Qld Hansard

 9 AUG 2007

Water Infrastructure

Miss SIMPSON:
 My question is to the Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Infrastructure. Minister, given that properly planned water infrastructure is the best way to guarantee timely, environmentally sustainable and cost-effective water supplies for Queensland’s future, I ask: will the state government investigate a gas-powered desalination plant utilising the future Gatton to Gympie gas pipeline?

Ms BLIGH:
 I thank the honourable member for the question. I am just wondering where she would like the desalination plant to be. Is this a call by the member for a desalination plant on Bribie Island, or is it a call by the member for a desalination plant in the seat of Kawana? Where would she like the desalination plant to be? Where is it that she would like it to be?

Mr Lucas:
 It’s got to be near saltwater as well as gas!


Ms BLIGH:
 Yes. If you want to desalinate, you need to have some sal, and that means you need to have it close enough to water for it to be cost-effective. The member for Maroochydore is part of a team—loosely described—which consistently and persistently has voted against every single piece of water infrastructure that is currently being constructed for the south-east corner. Then those opposite came in here during the budget session and said—

Mr Springborg
 interjected.

Mr SPEAKER:
 Member for Southern Downs, I ask you to desist from those comments, which are unparliamentary.

Ms BLIGH:
 So they voted against the water infrastructure. Then they came in during the budget session and condemned us for finding ways to fund the water infrastructure, and now they are suggesting that we should be building some more water infrastructure in an unspecified place for an unspecified purpose. These people could not run a raffle! They are just beyond repair.

Let me go back to the Auditor-General’s report, because it is very instructive I think—very instructive—in relation to the desalination plant on the Gold Coast. The questions were not asked by any of the Gold Coast members, and I wonder if any of the Gold Coast members were consulted before the brains trust on the front row decided to ask further questions about this this morning. Frankly, this Auditor-General’s report is a damning indictment of the ability of the Gold Coast City Council to manage a project of this size and of this scope. In the context of a bill that will be debated later in this House, it is a timely reminder—a very timely reminder—of how difficult it is for local government to oversee projects of this scale and this magnitude. When you have a large state government department like—

Mr Seeney
 interjected.

Ms BLIGH:
 Yes, we did. We took it over, and things got better from the moment we took it over!

Mr Seeney
 interjected.


Mr SPEAKER:
 Leader of the Opposition—

Ms BLIGH:
 That is when it started to get better. That is when it got better! We took it over all right!

Mr Seeney
 interjected.

Mr SPEAKER:
 Leader of the Opposition, I am talking to you. You are too busy talking across the chamber to hear me. If I am on my feet, please respect the chair.

Ms BLIGH:
 I take the interjection from the Leader of the Opposition, who is calling out that we took over the project. You bet we took it over! This document is a record of the improvements that began from the day we took it over—the day we took it over! That is when governance started on this project. It just shows how hard it is for even large local governments to deal with projects of this magnitude. When you have a large department like the department of transport, it does this all of the time.


Time expired.

 
Traveston Crossing Dam

Mr FOLEY
 (Maryborough—Ind) (10.26 am): When it comes to environmental policy the Beattie Labor government is as steady as a two-legged cat on a sailing ship.

A government member:
Better than you at the moment.

Mr FOLEY:
 I resemble that comment. It appears that the Beattie Labor government is suffering from multiple personality disorder. With one personality it goes to great lengths to restrict the harvesting of timber whilst going ahead with the Traveston Dam, which seriously endangers rare fauna and flora and will ruin some of the finest arable farmland in our state and cause untold misery to the people of the Mary Valley as well as ruining fishing in the Great Sandy Straits. I am very disappointed with some of Queensland’s green groups. People like Dr Aila Keto seem to be missing in action on this particular issue. The green groups have been deafening in their silence on this particular issue. It leaves me to wonder: do the green groups only champion environmental causes when they happen to coincide with Labor Party policy?


I call upon the government again to scrap the Traveston Dam and really give itself some serious environmental credentials.