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

Despite my pleading for the Rudd government to consider Riverland communities in South Australia, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, gave the go-ahead to the Labor Party in Victoria for this pipeline at a cost of 110 billion litres that will never reach South Australia. Of course, that water would reach—if it could—the Coorong, Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. What will the other states demand and receive in return for signing on?

I believe we already had a workable long-term solution with John Howard’s $10 billion plan to upgrade our infrastructure and buy back water from overallocated areas. It was a balanced plan that would have guaranteed our food security with about the same amount of land under production—not necessarily in exactly the same places—with far more efficient irrigation and delivery to farms without all the losses from seepage and evaporation.

For the record, I think the $10 million was only the starting point. I worked with a few of my colleagues to get that plan up with the support of Malcolm Turnbull and ultimately the cabinet and John Howard. The bottom line was that, under that plan, food production would have remained stable but Australia would extract nearly 3,000 gigalitres—about four times what South Australia extracts each year—less each year.

I criticised the stymieing of that plan by Labor. I am, furthermore, disappointed at the time Labor has taken to bring this bill forward. It is very interesting that we did not hear much from state Premier Mike Rann criticising Victoria for stymieing the plan. He was very quick to sign up to the agreement with New South Wales, the ACT and Queensland but ‘We’re not really going to bash Victoria around the ears for not signing the plan’.

While governments can plan for the future so it cannot happen again, we nonetheless have to deal with the reality of the present conditions. We need to alleviate the problems they cause as best we can through government support programs but we cannot make it rain; therefore, I support this bill. I am pleased to note the bill includes the Menindee Lakes at all times and includes regulated reaches of the Goulburn, Campaspe, Loddon and Murrumbidgee river systems, which are part of the basin.

I have already mentioned my concerns for the people of the Lower Lakes. This bill seems to disregard their critical human water needs. They are facing the building of a weir at Wellington, which will offer no relief and is more about protecting Adelaide’s water supply. If citizens of the Lower Lakes are excluded from bills such as this one, they will certainly never win against a million voters.

On a per capita basis, Adelaide is a relatively large water user of the Murray. This must not be allowed to continue. We must plan to wean Adelaide off the Murray-Darling system. It is essential that Adelaide is not totally reliant on the Murray River system. I believe we can do that with things like recycling water. We can make sure that the run-off from the stormwater goes to the Adelaide Airport aquifer or the Port Adelaide aquifer and then we can recycle it. Unfortunately, in South Australia we have a Premier who refuses to look at recycling, even though it is used successfully all around the world. It has been said that each bit of water in London, for example, goes through seven kidneys before its final use. There is no reason why we cannot do that sort of thing in Australia and quite healthily.

Domestic water restrictions in Adelaide and elsewhere in South Australia were a very blunt but largely political instrument. Their imposition reflected a failure of the Rann state government to properly plan for future needs and a failure of the pricing system to supply critical needs at a reasonable rate and increasing cost for excessive wants. The only positive was the raising of awareness to conserve a finite resource.

When Tom Playford was the Premier of South Australia, as part of his long-term planning he bought three sites for future reservoirs. When Don Dunstan got into government he sold that land. That showed the lack of long-term thinking by the Dunstan Labor government. They refused to look at the long-term future. The Rann Labor government in South Australia is no better. It has done almost nothing in respect of investigating new and emerging innovative approaches and techniques for urban water schemes compatible with increasing demands, reducing supplies, increasing flood risks, needs for environmental protection, opportunities for greater efficiency through system decentralisation and competition to achieve a recycling volume of 110 gigalitres per annum.

I recently had constituents in my Riverland electorate office ask me when the Rudd government was going to divulge the real details of the buyback plan it announced last month for irrigators with fewer than 15 hectares. The trouble is that, with South Australian allocations on 11 per cent this year and some water already used or sold, it is unlikely to provide any substantial relief to the Lower Lakes in the short term. Nonetheless, Riverland communities need access to the money on offer now and the opportunity to adjust quickly. There is little or no market for their properties, and they wish to stay in their homes. Most would use grants to retire debt. Those that do retire from irrigation should be recognised for their willingness to be part of the solution but, unfortunately, they have no details as yet. Given the scale of the problem, these people deserve to be offered payments significantly above market value. Time is no longer on the side of the river or the community, but they are still waiting on detail from the minister.

I support the amendment moved by the member for Flinders, which was seconded by me, to include a $50 million rescue package for the Lower Lakes. This is $50 million spent to help people dependent on the Murray Lower Lakes, who I believe are entirely worthy of inclusion in this bill. It would assist them with water carting, turtle rescue and business compensation and would help farmers to make adjustments for the future. We have a Prime Minister in this place talking about an unimaginable place called the ‘Coorong Lakes’—which does not exist. It is ‘the Coorong’. They are not lakes. They are hypersaline, so they are not lakes. The best they could be called are ‘lagoons’. In the Prime Minister’s rush to say he has been there he talked about the ‘Coorong Lakes’ when there is no such place. There is the Coorong, there is the Lower Lakes—Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert—but there is no such thing as the ‘Coorong Lakes’. That shows his absolute ignorance about what is happening down there. He had a 10-minute visit to get a picture opportunity, and that is his whole experience with the Coorong and the Lower Lakes. He talked to a few people—whoopy-doo! He has not achieved anything for the people of the Lower Lakes. We believe that the money should be spent to help those people who, through no fault of their own, no longer have the ability to even have a shower with clean water. You imagine sending your kids off to school in that sort of situation. I support the bill.

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