weekly hansard - Queensland Parliament - Queensland Government

2614 Plumbing and Drainage and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 23 Aug 2005
Development Tribunal; all grey water systems must comply with the Standard Plumbing and Drainage
Regulation; local governments will have day-to-day administrative responsibility and will assess and
approve applications, as well as impose conditions about the ongoing operation and maintenance of
any such system; local governments will be able to declare that part of their area is not suitable for grey
water use, and this decision will be based on criteria in the regulations and code and will take into
account factors such as density of development and soil profiles; applicants will be able to appeal to a
Building and Development Tribunal against local government decisions to refuse an application or
impose conditions on an approval; local governments will maintain a register of grey water use systems
and will be responsible for monitoring the impact of approved systems; appropriate licensing
requirements will apply for related work and a licensed plumber will be required to install the plumbing
portions of a grey water use system; and a licence will not be required to install subsurface irrigation
systems but this work must be inspected and approved by local government before a compliance
certificate is issued for the facility.
The minister has consulted widely on the issue of grey water use, including a consultation draft of
the bill which was released for public comment in January this year. I am advised that the minister
received 58 submissions from local governments, unions, industry organisations and other state
government agencies. It was pleasing to note that there is broad support amongst these stakeholders
for the proposed reforms.
In the time I have left, I want to take this opportunity to congratulate a company that is based in
Maleny and has production facilities in the Nudgee electorate. Biolytix Technologies Pty Ltd received a
Premier’s Smart State Award for its innovative waste treatment technology. Biolytix Technologies is a
fine example of the application of a new technology to solve an age-old problem. It has developed a
chemical-free system to turn household waste water, including kitchen, bathroom and laundry grey
water, into irrigation water. The Biolytix waste treatment system uses soil organisms and microbes to
convert waste into humus which is used as a filter to cleanse the waste water. The system can be
installed to service a single home, clusters of homes or larger developments. It is pleasing to note that
Biolytix, our Smart State Rising Star Award recipient, will be able to apply its technology in exactly the
manner we are legislating for today.
Mr English: They’re using it on Macleay now.
Ms MALE: Indeed they are. I congratulate it for persevering in the development of this technology
which has national and international implications for the sustainable treatment of grey water and black
water. As I have said previously, this is sensible legislation which will facilitate the reuse of grey water
from homes which sometimes comprises up to 34 per cent of the water used in a household. The longterm
beneficial environmental implications of this legislation are another plank in this government’s suite
of water-saving initiatives. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr McARDLE (Caloundra—Lib) (5.25 pm): I rise to speak in the debate on the Plumbing and
Drainage and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2005 and, in doing so, advise that we will be supporting
this bill. I commend the minister and her officers for the content of the bill and the way it was put
together. At the outset I want to say that the bill in fact acknowledges the importance of water in our
society as an infrastructure item not just for the current population but for those who come in the future
together with industry as a whole and the population—or the public—in particular. It also highlights the
critical use of existing water resources and how careful we need to be when the resources are placed
for public disposal. Thirdly and most importantly, it highlights the vital nature that waste water has and
will have in the future as to how its utilisation will impact upon the saving of what I may term pure water
for other needs and aspirations.
At the public level, this bill has a very important application in that it will use grey water for
gardens in sewered areas with the option resting with local government authorities to utilise grey water if
they deem it suitable. It is hard to conceive of a local authority not agreeing to the terms of the bill and
not seeing the beneficial use to which it could be put in their own areas. As we have heard today in this
House from the Premier and the Minister for Natural Resources and Mines, water levels throughout
Queensland are at their lowest for some considerable period of time. In fact, the dams of Wivenhoe,
Somerset and North Pine were last full in February 2001 and there have only been minimal inflows in
the last 12 months into those dams and catchment areas. Therefore, we face in this state, and in
particular the south-east corner, a growing critical issue dealing with water and the need to utilise it in a
beneficial manner for all the public.
The bill itself, as I said, does have a number of components in it. The first is the right of local
government authorities to utilise grey water if they deem it sufficient, amendments to the Plumbing and
Drainage Act appointing investigators and giving them certain powers of entry to premises and the right
to obtain a warrant if such entry is refused or the power to enter a premises is refused, and also the
provision of penalties for wrongful discharge of black and grey water waste by individuals or companies.
The bill itself, as the member for Mirani indicated quite strongly, is the start of a long-term process.
As I said, we commend the minister for the work that she has done in this area. There are of
course other issues that do need to be taken on board. As has been stated before, rainwater tanks and
the use of rainwater are also issues that need to be on the agenda throughout this state if we are going