weekly hansard - Queensland Parliament - Queensland Government

2626 Plumbing and Drainage and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 23 Aug 2005
affluence. So there was an enormous generational change in a short period. To have to save things, to
have to protect resources, almost made it seem as if a person was poor. Not all people changed in that
way—I am not putting down a whole generation—but in just one generation we reached a point where
waste came to be seen virtually as a sign of affluence.
Now, by my generation, we are very much changing back the other way. We have become
conscious that the resources we have such as oil, water and forms of energy are very much finite and
very much need to be protected. I think we can watch the legislative path alongside those generational
changes. It was in the generation before this one that we did what now seems a bizarre thing to do; that
is, legislate to specifically prevent people using grey water from their washing or from their showers—or
wherever it might have been from—on their gardens. We now need to go very much the other way.
We now need to recognise that huge aspects of the life that we lead are fundamentally
unsustainable. We use more oil than the next generation will begin to imagine using. We use more
electricity than the next generation will begin to imagine is possible. We use more water than the next
generation will even dream of. So these changes—the Sustainable Housing Policy and the use of grey
water—are very much the first steps in what will be a serious and long journey down the path of
sustainability in our households.
I urge the government to consider these initiatives as first tentative steps down that path. Indeed,
we need to go much, much further, because the way we use water now is simply unsustainable. We
have just released the South East Queensland Regional Plan for a population that will be far greater
than the population we have now. We all need to understand that when south-east Queensland’s
population doubles, if we are still using the amount of water that we use now we simply will not have
enough water.
Some people think that we will build new dams. Building new dams will not create more water in
south-east Queensland. Then some people turn to the idea of desalination, but desalination is
enormously energy intensive. There is only one way to make sure that we have enough water for the
population that south-east Queensland will have in the future and that is not to create more water
somehow, not to dam more water and not desalination; it is simply to use far less water.
I am hugely supportive of these steps that the government is taking, but I think we have to
understand that these are teeny steps just at the beginning. I urge the government to keep in mind and
start talking to the community about the fact that we are going to have to go further. We are seriously
going to have to look at mandated water use targets for most households. I urge the government to
keep in mind the possibility of mandating rainwater tanks for all households, because I simply think we
are going to have to go there. With those few words, I commend the bill to the House.
Hon. D BOYLE (Cairns—ALP) (Minister for Environment, Local Government, Planning and
Women) (7.50 pm), in reply: I thank all honourable members who have participated in the debate on the
Plumbing and Drainage and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2005. Since 2001, many communities
across Queensland have been living with drought, and water resources have been scarce in coastal
centres as well as rural and remote regions. The current drought is particularly harsh and nationally
widespread, but history tells us that drought is not an exceptional event in Australia; rather it is a natural
and recurring phenomenon, and a major drought can be expected in Australia on average every 20
years. Queensland’s climate history tells the same story. We live in an environment where water is a
scarce and precious commodity, with fast-growing regions putting additional pressure on water
resources. It is important, therefore, that Queensland takes action now to promote water conservation
and to create a legislative environment that allows the safe reuse and recycling of water.
The main objective of this bill is to allow for greater use of grey water by Queensland home
owners. The amendments in the bill provide for the use of grey water in urban areas to irrigate lawns
and gardens. Grey water use in sewered areas was not allowed in the past due to concerns about
impacts on public health and the environment. This bill amends Queensland’s plumbing and drainage
legislation so that local governments can now approve grey water use facilities in sewered areas, with a
number of sensible constraints that will address these concerns. All grey water systems will require
council approval, and councils will be able to refuse approval for premises where land is considered
unsuitable for grey water irrigation. Also, individual councils will be able to decide whether or not they
wish to receive applications for grey water systems. Some councils may decide that resources are best
used to investigate other options for water conservation and reuse, such as water recycling schemes.
In addition to grey water legislation, the bill includes amendments to make the approval process
for on-site sewerage work consistent with approval processes for other plumbing and drainage work.
On-site sewerage work was treated differently when it was first incorporated into the PDA because it
had been administered under different legislation. The amendments in the bill will improve integration
and ensure that the same accountability standards apply to all work.
The Scrutiny of Legislation Committee considers that the bill raises two issues within the
committee’s terms of reference. Firstly, the committee notes that the bill confers on investigators certain
powers of entry which extend beyond situations where the occupier consents or where a warrant has
been obtained and draws parliament’s attention to these entry powers. The powers of entry provisions in