Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Thomson, as I entered the chamber I thought to myself how fitting it is that you are in the chair for this very important debate. I think back to 2002, when Simon Crean, the then Leader of the Opposition, in his budget reply speech committed the then opposition to finding the resources to enable an injection of 1,500 gigalitres of water back into the Murray-Darling Basin, and I really credit you, Mr Deputy Speaker, with putting that firmly on the Labor Party’s agenda at that time. I think it was sending a signal then that this was something that had to be a national priority. In the six years that have passed, it has become even more critical that we get that action happening to rescue the health of the Murray-Darling Basin.

From earlier speakers in this debate, we know just how significant these measures are and how significant the Murray-Darling Basin is to the life of Australia, to the economic output of Australia, to the issue of food security in our country and of course—as was put very eloquently by the most recent speaker, the member for Farrer—to the livelihood and sustainability of the communities that rely on the health of the Murray-Darling Basin. It is an enormous area of land, covering over one million square kilometres of our country, which is equivalent to 14 per cent of Australia’s total area. The amount of farming and agricultural activity that takes place in that area is quite staggering. It accounted for 65 per cent of the total area of irrigated land in Australia a couple of years ago and it really does deserve the label of ‘Australia’s food basket’. It is something that we need to protect in the interests of not only our economy but also Australia’s environmental performance and the ongoing sustainability of so many people and communities who rely on the river system for their businesses and livelihoods.

The purpose of Water Amendment Bill 2008 is to amend the Water Act 2007 and to give effect to the intergovernmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform. That agreement was signed by the Prime Minister, the premiers of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, and the Chief Minister of the ACT. All the basin states came together with the Commonwealth government to reach that important intergovernmental agreement. That took place at the Council of Australian Governments meeting on 3 July. As we have heard from previous speakers, this did mark a real watershed in the governance arrangements for the Murray-Darling Basin. The issues and the attempted solutions to the problems in the Murray-Darling Basin have been bedevilled by the conflicts between the state and federal governments in dealing with the divide in responsibilities between the different states and the various vested interests that each state brought to the table in the past whenever it came to finding solutions to the challenges that the Murray-Darling Basin was facing. I am pleased to say that we have now moved beyond that, with the signing of the agreement which put into effect arrangements earlier agreed to by the various governments in the memorandum of understanding that was signed earlier in 2008.

For the first time, with this bill and the intergovernmental agreement, you can truly say that water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin can now be managed in the national interest, optimising environmental, economic and social outcomes. The reforms that were addressed by the intergovernmental agreement include bringing the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission together as a single institution, to be known as the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. The agreement also established the Commonwealth-state water management partnerships, which include significant funding. That funding is subject to due diligence of course, but goes to basin state priority projects. The agreement also looks to strengthen the role of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in regulating the water market and water charging rules within the basin and, very importantly, enables the basin plan to provide arrangements for critical human water needs. I think everyone in this place would agree that that is an important step forward in the governance of the Murray-Darling Basin, and we now look forward to seeing those new governance arrangements turning the page on so many years of neglect and conflict around the basin. We now turn our attention to what is required to protect and preserve the environmental and economic values of the Murray-Darling Basin.

The intergovernmental agreement really did signal that all of the governments involved have committed to a new culture and practice of basin-wide management and planning through new structures and partnerships. Key elements of the arrangements are the preparation of a whole-of-basin plan by an independent, expert Murray-Darling Basin Authority. Central to the basin plan will be sustainable diversion limits on water use in the basin to ensure the long-term future health and prosperity of the Murray-Darling Basin and to safeguard the water needs of the communities that rely on its water resources. The Commonwealth has agreed in principle to provide significant amounts of money, in the billions of dollars, for significant water projects in the basin states, subject to a due diligence assessment of the social, economic, environmental, financial and technical aspects of the projects.

I will turn to the projects we are looking at in Queensland. The Commonwealth has committed to provide up to $510 million towards Queensland’s priority projects—again this is subject to that due diligence process. The Queensland government is ready to roll out community level irrigation planning and infrastructure investment. The Commonwealth will provide up to $115 million to assist Queensland with this project. SunWater is currently planning the modernisation of its delivery system to reduce water loss, and the Commonwealth will contribute up to $40 million to assist with the modernisation process. Coal seam gas water, which is currently a significant waste management issue, is a potential significant water resource. The Commonwealth will provide $5 million for the conduct of a detailed feasibility study to examine the viability of using coal seam gas water as an alternate water resource. In addition to these infrastructure projects, the Commonwealth will provide up to $350 million for the future purchase of water entitlements from willing sellers in the Queensland section of the Murray-Darling Basin. Together these initiatives will deliver long-lasting benefits to Murray-Darling Basin communities in Queensland and down stream.

I will now turn to an issue that is of some concern in Central Queensland at the moment. We heard from earlier speakers about the concerns in other parts of Australia about the impact of mining operations on groundwater and water quality generally. In recent weeks there have been real concerns about the impact of rising sodium levels in the Fitzroy River, which is very important to Central Queensland, particularly to the agricultural sector but also to the communities that rely on the Fitzroy for their water supply. As a result of the serious flooding in the central highlands earlier this year coalmines, like the Ensham mine at Emerald, were very severely flooded. There has been a program of disposing the water out of those mines into the Fitzroy River. That has raised concerns in Rockhampton and further upstream about the effects of sodium and other elements in the water.

My state colleague Robert Schwarten, a Queensland minister, has taken those concerns to the state government. The Premier, Anna Bligh, has acted very quickly and announced earlier this week that there will be an independent expert panel to be headed by Emeritus Professor Barry Hart from Monash University and to include University of Queensland Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield and Mark Pascoe, the CEO of the International WaterCentre. That independent expert panel will immediately undertake tests and investigations of the water quality in the Fitzroy River. They will be working with bodies like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Fitzroy River Technical Working Group to thoroughly investigate the quality of the water in the Fitzroy. The quality of the water in the Fitzroy is a very serious issue for communities right along the river and the Fitzroy River flows into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, so we have to be mindful of the impact on the Great Barrier Reef of anything that happens in the basin.

While I welcome the announcement by the Premier that she is taking that action, it is important not to overstate the problems that exist. We need to be very prudent in investigating this, testing the water and making sure that there is nothing to be concerned about. Queensland Health has already done some testing and has been very reassuring in saying that it found the levels of sodium, whilst elevated, to be quite safe for human consumption. We do need to have that ongoing program of water testing to make sure that people’s concerns are allayed and we deal with the impact of water quality on environmental outcomes.

Bob Noble, a retired senior official of the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water—he is very well regarded in our region—sent me an email last week saying that we now have this issue of what the Ensham mine water is doing to water quality in the Fitzroy and said it is really time to have a look at the whole approvals process for these kinds of projects in the Fitzroy Basin and make sure that the EIS process that is currently in place does allow for a look at the impacts not just on the immediate area of the mine but on the Fitzroy Basin and the river itself. I give an undertaking to Bob Noble that I will follow that up and see where we can go with that proposal because it is becoming a much bigger issue with increased mining activity in the Fitzroy Basin. I commend the bill to the House. Like all members, we hope that there is a brighter future ahead for the Murray-Darling Basin.

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