Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

WATER AMENDMENT (SAVE THE MURRAY-DARLING BASIN) BILL 2012

For more than a century Australians have been diverting an unsustainable and environmentally damaging volume of water from the natural resources in the Murray-Darling Basin. The creation of a Basin Plan to correct the devastating over-allocation is a long-overdue and critical national reform, which requires a substantial investment of public funds and, as Australia re-enters a drying cycle, must be effective in assuring the long-term health of the Basin.

It is imperative that the Basin Plan restores the iconic Murray River and Basin resources to optimum health and resilience because the environmental health of the Basin and the socio-economic prosperity of local communities and the nation are inseparable.

This bill has been introduced into the Senate by the Australian Greens in November 2012, at the same time as the Government’s tabling of the first Murray-Darling Basin Plan drafted under the Water Act 2007 (Cth) (the Water Act hereafter).

This bill responds to the deeply disappointing circumstances that, despite the legal requirements of the Water Act, the Basin Plan as developed by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (the Authority) and adopted by the Government is not consistent with the best available science. It does not take into account climate change, fails to take a credible and precautionary approach to future groundwater extraction and fails to guarantee that key environmental assets up and down the Basin will be kept adequately watered, healthy and resilient in wet and dry times.

This bill amends the Water Act by establishing a number of minimum environmental outcomes that any Basin Plan must achieve. These environmental safety nets will supplement the current requirement of ‘best available science’ and guarantee that the billions of tax payer dollars are not wasted on a Basin Plan that does not achieve its fundamental purpose.

Climate change

This bill amends the Water Act to ensure that any Basin Plan must continuously take into account the most up to date science on the effects of climate change. We know that global warming could deprive Basin rivers of up to 37% of their flow by 2030, and to respond to this, in the Guide to the Basin Plan released in 2010, the Authority proposed a reallocation of diverted water to the environment over a 10-year period for adaptation to climate change. Taking climate change into account is the only sensible avenue because scientists have been clear that an unforeseen decrease in planned environmental water will affect flows out of the end of the system, impede the export of salt and pollutants, and pose a great threat to South Australia’s internationally recognised wetlands.

Yet the final Basin Plan that has been adopted by the Government and tabled in Parliament does not take into account any calculation of the impacts of climate change, such as reduction of water run-off. This is a significant oversight that leaves an unacceptable margin of error in terms of ensuring that the Basin Plan recovers adequate water to achieve its purpose.

To ensure that such an oversight will not be repeated by the Authority or any government developing a future Basin Plan, this bill enshrines in the Water Act a new, explicit requirement that in developing the sustainable diversion limit for water resources in the Basin, the Plan must take into account the most up to date climate science.

Modelling

One of the primary concerns raised by the community throughout the duration of the Basin Plan consultation process, particularly scientists and conservationists, is that the Authority never undertook or released integrated Basin-wide modelling of more than one water recovery target (of recovering 2800GL/yr). The Guide to the Plan made it clear that between 3856GL and 6983GL per year needs to be recovered from consumptive use to restore the Basin to health.

But the Basin Plan tabled by the government has a starting point of 2750Gl and a hard and unguaranteed ceiling of 3200GL. We also know that if this Basin Plan only returns between 2750-3200GL to the environment, it will still only satisfy between 57-67% of critical environmental targets in the Basin.

The Greens concur with the many experts who have critically observed that there is no good reason why the Authority never conducted modelling to determine what water recovery volume would get us closest to satisfying all of the environmental targets across the Basin. This modelling would be critical for illustrating the environmental trade-offs as the water recovery target is reduced.

The best available science approach would require that a Basin Plan be developed with the full knowledge of what volume of water is required to deliver a healthy working river. This bill makes it clear that the development of a Basin Plan must be supported by thorough investigation and understanding of the optimum environmental water recovery scenario, even if that is not what is ultimately settled on by the Authority and federal Parliament on account of factors such as some delivery constraints and socio-economic considerations.

Groundwater

We are informed by scientists, including the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, that the vast majority of groundwater and surface water in the Murray-Darling Basin is hydraulically linked. The level and extent of this connectivity, and other aspects of groundwater science, remains a largely unknown factor that is subject to ongoing investigation by Australian scientific institutions. The National Water Commission has recommended that it should be assumed that all groundwater bodies are connected to surface water resources, unless it is otherwise proven.

As such, many scientific and environmental experts who participated in the consultation of the Basin Plan advised that a precautionary approach should be taken in relation to groundwater extraction, to avoid the mistake of repeating the surface water over-allocation of the past.

Yet, the Basin Plan tabled by the Government substantially increases the extraction of groundwater in blithe disregard of the long-term scientific implications of doing so. Despite the mandate of being based on the best available science, this Basin Plan permits overuse of groundwater resources in the absence of knowledge of the environmental and sustainability consequences. Parliamentary inquiries have been advised by experts that the risk posed by groundwater extraction in this context might mean the promised environmental outcomes under the Basin Plan might never be achieved.

This bill strengthens the requirements of the Water Act so that the any future groundwater extractions must be assessed using a regional scale, multi-layer, transient ground water flow model that is linked to existing surface water models. This is the level of inquiry that has previously been required by the Government in assessing the environmental impact of some coal seam gas developments in Queensland, and this should similarly apply to water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin.

The bill also amends the Water Act to require that any proposed groundwater extraction must demonstrate the cumulative impact on surface and groundwater flows and the long-term impacts on aquifer recharge. It will also require the report to demonstrate how the proposed water extraction relates to the environmentally sustainable limits under the Basin Plan.

Environmental Safety Nets

This bill also requires that a Basin Plan developed under the Water Act must satisfy a range of environmental minimum standards including reduction of salinity levels in the Coorong and Lower Lakes, water levels in the Lower Lakes, Murray Mouth openness, over barrage flows, environmental watering of flood plains and others.

It is not good enough that the Basin Plan will just improve environmental outcomes. To serve its purpose and justify the massive expenditure of public funds, the Basin Plan should be actually restore key environmental assets, including the ten Ramsar-listed wetlands that the Basin boasts, to health and resilience in the long run. South Australian environmental icons like the Coorong and the Lower Lakes were devastated during the Millennium drought. We need a Basin Plan that delivers sufficient volumes of flows to those precious places at a frequency that will keep the mouth open and flushing to sea during times of average rain fall, and times of drought that are certain to come.

I commend the bill to the Senate.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.