Dr WASHER (4:52 PM) —On behalf of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Heritage, I present the committee’s report entitled Managing the flow: regulating plumbing product quality, together with the minutes of proceedings.

Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.

Dr WASHER —by leave—On Monday I tabled the committee’s report entitled Sustainability for survival: creating a climate for change: inquiry into a sustainability charter, which explores the concept of a national charter for sustainability. However, rather than resting on its laurels, as that inquiry drew to a close the committee took on another inquiry into the regulatory arrangements for the control of plumbing product quality in Australia.

This has been a short and focused inquiry into a matter of considerable significance to the Australian community. The committee strongly believes that a failure to adequately control the manufacture, importation, sale and installation of plumbing products could have serious public health and environmental implications. The regulatory arrangements in place for controlling plumbing product quality reflect the level of risk that governments are prepared to take with drinking water supplies and sewage collection.

Cases such as the SARS outbreak at Amoy Gardens, in 2000, reinforce why we need to be vigilant about controlling plumbing product quality. During the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong, the failure of plumbing products that were part of the sewerage system at a residential complex contributed to the further spread of the disease. The committee felt that safeguarding public health and conserving precious water resources in this period of persistent drought are too important to be left to the mercy of the complicated nexus of national and state based arrangements that currently prevail. During the inquiry, it became clear to the committee that there is a pressing need for improvements to be made to the cohesion, consistency, understanding and enforcement of the current regulatory arrangements for controlling plumbing product quality.

The report discusses some of the deficiencies identified in the current arrangements, including the need for more effective enforcement of mandatory schemes, stricter point-of-sale requirements for a range of plumbing products and better communication with industry and community stakeholders. In particular, the committee felt that the lack of coordination between state and territory jurisdictions and, indeed, between the two national mandatory schemes—WELS and WaterMark Certification—is a problem for industry, consumers and the Australian community.

The committee believes there are a number of actions that the Australian government and industry can and should take to improve the way in which plumbing product quality is managed in Australia. Accordingly, the committee makes five recommendations in this report, aimed at improving the coordination between jurisdictions and the two national schemes, establishing minimum water efficiency standards for plumbing products under the WELS scheme and improving the effectiveness of enforcement practices for the national WELS and WaterMark Certification schemes. I commend the report to the House.