World Water Day 2026
[6.09 p.m.]
Ms BURNET (Clark) - Deputy Speaker, I rise to acknowledge World Water Day, which was on 22 March 2026. It's a United Nations initiative to highlight the importance of fresh water, and the theme this year was water and gender. Tasmania rightly trades on its clean, green image, but there is often a tension between the environment and those industries that exploit our natural resources.
In late 2024, we saw TasWater infrastructure overwhelmed by trade waste from a global corporation at Cadbury's, leading to effluent in the Derwent and beaches closed over the summer holidays and a badly tempered debate over charges for future upgrades. We see salmon companies in the upper Derwent catchment pump unregulated quantities of antibiotics into our waterways with unknown effects on human health and the impacts of antibiotics such as oxytetracycline. Similar issues are playing out across the world. Whose responsibility is it to ensure our water is safe?
During the last parliament, the government rejected a petition calling for a catchment authority for the heavily polluted Derwent Estuary, leaving its management and protection to a group of councils, NGOs and other organisations working together in a sometimes ad hoc fashion without clear goals and data sharing.
Organisations like Landcare, Bushcare, Sea Shepherd with their rivulet clean-ups take on that responsibility of looking after our water, and the group Safe Water Hobart does testing of water in the Derwent estuary. It's the responsibility of councils, of organisations such as Derwent Estuary Program and organisations such as not‑for‑profits or community-based organisations to all play their part in monitoring and keeping our river and waters clean.
Last month, we heard that the concerns over the funding of the Derwent Estuary Program were finally heard by the government with Minister Ogilvie announcing the Derwent Estuary Program's base funding would appear in the May budget - a huge relief to that organisation that punches well above its weight. If we allow organisations like the EPA, whose responsibility it is to ensure access to clean, safe water, to be weakened, we put the health of Tasmanians at risk. The Derwent Estuary Program's State of the Timtumili Minanya/Derwent Report provides a comprehensive assessment of water quality, habitats and wildlife across the estuary and it's been collecting data over many years.
The river is showing signs of recovery with zinc concentrations declining, but long-term monitoring alongside targeted action is essential to understanding environmental change and guiding effective action.
Global heating is exacerbating the crisis in our water. Hydro Tasmania recently described how multi-season drought has led to record low levels of onshore energy generation. Increasing blue-green algal blooms are disastrous for both freshwater and marine environments, and the risk to human health from chemicals like PFAS is becoming increasingly clear. Researchers in Sweden have linked exposure to PFAS in drinking water to higher levels of asthma in children, which was reported in the Mercury today.
Compared to much of the planet, we are extremely fortunate. Presently, 2.1 billion people lack access to clean and safe water. The UN has declared that we are entering global water bankruptcy. Major world cities have come perilously close to running out of drinking water altogether. As glaciers melt and sea levels rise, desalination plants are also threatened in the Persian Gulf, a risk so great to Gulf countries, which have only a week's reserves of clean water and rely overwhelmingly on desalination as populations rise and the planet heats. In order to meet growing worldwide demand for crops, competition for irrigation water is now a major cause of global conflict, while AI data centres demand more and more of the world's supply.
Water is precious. Our rivers are precious. It takes individuals strong bodies such as the Derwent Estuary Program and statutory bodies to monitor.