weekly hansard - Queensland Parliament - Queensland Government

23 Aug 2005 Plumbing and Drainage and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2617
non-contact playing fields. So there has been, and for a long time as far as Calliope is concerned, no
discharge to the waterways and for the last couple of years no discharge in Gladstone in terms of
treated waste. The ultimate beneficiary is the community and, importantly, the environment.
It is welcome that the minister has given the right of veto to local governments. I think everyone
here like me who has been a local councillor at some time has felt the pressure of legislation enacted
outside of the council’s jurisdiction but pushed on to it, requiring the council to enforce the legislation
often without financial support. This legislation is giving local councils the freedom to embrace the
proposal or, if they are in an area that the councils feel is problematic—perhaps because of topography,
soil types, demographics—they will have the freedom to refuse to accept applications for grey water
usage. I would hope that most local councils treat this as a positive opportunity and that the majority of
people who have the foresight and vision to recycle their grey water will receive favourable
consideration by the local council involved.
The minister stated that all grey water systems will require council approval and councils will be
able to refuse approval for premises where land is considered unsuitable. Approved systems will need
to comply with the Queensland Plumbing and Wastewater Code and irrigation pipes will be required to
be installed below surface level to avoid human contact. My concern would be that those systems that
will be approved are cost effective. It would be a tragedy to see a wonderful principle lost to cost. With
the flexibility of using polypipe as an irrigation mechanism, it should not be too expensive. That is one
issue that I would reiterate not only to state government but also to local councils, that in implementing
the legislation they do not price it out of the reach of many landowners who would be very interested in
being involved in this type of water reuse.
The exclusion of kitchen grey water is probably something that can be argued as a positive or a
negative. Certainly, it is important if people are going to reuse kitchen grey water to incorporate grease
traps and the like. However, as a first step, it is probably a wise move to take it slowly and use grey
water from areas where the contaminants are likely to be less—grey water from showers, washing
laundry and those sorts of areas where the contaminants can be controlled by the users, the domestic
home owners, in terms of the types of washing powders, soaps and detergents that they use in their
bathrooms and laundries. But it would be important to reserve the use of kitchen grey water as an option
for future consideration, particularly when there is technology to extract grease in perhaps less dense
urban areas.
I remember at a local government council conference we were talking about the recycling of grey
water. A concern that comes up at all levels of government but particularly in local government is where
a landowner knowingly or unknowingly lacks consideration for his or her neighbour. There could be
problems with houses built on slopes where the neighbour can be the recipient of water flowing from
other premises. The council’s involvement in that area is important. The fact that this first stage excludes
kitchen grey water is important so that we can see how the community responds and perhaps, as I said,
kitchen grey water will be an option in the future.
I commend the minister for this step. I believe that as a community we can only be advantaged by
it because recycling of such an important commodity will allow our communities to be a little more
drought-proofed in years to come when we have been promised that rain will become even less
common. I commend the bill to the House.
Mr FENLON (Greenslopes—ALP) (5.47 pm): I rise to speak in support of the Plumbing and
Drainage and Other Legislation Amendment Bill. Australia is perhaps the driest continent on earth, and
we as a Western advanced civilisation live here. We are seeing more and more the results of the
exigencies of dry cycles and long weather cycles the longer we live on this continent. Indeed, we live on
a continent that was magnificently looked after prior to white settlement. We come now with a very
different approach and with its own fallout in many ways as we use the magnificent resources of this
country.
We are increasingly conscious as a society, as a community, of these realities, especially as we
see the water levels in our dams go down. I know by the number of constituents who readily wish to
speak to me regarding their concerns about water that this is a very, very significant issue for people in
the wider community. People are genuinely concerned about our future on this planet, especially as we
live long term with our families in the south-east corner of Queensland and, indeed, throughout the rest
of the Queensland. People are increasingly concerned about the use of our resources overall, but water
is certainly foremost in people’s minds.
This is an important piece of legislation in terms of trying to ensure that water resources are
conserved. It is legislation that is premised upon perhaps that water going through the general
sewerage system and being discharged as waste. That is an interesting premise in itself which might
presuppose that using this water in a different way in our backyards is a better alternative.
Therefore, in future when considering the licensing of systems in backyards it is important and
very incumbent upon councils to consider a very fundamental point. Would those water resources be
better processed at the outlet of the entire sewerage system and used in a constructive way, as we have
heard the member for Thuringowa talk about previously? I have taken a great interest in the scheme