Fish Beware

The Honourable members met for question time in the Queensland State Parliament yesterday. If you appreciate -as I do- good theatre, then the script from the Hansard record is worth a read.

I don’t think this requires any further commentary from me. So grab yourself a king-size tub of popcorn, put your feet up on the seat in front, and enjoy…

Purified Recycled Water

Mr LEE: My question is to the Premier. Could the Premier inform the House about the former leader of the National Party’s attempts to undermine the future of Queensland’s food producers as part of a scare campaign against purified recycled water?

Mr BEATTIE: The answer is yes. I was not surprised but I guess disappointed that the former leader of the opposition was out scaremongering about recycled water—scaremongering is what he did. He raised issues about food. Let us talk to the experts; let us not talk to those people who have trouble accessing and understanding the Net.

An opposition member interjected.

Mr BEATTIE: Please, for once, just don’t be rude. Mark Panitz from the peak horticultural group Growcom—those opposite know Growcom—has dismissed the argument and says that the claims are not helpful. He states— Food safety systems are in place so that we can guarantee our consumers and buyers, wherever they are around the world, that our product is really pure and very safe. What do the farmers say? The farmers agree with us; that is the first thing. The second thing is that the former leader of the opposition—

Opposition members interjected.

Mr BEATTIE: They are being rude again. Can those opposite actually ever not be rude? Is there anyone decent with any manners over there at all?

Mr SPEAKER: Order! The Premier is on his feet.

Mr BEATTIE: Let me come to the second point. The former leader of the opposition then went on and said that he had got on the Net and checked out Thames Water. He says that they basically do not have recycled water. I do not know where he checked that out but the fact is that they do. The former leader of the opposition, who wants to be a recycled leader, says that he got on the Net and checked it out. What is the story? Here is a report from Thames Water, which states—
The river Thames is used as a disposal route for effluent from 350 waste water treatment plants including some of the largest in Europe. Indirect re-use of treated effluent further downstream contributes about—

Mr Springborg interjected.

Mr BEATTIE: You don’t need to be rude either.

Mr STEVENS: I rise to a point of order. The Premier is misleading the House. I have checked this matter out—

Mr SPEAKER: Take your seat. There is no point of order.

Mr BEATTIE: Just as well that we do not have an IQ test. What those opposite do not want is the truth because what it says is this—

Opposition members interjected.

Mr SPEAKER: I indicate that the Premier has time to answer this question and I would like to hear him answer it for you.

Mr BEATTIE: Those opposite want to turn this place into a circus. Let me be frank about something—

Mr Seeney: Yeah, we’ve already got a clown.

Mr BEATTIE: We know where you fit into the circus. The former leader of the opposition has raised a serious issue about recycled water in London. I am trying to explain exactly what the government’s position is—

Mr Hobbs: Not true. Tell the truth about it. Tell the truth.

Mr SPRINGBORG: I rise to a point of order. We had a briefing from the Water Commission’s expert panel professor yesterday, Mr Greenfield, who said that they do not recycle one zack of their own water back into their own supply, not one zack.

Mr SPEAKER: Member for Southern Downs, if you continue to wilfully disregard my authority as Speaker you will be outside. I ask all members to respect and not disregard my authority as Speaker of this House. I will say to all of you, whichever side it is, if you continue to do it you will be outside in a hurry.

Interruption.
MOTION
Extension of Time

Hon. RE SCHWARTEN (Rockhampton—ALP) (Leader of the House) (10.49 am): I move—
That the Premier be further heard.

Mr SPEAKER: It has been moved that the Premier be further heard.
Leave granted.

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Resumed.

Mr BEATTIE: I make this point: it is very sad that on an issue of recycled water we cannot have a position where you can come in here and put your case and I can put my response. If you want to wreck this parliament, which is what you are doing—

Mr Springborg: Just give us a chance.

Mr BEATTIE: If the opposition parties want to wreck this parliament, you will destroy its credibility in the eyes of the community. It is about time you actually started to behave appropriately.

Mr SPRINGBORG: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Premier is deliberately distorting the privileges of this place. He knows we do not have the same opportunity that he does.

Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order. The member for Southern Downs will take his seat.

Mr BEATTIE: There is a 5.30 pm debate. You could have moved this as a motion for tonight. If you were still the Leader of the Opposition, you could have put this on tonight or you could have spoken to your successor.

Ms Bligh: He spoke yesterday in the Address-in-Reply!

Mr BEATTIE: Not only that, you spoke in the address-in-reply debate yesterday. You were in the parliament yesterday. I am simply trying to clarify the record so that your scaremongering goes nowhere, but you want to wreck the parliament. There used to be a time when the National and Liberal parties actually stood for the institution of parliament. People like Sir James Killen actually stood for something. All you do is stand for wrecking.

Honourable members interjected.

Mr SEENEY: I have a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr BEATTIE: Here it is again, Mr Speaker.

Mr Lucas interjected.

Mr SPEAKER: I would ask the Minister for Transport and Main Roads to desist. Is this a point of order?

Mr SEENEY: Absolutely.

Mr SPEAKER: I call the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr SEENEY: I think the Premier should look up the dictionary and find out what ‘plagiarism’ means. He is copying my speech from yesterday.

Mr SPEAKER: Can I say—

Mr SEENEY: I find his assertions—
Procedure—Speaker’s Ruling—Withdrawal of Disorderly Member

Mr SPEAKER: Order! Sit down, please. I say to the Leader of the Opposition that I have already warned you. Under the provisions of standing order 253, having previously been warned, I now ask the member for Callide to withdraw from the chamber.

Mr LINGARD: On a point of order—

Mr SPEAKER: Excuse me! I am on my feet. I asked the member for Callide to withdraw from the chamber under the provisions of standing order 253.

Mr Seeney: Mr Speaker, with the greatest of respect—

Mr SPEAKER: I am on my feet and you will sit down. The wilful disregard for my authority as chair is about to finish. I have asked you to remove yourself from the chamber. If you do not remove yourself from the chamber, you will find yourself under standing order 254.
Whereupon the honourable member for Callide withdrew from the chamber.

Mr LINGARD: Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I remind you that on the first occasion you warned the member for Callide for interjecting. The second time you warned him for taking a point of order. That is completely wrong. You might warn him twice for interjecting—

Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

Mr LINGARD:—but the first time was for interjecting and the second time was for a point of order.

Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Take your seat, please.

Mr BEATTIE: Mr Speaker, all I have tried to do this morning is explain what happens in London.

Mr Hobbs: Tell the truth!

Mr BEATTIE: Hang on. Wait a minute. I have the right to put a point of view and you have the right to disagree, but surely you should not wreck this place—

Mr LINGARD: On a point of order, Mr Speaker, when are you going to make the Premier speak to you directly rather than address all of us as ‘you’, ‘you’, ‘you’?

Mr BEATTIE: Mr Speaker, I always speak through you and, if I have not, I offer my apologies to the chair.

Mr SPEAKER: I ask the Premier to ensure he constantly talks through the chair.

Mr BEATTIE: I will. Mr Speaker, let me try to explain what happens in London without the
scaremongering we have been having. Let me come—
Opposition members interjected.

Mr SPEAKER: Order! We are continuing to have these constant interjections in the House. You are all parliamentarians from different parties, and I am asking for order. I do not want to go down the same track that I have with one member this morning, but if you continue to absolutely disrupt the business of this House that is what will happen. It is my absolute last resort. I have actually given a ruling today in that regard before. I call the Premier.

Mr BEATTIE: As I was saying, the Thames water report states that the River Thames is used as a disposable route for effluent from 350 waste water treatment plants, including some of the—

Opposition member interjected.

Mr SPEAKER: I think you should just keep going, Premier. I will warn the person who is interjecting. I do not know who it is at the moment.

Mr BEATTIE: That includes some of the largest in Europe. This is the important point: indirect reuse of treated effluent further downstream contributes about 12 per cent of the available resources for public water supply in an average year. This is what it does to London water. In other words, if you are in London and you are drinking water, in an average year you will drink 12 per cent. That is what happens in London. It goes into the river and it flows down the river and then different places extract the water and you drink it. That is how it works. However, in parts of the lower basin, that figure can rise to nearly 70 per cent during a dry summer. That is what happens in London. What we will be doing here is better than that because our reverse osmosis process will make it cleaner. It will make it better than that. When I ask, ‘Have you been to London and drunk the water?’ the answer is that, yes, you then you have drunk recycled water. If you go to Singapore, you will find that ours will be treated better than that in London. If you go to Washington, Berlin or the Orange County, you will find that ours will be treated better than their water. I just say to the former Leader of the Opposition that it is about time you told the truth about this. The reality is very clear. That is what the report says; it is black and white. As for the reverse osmosis process that will operate under our system, what happens in Singapore—and forget about London, because Singapore and our water will be better—

Mr Springborg: One per cent.

Mr BEATTIE: The former Leader of the Opposition says one per cent. Do members know what he is talking about? He is talking about what happens in Singapore, which is about to be increased, by the way.

Mr Springborg: To 2½.

Mr BEATTIE: Yes, that is right, to 2½ per cent, and thank you for making the point. The reality is this: where there is a reverse osmosis process and the water is treated, it does not matter whether it is one per cent, two per cent, three per cent or four per cent; it does not matter whether it is 95 per cent. If one per cent is good, it is all good. That is the point about reverse osmosis. The member’s point about one per cent does not matter. The member’s point about 2½ per cent does not matter. At the end of it all, you can say what you like about this because it is a democracy. But the truth is, Mr Speaker—and I want to be clear about this—people around the world drink it. Our water quality will be better than London’s. The only relevant point out of what was said by the former Leader of the Opposition—who wants to be a recycled Leader of the Opposition by the way he is going—is that in fact what happens in London will not be as good as what will happen here. Our water will be cleaner. I just say to Mr Springborg, the member for Southern Downs, and to all the other members who want to disrupt this: at the end of this, this is in the state’s interests. The water is safe, it is good quality and it will be better than what you are drinking now.

Mr DICKSON: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: the Premier is telling this parliament he is misleading parliament saying it is 100 per cent safe.

Mr SPEAKER: There is no point of order. Can I just remind some of the new members from both sides who are here that a point of order does not allow you to debate the issue. It is open for debate if a motion is before the parliament. You are trying to debate the issue. There is no point of order. I call the Premier.

Mr BEATTIE: The final point I want to make is this.
Opposition members interjected.

Mr McARDLE: On a point of order, Mr Speaker—

Mr SPEAKER: Come on! Let’s just get on with the business.

Mr BEATTIE: I have two final points. If the opposition had not been disruptive, this would have been finished a long time ago. This is your question time. You are wrecking it. If you had let me finish, this would have been done. I just say two things in conclusion. Fish need not worry because their sex will not be changed by recycled water. I want to make that really clear. We do not need to put up a label saying, ‘Beware fish. Your gender will be changed.’ I want the former Leader of the Opposition to know that. We do not have to put up signs saying ‘Fish beware’, because their gender will not change. As for the new member representing the Sunshine Coast, your nonsense about AIDS and all the other things is irrelevant; it is just rubbish. Do not go out and scaremonger. It is not in the state’s interests.

Western Corridor Recycled Water Project

Mrs MILLER: My question is to the Deputy Premier, Treasurer and Minister for Infrastructure. I ask: can the minister update the House on progress with the western corridor recycled water project?

Ms BLIGH: I thank the honourable member for Bundamba for her interest in this issue generally and her interest specifically in the considerable amount of work that is now occurring in her electorate to make this pipeline a reality. The western corridor recycling pipeline project takes bulk water recycled from Luggage Point on Brisbane’s east to Caboonbah in the north-west. It involves the construction of three advanced water treatment plants—one at Bundamba, one at Luggage Point and one at Gibson Island. These will be state-of-the-art, world-class facilities in terms of the technology that they will be using. The overall length of the pipes is approximately 200 kilometres with a combined capacity to supply the water savings target of some 210 megalitres a day. Completion for the overall project remains on target for December 2008. This is a huge project. Just to give members a sense of the size of the effort, today there are 809 people employed on this pipeline project alone. By July that will peak at 2,650 workers on the project. There will be more than 1,000 workers in the electorate of the member who asked the question—at Bundamba alone—by July this year. The project reports that targets for recruitment are being met despite what everybody knows is a very tight labour market. We are well on track to making recycled water for industry, for drinking purposes and hopefully for agriculture as soon as possible. It is clear from the debate in the public arena and the debate here this morning that the success of this project is not going to be assisted by any intelligent contribution from those on the other side. I want to take the opportunity this morning to thank the member for Moggill for the leadership that he has shown on this issue. I know only too well that this is a tough issue on which the community has very mixed views and it requires a bit of backbone to stand up and talk about how necessary it is. That is what the member for Moggill has done. I know there has been a lot of criticism of his leadership from time to time. However, we have seen him stand up from day one and provide support and some real comfort from a scientific point of view to the community. That, however, does not represent the one team, one plan, one destiny approach that we have heard so much about. Honourable members have seen here this morning the member for Southern Downs—and they will have heard him yesterday— running around scaremongering. I am very sorry that the member for Moggill does not seem to be able to control his own backbench with the member for Kawana also jumping on the bandwagon. I do think it is important that people understand that there will be scaremongering on this. I draw to the attention of honourable members this document that says, ‘Think before you agree to drink’. This is the document that has been prepared by Councillor ‘Snow’ Manners from Toowoomba. I understand that he is hoping to distribute it across south-east Queensland. This is the document on which the member for Southern Downs presumably bases his wild claims about the sex changes of fish and further claims about endocrine disruption compounds. It is probably the most intellectually dishonest document I have seen.