Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I ask that the remainder of my speech be incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The remainder of the speech read as follows—

As in energy, there is great scope for efficiency in water use. I am pleased to say the Democrats negotiated a water efficiency labelling system for appliances some years ago and consumers are already using their buying power to drive change. The deal was that the star rating system would soon be the basis for a minimum standards system to continuously improve that efficiency. We are still waiting for that to happen and, for the sort of revolution I am talking about, it needs to go beyond whitegoods and into industrial processes, indeed every application in which water is used.

As the Senate urban water inquiry discovered, Australia urgently needs nationally consistent regulations and codes and a concerted effort to remove the considerable bureaucratic barriers to change.

Technology is not the problem. New technology brought in dual flush toilet cisterns at least more than 20 years ago but nearly 30per cent of houses still don’t have them. The real gains could be made with new highly efficient toilet pans but they are also marginally more expensive so developers opt for cheaper versions. For little more than the $500 proposed for rebates on water tanks old toilet pans and cisterns could be replaced with highly water efficient systems.

Low flow shower heads have been available for ages but some are not as effective as others and the takeup is still very slow. Domestic scale grey water recycling units are being powered by solar units.

Our Water Mark calls for accreditation for shower roses, mandated pressure reduction valves, regulations minimising dead space between the domestic and industrial hot water services and the main area where water is used, fitting dead-space water valves and putting in squirt taps in commercial and public buildings.

Properties put on the market could be required to be retrofitted and building owners given incentives to make the change.

We need an agreed timetable between state, local and federal governments for retrofitting households, business precincts and industrial areas, financed by specific purpose loans from the Commonwealth.

Progress needs to be rigorously measured and reported.

Less than 10per cent of households have rainwater tanks and the Government’s $500 rebates for 500,000 household water tanks would only add another 14per cent or so. We need to be bold and set targets that are much higher.

I was astounded at the 2020 Summit to be told by our facilitator that rainwater tanks were less energy efficient than desalination plants and should therefore not be contemplated. As far as I can see this is arrant nonsense. Rainwater does not need to be treated when it’s used in the toilet or the laundry and small solar powered pumps can be easily and cheaply installed.

I am disappointed that the government is giving the nod to desalination, through its desalination centres of excellence, as the answer to shortages of water that are due in large part to our profligate waste of high quality water. We should focus instead on efficiency, reuse and onsite collection of rainwater to serve the needs of a growing population instead of going down this environmentally dangerous path. Over $3 billion is being wasted spent on a desalination plant in Victoria – money that if spent on $500 rebates to collect rainwater would provide incentives for six million tanks making all households much more self sufficient in water.

Stormwater could be collected in back yards, industrial estates and basements. City buildings could replace a few carparks with huge tanks and capture stormwater for use again and again in testing their fire sprinkler systems rather than waste potable water on this exercise.

Huge rubber bladders could be laid down in river beds put under houses and even concrete slabs to store rainwater.

Dual pipe systems could deliver treated waste water to gardens and industrial processes – it already happens in some parts of the country but so much more could be done.

The National Water Security Plan for Cities promises to invest in infrastructure, refurbish older pipes and water systems and to fund practical projects to save water but $50 million a year for 5 years is a pitifully small amount for such an ambitious agenda. It’s less than $10 for every man, woman and child in the country and given the state of some of our century old pipes, won’t go far. Again, I fear that it this will be a series of projects here and there that don’t amount to much.

Our Water Mark calls for governments to go on a war footing. If just half as much had been spent countering the water crisis as has been spent in the war on terror we would be well on the way to solving this problem. We need an army of plumbers and engineers who know how to do this work. So far a pitifully small number of these important people have the knowledge or the skills to lift us out of this mess.

Water shortages and global warming are potentially far more dangerous than any threats so far from terrorists in Australia.

I urge the government to do more than engage in tokenistic, vote winning packages of measures.

This is serious and like greenhouse abatement national leaders must act quickly and decisively.