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elaine
Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 483
Location: Dagun
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 Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 2:39 pm Post subject: Rachel Nolan (Labor MP Ipswich) wants to save the Mary River |
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Below is an extract from a speech made by Rachel Nolan (current Labor MP for Ipswich) regarding the Wild Rivers Bill, found in Hansard 28/9/05 - just a few months before Beattie's Traveston Dam bombshell. I have highlighted some interesting bits.
Perhaps she needs to be reminded!!!
| Quote: | Speech by Rachel Nolan MEMBER FOR IPSWICH
Hansard Wednesday, 28 September 2005
WILD RIVERS BILL
Ms NOLAN (Ipswich—ALP) (9.00 pm): This is a groundbreaking bill. It is the first time in Australia’s history that a government has moved to protect a group of unspoilt rivers. As such, rather than being squeezed between an environment movement that wants more and a National Party that opposes any change to protect the environment, the Beattie government should be rewarded and commended for taking this courageous step. It also implements a key point of the blueprint for a national water plan put together in 2003 by the Wentworth group of concerned scientists. That was recognised as a courageous and valuable scientific document that set the new agenda for Australian water reform, and since that time Australian governments have followed it in their round of water reforms. Australia has an absolutely shocking history of water management. We have had a bizarre belief in Bradfield schemes to turn back our rivers. We have seen the terrible waste of agricultural water through things like uncapped bores. I am not trying to engage in a blame debate about that. Indeed, some generations ago many members of my family made their living creating bores. It is not an issue of blame, but it is an issue of recognising what a terrible use of water there has been in Australia. Also, we have a terrible history of far too much urban water use. As I said, this bill implements a key plank of reform, but as Australians we need to do much more than pass this bill. We need to take a very good look at ourselves and be very progressive and very brave in terms of how we use water in this country. Specifically, we need to do a number of things. We need to get off the bandwagon of more dams. We need to recognise that what the National Party says about dams somehow creating water is simply not true. We need to stop believing that if we build more dams everything will be okay. We need to start thinking seriously not just about how we protect our wild rivers but also about how we can lessen our water use and use water far more efficiently than we have in the past. In urban areas, we need to use much less water. On average Europeans use about 115 litres ofwater per household per day, which is less than half of what we use yet we live on the driest continent on earth. How can it be that people who live in an environment where it rains so much more than it does here can use their water so much more efficiently than we do. For instance, we need to ban the use of top-loading washing machines which, on average, use 117 litres per cycle compared to about 40 litres for a front loader. We need to engage in a range of measures to make efficient our urban water use. We need to hasten the clean-up of rivers that are not wild. The Bremer River, which runs through my electorate, is a classic example. Today, the Bremer River continues to show the terrible signs of having been used as a sewer by urban, industrial and agricultural users for generations. We need to hasten the process of cleaning up the rivers that run through our urban and agricultural areas. We need to do more to protect the threatened lung fish. Lung fish are a seriously threatened speciesthat have great scientific value. They evolved early in the history of vertebrates and they provide a small window into the distant past. They provide the best window we have for looking into the possible behaviour and physiology of the fishes that gave rise to amphibians, which in turn gave rise to reptiles and then birds and mammals. In Queensland lung fish are seriously threatened. They exist in the Burnett and Mary rivers.
We believe that they may have existed in the Brisbane and North Pine rivers. For instance, we should be doing more to protect the Mary River where the lung fish continue to exist. This does not sound like a big issue, except that losing a threatened species that is many millions of years old is a serious issue. It has a much greater historical impact than any of us ever will. It provides a good example of something that we need to do to protect our natural environment.
This is an important bill. It implements a key part of the water reform that has to happen in Australia, but we need to go much further. As a whole community, led by government, we need to get serious about rivers that are not wild. We need to get serious about industrial, agricultural and urban water use. We live on the driest continent on earth and we cannot continue to pretend otherwise. |
I'd like to highlight again some of those points she made:
| Quote: | | We need to get off the bandwagon of more dams. We need to recognise that what the National Party says about dams somehow creating water is simply not true. We need to stop believing that if we build more dams everything will be okay. |
| Quote: | | We need to do more to protect the threatened lung fish. |
| Quote: | | ... we should be doing more to protect the Mary River where the lung fish continue to exist. This does not sound like a big issue, except that losing a threatened species that is many millions of years old is a serious issue. It has a much greater historical impact than any of us ever will. It provides a good example of something that we need to do to protect our natural environment. |
Where do you stand now, Rachel? Are these just weasel-words, or what you really believe?
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"Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead |
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Darren E
Joined: 04 May 2006
Posts: 2075
Location: Dagun, Qld
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| Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:30 pm Post subject: |
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That, Elaine, is solid gold.
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"If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything" - anon.
"There can be no liberty for a community which lacks the means by which to detect lies" - Walter Lippman |
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