Senator BOB BROWN (Leader of the Australian Greens) (3:58 PM) —I move:

   That the Senate—

(a)   recognises that the desalination plant planned for Victoria’s Bass Coast near Phillip Island:

(i)   will produce 1.4 million tonnes of greenhouse gases annually during construction and a further 1.2 million tonnes annually during operation,

(ii)   will discharge 280 billion litres of saline concentrate effluent into the ocean annually,

(iii)   may adversely affect several nationally protected species including the orange-bellied parrot, the growling grass frog and the giant Gippsland earthworm, and

(iv)   may damage the rocky reef habitat directly off the proposed plant site and Aboriginal artefacts; and

(b)   notes, amongst other options, that the installation of rain water tanks in every Melbourne property would save an estimated 50 billion litres of water a year with no such environmental cost.