Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

I am sure it will be a very happy day for you and for many of the people we represent in this place when this bill has clear passage through both houses of parliament—and I am pleased to hear comment from the other side of the House to that effect.

This bill proposes to cap water buybacks at 1,500 gigalitres and secure a triple bottom line outcome for communities, economies and the environment. Representing almost the entire Murray-Darling Basin watershed in Queensland in this place—with all but the little region around Groom, near Toowoomba, contained within the Maranoa electorate—I have long argued the fact that we talk so often about the Murray-Darling Basin system and yet I see them as two systems. To look at it as one system is wrong.

Part of the Darling system ultimately ends up contributing a long, long way down the Darling into the Murray system. The Murray system, as I like to refer to it, is below the Lachlan and Menindee Lakes. Much of that water is contained in a more European-type climate—more reliable rainfall events, much of it stored from melting snow over winter. However, in my electorate, in the Darling system, it has an irregular rainfall pattern of high-rainfall averages of up to 28 inches per year on the old scale with the Carnarvon Ranges feeding the Warrego and parts of the Condamine system. It flows down through average rainfall areas of nine and 10 inches per year, yet still within the one system—you might say the one ecosystem.

These rainfall events are often of high intensity but very irregular in nature. We need to keep that in mind when we think about the reform of the Murray-Darling Basin water plan—and that is why I am pleased to have been briefed recently on the northern review, which is still underway, that looks at the allocations and what further buybacks may be required to meet the targets that have been suggested as part of the plan.

Water buybacks have already occurred in the Murray-Darling system in my electorate, particularly in the Lower Balonne. Those water buybacks have inflicted damage on local economies that do not have the capacity to create jobs that have been lost as a result of the loss of the water that has been bought by the Environmental Water Holder—the Commonwealth in this case. I particularly witness the towns of Dirranbandi and St George. I say to all of us in this place—and I bring this comment in good faith—we have got to think much smarter about how some of the targets that are still required in the Condamine-Balonne system can be achieved without inflicting further damage on this part of my electorate, because water for those communities is wealth; water creates jobs.

The buyback, which was from water below Dirranbandi, meant the loss of jobs in St George for the crop sprayers; people who were providing the agricultural herbicides, pesticides and materials; and those families who once had jobs on those properties as contractors are no longer there. Sadly, while there is an ongoing process of how some of that money could be going towards Healthy HeadWaters or compensation, I say it has been done in reverse. We should have had a situation where, before an allocation was purchased to meet these targets and the 1500 gigalitre target over time, the community had a plan and funding coming from the Commonwealth under the Healthy HeadWaters program to ensure that any potential job or business losses could be replaced with an alternative that would be sustainable into the long term.

I raise that, because that is my job in this place. That is what the people in the Lower Balonne, the Condamine-Balonne and the RiverSmart organisation tell me. It has been my backyard all my life, and I have worked and lived long enough in the area to know what water means to a community—that is, water security. If you are going to invest hundreds of millions of dollars, and irrigators do, in developing opportunities—whether it is in broadacre cotton or high-value horticultural crops—and they apply for loans, they need the security of the water to go to their banks. Whilst many of them have had to deal day to day with this year by year, they are right now reform fatigued. This has been going on since when John Howard was Prime Minister and John Anderson was Deputy Prime Minister. We started the process of reform to ensure that we could get sustainability in the whole of the Murray-Darling system. I agreed with it—and I know we have some bipartisan support for the process now.

As I know the member for Riverina would be aware, one of the original plans under the previous government came forward and bought people out in their hundreds of thousands—not only from the land and its irrigators but also small businesses who know what water and the security of water means to their towns and their future.

While I support the process at this stage, there is more work to be done in relation to the Lower Balonne. I say thank you to the parliamentary secretary, who has visited the area. He has taken the time to be there, as have some of the departmental people, and visit on-farm works. He has seen some of the work that Healthy HeadWaters has done to bring greater water efficiency and deliver a triple bottom line not only buying water back but storing it or utilising it more efficiently. They are great stories, and that is where the focus should be now in relation to any further buybacks: how we will do it more efficiently without the loss of jobs and how we will deliver a triple bottom line.

I also want to touch on a river that often does not get much comment in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin reform plan. It sits within the northern basin: the Warrego River. We often think of the Warrego River as the river that comes down from the Carnarvon Ranges through Charleville and Cunnamulla, and enters the Darling just below Bourke. When the big floods come through, they come through 30, 40 and 50 kilometres wide; however, as I said earlier, they are very irregular but are of high intensity when they occur. There are allocations on the Warrego River that exist right now where there is cotton being grown at Cunnamulla—once again, creating jobs; water is wealth; wealth creates jobs. It has suffered drought, commodity downturn, structural adjustments, a corrupted well market and all sorts of events that have impacted it and other remote communities; and, more sadly, in the last 20 years, the very loss of the wool industry and what that meant to those towns.

But water can replace some of those jobs if there is security, if there is an ability for those who have those allocations to borrow and know they can do it with confidence and without a government some time in the future wanting to remove or reduce that allocation which delivers the opportunity for them to invest and grow crops. What is happening there now is that there have been high-value horticultural crops grown with some of the water allocation out of the Warrego table grapes. They have been finding it increasingly difficult to remain competitive with those growing table grapes in northern Australia, particularly in Central Queensland, because their table grapes hit the Christmas market earlier than those around Cunnamulla. Once again, it is typical of agriculture. You have to be flexible and be able to move into other industries, not remain locked into something as if it will always be there as the only opportunity in that use of the land.

The people who are growing cotton there have said to me that they would like to participate in the Healthy HeadWaters program. It has not been on the radar or out there as a participants in the Healthy HeadWaters program. I understand there is not a great deal of water that needs to be recovered in relation to the health of the Warrego River, but nevertheless I call on our government and have spoken with the parliamentary secretary and the Northern Review Committee on this very subject. The Warrego, as limited as the water there could be recovered—and it may be only a small quantum in relation to the total amount—has a great opportunity to invest in Healthy HeadWaters that will deliver a triple bottom line to those irrigators, few as they are, at Cunnamulla and perhaps as far up on the Warrego, if there could be some trading upstream to create new opportunities, as Wyandra or perhaps even Charleville.

I put that on the Hansard today because I have spoken once again with the people there and have had correspondence with the people there. They would like to participate and they, just as much as any other producer or irrigator across the Murray-Darling Basin, where they have had an opportunity have taken it up. Others have decided not to take up the opportunity of Healthy HeadWaters. Some have exited and sold their water entitlement completely, but that is where I spoke a bit earlier of the impact that that can have in relation to Dirranbandi and the impact that has had on the towns of Dirranbandi and St George. So I throw that on the table for the minister and the parliamentary secretary so the northern review process, which is still underway, can include the Warrego and provide an opportunity for those on the Warrego who have entitlements to deal with that under the Healthy HeadWaters program, which could bring a triple bottom line and contribute to what the government seeks to do in a bipartisan way in this chamber to deliver a sustainable Murray-Darling Basin river system.

In conclusion, whilst we talk about the Murray-Darling Basin system in terms of overland flows, there is also an issue of groundwater buybacks on the inter Darling Downs. One of the things that some have been looking at in relation to the sustainability of the underground water that they use for their irrigation is once again the whole issue of security and knowing that there is not going to be change after change after change as has happened in the last 10 to 15 years. They need security and they need certainty. They, like so many of the producers and irrigators across my electorate, are prepared to work with the government, but they also want their voice to be heard. I have to say these people in irrigation are not out there to destroy the environment; they are there to work with the government. They are there to work with the authorities. They are there to work with the review process. But they really want their knowledge and their understanding, which often dates back generations—the knowledge of the river system, the flow systems, where water will flow. It is quite different to understand what it is like living in Dirranbandi, Goondiwindi or Cunnamulla and understand intimately—because it has been your life—the river flows and the irregular nature of the seasons. To look at a desktop model here in Canberra about wanting a certain amount of water and how we can get it—I know there is a lot of science behind it, but let's make sure the knowledge of those who have been out there as irrigators, as families, as small businesses for decades and decades is taken on board and fed into the system, particularly in relation to the Darling system in my electorate, which is so fundamentally different from the Murray system below Menindee Lakes and the Lachlan.

I support the bill and hope those comments can be taken on board by the minister. I look forward to continuing to work with the minister on this issue.

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