David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I had outlined last night in the debate on the Water Amendment Bill 2015, there are lot of critical bits of information that the general public and, I think, members of this House have not appreciated about the irrigation system and how it works. If you recall, I mentioned high-security licences, general licences and the matter of allocations. People have made a rather erroneous assumption that, when you see dry riverbeds in the middle of a 10-year drought, it is because irrigators have sucked all the water out of the river. That is a popular misconception. We need to put on the record that the irrigation systems in the Murray-Darling Basin are very well-regulated and it is the allocation that represents what water is taken from the river, not the nominal figure mentioned on the water licence.

Throughout the drought, allocations were zero in many years; so no water was taken by irrigators. For many years it was less than 10 per cent. So you might pay $15 million for nominal huge water licences and only get to access to three or four per cent of it. As the rains fall and the flows change, the allocations are distributed appropriately so that there is always an appropriate flow. The fact is that it is a highly altered system. All the weirs and lochs along the whole Murray-Darling Basin have changed the nature of the rivers in the catchment. People have this concept that the Murray-Darling, at some stage of its life, was like the Danube or the Mississippi—a massive river continually flowing. The early explorers and settlers recorded that it was at very many times a chain of ponds.

Irrigation has delivered more water to the environment because irrigation relies on capturing water in times of plenty and regulating it through a series of irrigation. It turns land that is hardly usable, except for low-level grazing, into a highly productive agricultural food bowl. As I mentioned, it is all well and good to develop the food bowl in the north—we totally support that—but there is already an existing food bowl in the south of the country. It is called the Murray-Darling Basin. We need to get the best return, a triple-bottom-line delivery of good outcomes. It is not only the environment that requires water but, most importantly, the food and produce that comes from it.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has bipartisan support, but we do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. About two-thirds of the 2,750 gigalitre water recovery target has already been achieved. As part of it, the 1,500 gigalitre buyback limit is a very sensible piece of policy. The coalition campaigned on this. The irrigators, the communities and the people who produce the food for our nation—and for export to other nations that are crying out for protein and other high-quality produce—require some level of certainty. If there is no water, these communities and all their production simply vanish. Ill-timed and poorly targeted buybacks can potentially cause ruin, turning thriving towns and villages into ghost towns.

The efficiency measures behind the 1,500 gigalitre buyback limit ensure a good outcome. By increasing efficiencies—and there are huge programs going on delivering those efficiencies—we can deliver more water for irrigation and growing crops as well as improving the environmental outcome. The recent audit and stocktake of the sustainable diversion limit has confirmed just that. The independent stocktake has looked at all the measures being undertaken. The latest round of improvements involves $263½ million—so these are not small engineering works; they are massive. These measures are returning 20 gigalitres of water to farmers but are also delivering 77 gigalitres of water for environmental flows. The stocktake has also identified that there is an efficiency dividend of about 500—perhaps 600—gigalitres for agriculture, irrigation of crops and feeding stock. This will deliver for the bottom line. A gigalitre of water turns into millions of dollars of produce, income which can support communities while the produce itself supports the nutrition of the nation and the world. I am very encouraged by this initiative. We are delivering on a coalition promise. The producers and the communities see this as vindication for all their campaigning.

Water is like liquid gold. It is stored in times of plenty and used wisely by irrigators. They pay a heap of money when it is traded, so it is a highly valued asset. Without it, we do not have a food bowl. That is why it is so important that we deliver this efficiency dividend and allow people to do what they do best, as they have done over the generations since we encouraged them to set up there in the late 1800s. I thoroughly commend this bill to the House.

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