Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It seems as if all the speakers from the government are singing from the same hymn sheet, because they have all repeated the fallacy that this bill, the Water Amendment Bill 2008, allows the government to create a Basin Plan. It needs to be pointed out that this is false, because you as a government have been able to formulate a Basin Plan since the legislation was formed on 3 March this year. So there has been nothing stopping the government from forming a Basin Plan. In fact, they have had seven months of inaction. I believe this is one of the great problems of this government—the inaction and the half-measures of the proposed Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

There is no doubt there is a need for a single authority with all the powers referred to that authority and no veto by the state governments. Unfortunately, we have no longer got that single authority. The state governments will still have the ability to veto actions of this authority, so it is not really much different from what we have now with the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.

The River Murray flows 500 kilometres or so through my electorate of Barker. I represent all of the Murray River in South Australia. I represent all of Lake Albert, I represent about half of Lake Alexandrina—because the border goes through the lake—and I represent all of the Coorong. This river supports agriculture, tourism, leisure, commercial fishing and irrigated produce which is consumed by both Australians and people overseas.

In speaking to the Water Amendment Bill 2008, I note that South Australia is mentioned 164 times in the bill and I think 12 times in the explanatory memorandum. It is indeed a critical bill for the state of South Australia and certainly for the electorate of Barker. I might add that I live within walking distance of the Murray River, so I do have a very important interest in the whole Murray River, not just because I represent it.

Whether you see the Murray-Darling Basin as Australia’s food basket or perhaps the nation’s agricultural heartland, the Murray-Darling Basin has long been a vital part of the agricultural landscape. But the river systems are in crisis, threatening the environmental health of the region and in turn those industries that rely on the flourishing river system. In recent years, one of the worst droughts in memory has compounded longstanding water availability issues, resulting in water inflows over the past two years at an all-time low—it was certainly lessening even before that—and now we have devastating environmental problems. Whether the severe drought over the Murray-Darling Basin is as bad as the Federation drought over 100 years ago is arguable. What is not arguable is that extraction from the Murray is much greater now and under present climatic conditions is not sustainable at previous rates of extraction. Hence we have the low allocations for irrigators. For example, in South Australia all the allocations are at 11 per cent which is simply not enough to keep many of the crops such as the orchards, the vines, the almond trees and so on alive.

The Murray in normal times is responsible for about 40 per cent of our food production. Hence we now have the problem of food security facing us. Of late, some commentators question the future of agriculture in the region. I am not one of them. I know that farmers and growers are an incredibly adaptable group of people whose ability to use less water is going up exponentially. However, there is a limit at which technology and improved infrastructure can no longer sustain food production in the face of lack of water flows. We could, of course, import food but that is not a desirable path for Australia to take in both economic terms and environmental terms.

Sadly, the water crisis has pitted state against state and irrigators against environmentalists. Irrigators will continue to come under pressure from environmental groups who will want the environment saved possibly at the expense of our food security, possibly at the expense of our wealth production and possibly at the expense of our job security and local communities.

It has taken much too long for the Rudd Labor government to take action. Their response to date in the meagre purchase of a few water licences does not necessarily guarantee water. They fail to understand that a licence only means an allocation when there is some water in storage. Although entitlement is expressed in megalitres, entitlement is not water; it is a share of the available water resource. So, if there is no water resource, buying up entitlement simply results in zero deliverable water to the holder of the entitlement.

Minister Wong’s department spent $50 million of taxpayers’ money on water buyback—$50 million for about 10 swimming pools of water. Most of what they have bought is general security water. As a result, no water was returned to the Murray-Darling and smart farmers have pocketed $50 million for air space in empty storage dams. So there is nothing for the environment at a cost to taxpayers of $50 million. In any case, the price offered for water was much too low. All they got was water from those irrigators who have no money left, no income due to low or no allocation and the bank banging on their door. These people now have lost a large part of their ability to earn an income as any future crops they grow will rely only on rainfall.

Water really cannot be used twice—that is, for irrigation and, secondly, for environmental flows. That might seem an obvious statement. Keeping water levels up certainly does have environmental benefits and we can see what happens when we have lower water levels as we have below Lock 1. Below Lock 1, we are seeing the effects of low river levels, where cracks appearing in the soils nearby are large enough for cows to break their legs in and make it downright dangerous to ride a motorbike on. Access to water for irrigation is extremely limited, let alone the cost of buying the water if you can get to it. Acid sulfate soils in the Lower Lakes due to exposure as a result of low levels has become a huge problem.

Concerningly, section 86(4) of this bill defines conveyance water as:

… water in the River Murray System required to deliver water to meet critical human water needs as far downstream as Wellington in South Australia.

I have lived in the area long enough to know that the Murray does not end at Wellington. There is a whole community of South Australians living downstream from there who are reliant on the river and the Lower Lakes for domestic water, stock and food production. Clearly they do not count when it comes to this bill. Their critical human needs are not factored in. We know that the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, waved the white flag in August of this year in relation to the Lower Lakes environmental flows, and now she has turned her back on the good people of the area.

The competing demands on the river between states, growers, environmentalists and residents call for a national response and not every man looking after himself at the expense of others. The pain must be shared and the approach must be for the whole river. There simply is not the water in government controlled storage areas to allow that replenishment to happen at levels we would all like so that we can irrigate at past levels.

I do not blame Australians upstream for South Australia’s woes. Pitting farmers against growers does not help us one bit. This does not mean that we should not argue for our fair share of the water available. Cooperation between states is critical to the success of any strategy to save the Murray-Darling Basin. I wholeheartedly believe that a whole-of-nation approach is essential. This bill certainly goes part way to doing that but it falls short in ensuring cooperation.

Schedule 1 of this bill relies in part on referrals of power from the referring states. This means it will be enacted and commence only after the referring states have passed legislation through their parliaments referring the necessary powers to the Commonwealth. That legislation has commenced. We are not seeing a start-up date until 2011. So we have a plan to have a plan in 2011.

I fear that the states will not willingly relinquish their control. We saw the concessions asked by, and given to, Victoria in approving the massive diversion of 110 billion litres, or 110 gigalitres, of water from the Murray-Darling Basin to Melbourne via a pipeline from the Goulburn River. The state of South Australia made a very similar mistake some years ago when they saved about 42 gigalitres, or 42 billion litres, from the Loxton rehabilitation scheme. What did they do? They onsold to the Barossa and the Clare the water that was saved from those infrastructure upgrades. It was good luck for those areas—and the Barossa is in my electorate—but the fact is that that water should never have been onsold. Savings for the river should remain as savings for the river; they should not be used by governments, as the state government did in South Australia and as the Victorian government is doing with its 110 gigalitre north-south pipeline.

This pipeline is not a very cheap way of delivering water. We are talking about $10,000 a megalitre to deliver the water to Melbourne. The present normal rate of a megalitre is about $2,400, so we are talking about four times the cost.

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