Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House:

(1)

notes that:

(a)

the Queensland Government will soon deliver an environmental impact assessment of its proposed Traveston Crossing Dam to the Federal Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, the Honourable Peter Garrett MP, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999;

(b)

the Traveston Crossing Dam is an expensive, inefficient, unreliable and environmentally destructive option for delivering water to Brisbane;

(c)

the Traveston Crossing Dam will displace hundreds of Mary Valley families, inundate some of the finest farm land in south east Queensland, and destroy at least $1 billion of infrastructure;

(d)

the Traveston Crossing Dam will decimate the habitat and threaten the survival of the rare or endangered Mary River turtle, the Australian lung fish, the Mary River cod and a range of other species; and

(e)

the Traveston Crossing Dam will significantly reduce water flows into the Great Sandy Straits Ramsar listed wetlands, threatening fish breeding, Dugong feeding areas and the waters of Hervey Bay and World Heritage listed Fraser Island; and

(2)

calls on the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, the Honourable Peter Garrett MP to exercise his powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 to reject the Traveston Crossing Dam absolutely.

Two years ago, on the eve of Anzac Day, the Beattie Labor government announced it would build what it described as a megadam on the Mary River at Traveston Crossing. The announcement shocked and devastated the people of the valley. There have been proposals to build a dam at Traveston Crossing in the past but they have always been rejected because this is a woeful site for a dam. State Labor ministers have subsequently admitted that several other dam site options were recommended more highly than Traveston, but Labor chose this project, presumably because it was in an electorate Labor could not win. Labor just does not care when it floods farmers and country towns and destroys the livelihoods of people who live in regional communities.

The Traveston Crossing dam decision follows decades of monumental incompetence by state Labor governments. Premiers like Goss, Beattie and Bligh boasted every week about the number of people migrating from southern states to Queensland; yet, after the defeat of the former coalition government, nothing was spent on infrastructure and services to meet the needs of the growing population.

When a drought came to Brisbane, the city faced a water crisis. Labor’s neglect was starting to hurt. A range of commendable water-saving initiatives were implemented. The government even embraced effluent recycling—a project championed for decades by farmers in the Lockyer Valley and on the Darling Downs but never supported by Labor. Suddenly the government had a change of heart and decided to proceed with recycling but not for the food producers—they commandeered the water and will feed treated sewerage into Brisbane’s water supply.

In an even more audacious initiative, they announced a new south-east Queensland water grid to steal water from fast-growing areas on the Gold and Sunshine coasts and pipe it to Brisbane. The councils and people of the Gold and Sunshine coasts had provided and paid for their future water needs, but their water infrastructure—including the Gold Coast’s desalination plant—was hijacked by the state government and their water is to go to Brisbane.

The Traveston Crossing dam is not needed to meet Brisbane’s water needs. The state government has at long last released a 50-year water plan for south-east Queensland. Their plan includes more recycling, storm water harvesting and six desalination plants. It would take only one more desalination plant to provide the water which Labor plans to harvest from the proposed new dam. A desalination plant would provide water to Brisbane more cheaply, more quickly, more reliably and with much less environmental impact.

A study by the University of Technology Sydney, Cardno and the Institute for Sustainable Futures has identified at least 25 cheaper options to provide water for Brisbane than this dam. The Traveston Crossing dam would be an environmental disaster. It would be a very shallow dam with a large surface area and an evaporation rate above 1.5 metres a year. It will be a large, wasteful evaporation pond. It will be a smelly swamp, emitting huge quantities of greenhouse gases from rotting vegetation every time the dam fills and empties. The dam floods more than 600 properties, including many retirement homes, some of the state’s best dairy and farming country, parts of the town of Kandanga, including its sporting fields and cemetery, and areas in Imbil. At least $1 billion of infrastructure will be destroyed, including 11 kilometres of the national highway.

The impact on the local community has been devastating, destroying the hopes and aspirations of a generation. They cannot believe such a project could be even contemplated. They are repeatedly lied to by the project proponents, they are scoffed at by the Queensland Premier and their tragedy is ignored by the capital city media. Surveys of the half a million people living from the Sunshine Coast to Hervey Bay show that more than 90 per cent oppose this dam. But Labor will not listen.

Apart from an outbreak of common sense or the defeat of the Bligh Labor government, the people of the Mary Valley have one remaining hope to stop this dam—that is, that the federal Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts will use his powers under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to stop the project. The Traveston Crossing dam was declared by the former coalition government’s minister for environment, Ian Campbell, to be a controlled action under the EPBC Act. The new minister will soon receive the environmental impact assessment and the project, therefore, cannot proceed without his consent.

The minister has an obligation to act to protect the environmental values of the Mary Valley. This valley has extraordinarily rich biodiversity. The Australian lungfish lives naturally only in the Mary River and adjacent Burnett River, and the natural environment of the Burnett is already heavily modified. This is an ancient and remarkable species—the only fish in Australia with a lung and one of only three in the world. The Australian lungfish is regarded as the longest surviving vertebrate species in the world and is listed as vulnerable under the EPBC Act. The draft environmental impact study admits that ‘it is not known whether lungfish breed in dams’.

The Mary River is also the home of the unique Mary River turtle—a turtle with gills. The Mary River cod comes only from this river. It was only identified as a separate species in 1993 and is listed as endangered under the EPBC Act. The draft environmental impact study admits that it is not known if the cod can use fishways, but we do know that fishways constructed in the Paradise Dam have been a failure. The tusked frog, the southern barred frog, the elk skink and the challenger skink will all have their habitat destroyed or degraded.

The dam will reduce flows in the river system, with potentially devastating impacts on fish breeding in the rivers of the Great Sandy Strait Ramsar-listed wetlands. The sea grasses in Hervey Bay, an important dugong feeding area, are also threatened. The draft environmental impact study admits that the new dam will be colonised by weed species including the noxious salvinia and water hyacinth. These weeds already cause problems in the Mary River, and it is only the flood flows that clear the river. Damming will reduce the flood flows and leave the river permanently clogged, wiping out other species and making this beautiful waterway unusable for recreation or navigation. Residents in the lower Mary are also concerned that the loss of flood flows will lead to increased siltation and possibly eventually the closure of the river mouth. In the words of nationally known water engineer and kayaker Steve Posselt, who recently paddled the whole river, ‘Don’t Murray the Mary!’

The draft environmental impact study was a farce. Premier Anna Bligh, who released the draft EIS, must think the people of Mary Valley are fools to swallow the nonsense that was passed off as a scientific study. The 1,600-page document and its associated propaganda claim that the Mary Valley will be $244 million a year richer, there will be 778 more people employed permanently—700 people to run a dam?—and the lungfish and the turtle will be better off. And international cricket teams will base themselves at Kandanga! I understand that this glossy EIS has now been withdrawn and a new document is being prepared. I hope it more honestly addresses the real environmental concerns.

The challenge will soon be with the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts. He must have the courage to say no to his Labor colleagues in Queensland. I know Labor blood runs thick, but the case for our unique and precious environment must rise above political allegiances. I am concerned that the minister’s position has already been compromised. There are frequent reports that the Queensland Premier and other ministers will happily tell anyone who asks that they have a ‘wink and a nod’ from the Prime Minister and the former Labor spokesperson on the environment, Mr Albanese, that the federal government will grant an EPBC Act approval. Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser told state parliament recently that the government has already spent $500 million on this dam project—all without even submitting an environmental impact statement.

Before the autumn break, I stood at this dispatch box and invited the environment minister to come to the Mary Valley and see the dam site for himself. He said he would and he did, even if he did not tell me as the local member that he was coming. But he spent his day with Mr Graham Newton of Queensland Water Infrastructure, the project proponents. Only a very small group of local residents were even allowed to meet the minister and then only briefly at a truncated meeting before he was whisked away by Mr Newton.

Last year Mr Albanese also visited the site—he said alone. But now it is known that the former Labor shadow minister was also accompanied by Mr Newton. How can local people be confident that the minister will fairly assess the issues of concern when he has so aligned himself with the project’s proponents? No Labor identity, either state or federal, seems to be prepared to even listen to the people whose lives are being destroyed by this dam and those who are prepared to stand up for the precious environment of the Mary Valley.

I appeal to the minister in assessing the EIS to have the courage, the guts, to stand up for the environment and put an end to this disgraceful project. (Time expired)

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