquiry. At the same time, our population has grown and so too has competition for water from the agricultural sector, from urban development, from industry and from the mining sector. And we received plenty of scientific evidence and evidence from our farmers and the agricultural sector that the health of our water supplies and the environment have suffered, and, in fact, that we have been squandering the water resources of the nation.

But nobody who has been involved in the inquiry has failed to notice just how great the level of public concern is about how the lack of rainfall will affect the security of our water resources. It is certainly a significant policy challenge for us at state and Commonwealth levels. Whether the reason is a lack of rainfall, be it drought or permanent climate change, as is the case in south Western Australia—the evidence there was compelling, and the initiatives taken by the Western Australian government to deal with it were compelling and quite reassuring—it is having a severe impact on water resources.

We have an extraordinarily poor record on water recycling compared to many other Western countries, and we received significant evidence on that. That is really where I would like to concentrate my comments about the inquiry—how prominent the issue of water recycling has become. We heard evidence about Israel recycling 70 per cent of its water, yet Australia’s record is so poor. But we were able to get some evidence about the commitment and the change in attitude from state and Commonwealth governments that are thinking about the recycling issue. Having heard what is happening in Western Australia—and there are significant efforts going on in Western Australia to address the issue of recycling—I was very pleased to see that in New South Wales, my home state, the government has also committed to increasing the current level of recycling by more than fourfold, from the current 15 billion litres a year to 70 billion litres a year by 2015. The establishment of the Water Savings Fund, which is $130 million over four years, has contributed $26.2 million to councils and businesses for water recycling projects. We have a series of state based initiatives, not just in New South Wales—that is my home state and I wanted to acknowledge the initiatives there—which are actually grappling with the issue of recycling. Of course, in my hometown of Goulburn that is an issue that we have been following very closely. We need to do very serious work there.

As Senator Siewert said, we heard about the issue of recycling in Toowoomba. Queensland’s largest inland city is in danger of running out of water within 18 months if it does not receive good rain over its catchments. We were fascinated by the referendum that occurred there and how the debate around the positions for and against recycling took place in the public domain, and how that affected the vote on the day. On the one hand, the fact that there was exposure to the Toowoomba referendum escalated public awareness about the recycling issue. On the other hand, it actually generated quite significant discussion of options other than recycling.

For all of us, the recycling issue is something that we will have to confront. If we do not, our world is going to change dramatically in a short period of time. The committee believe that water recycling should be a priority. It is cost-effective, it uses less energy than alternatives and it has minimal waste. We heard from Mr Ken Matthews, Chair of the National Water Commission. Mr Matthews also sees water recycling as one of the key policy areas that needs to be addressed by the National Water Initiative. As Senator Siewert said, the National Water Initiative has not really been in place long enough for us to be able to evaluate the outcomes of some of the initiatives that are part of that. Some of them will take a long time to deliver outcomes. Mr Matthews had this to say to the committee—and I thought it was very wise advice:

There is a need for more widespread and objective consideration (of water recycling) across Australia. Surely Australia, as the driest inhabited continent in the world, should be an early adopter of a new and cost-effective recycling technologies that are now becoming available.

Certainly, a Beazley Labor government will take action to ensure Australia’s towns and cities have a sustainable water supply. Labor actually has a plan for recycling. It has four elements: to set a national target of 30 per cent of waste water being recycled by 2015; to develop consistent, comprehensive national guidelines for water recycling; to provide the leadership, support and investment necessary to achieve the 30 per cent recycling target; and to encourage innovation and new technological solutions to deliver a sustainable water supply for Australia. We expect that greater use of recycled water by industry and agriculture will free up valuable drinking water and help to increase environmental water flows, which was such a significant part of the evidence the committee received in the inquiry.

Labor’s position certainly is that governments must work together to build confidence in water recycling by establishing national guidelines for its use, and we must build the infrastructure we need to reuse water. COAG is working on guidelines for water recycling, but overall Australia’s water recycling guidelines remain inadequate. Australia needs consistent and comprehensive national benchmarks and guidelines for water recycling which acknowledge different needs and circumstances, which ensure water infrastructure is maintained and which apply strong, consistent and high standards. Labor is developing such guidelines in consultation with state governments, water experts and Australia’s water users: farmers, businesses and households; and city and country consumers.

Over the past 10 years, the Howard government has done nothing to address the ongoing problems of salinity. Quite desperate evidence was provided to the committee about the impacts of climate change and growing water shortages. We need to prioritise water policy and show real leadership in water management. In the next phase of this inquiry we are looking to address those critical issues. We know that this is a challenge that needs responsible leadership and I look forward to participating in making some of the hard decisions.