Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

Those who have spoken in the debate are people who know the basin well, and so some of what I go through now is for the benefit of members generally. I don't want this to be seen by those who have had much of their livelihood or some or all of their livelihood within the basin as me explaining it to them, but I think there are some facts about water that, for the benefit of the House and the operation of the plan, are helpful for me to lay out. I do this in that context.

In the first instance—and I'm always troubled by the acronym CHEW because the letters aren't in that order, but anyway. It's the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder which was established under the Water Act. The office is actually a creation of the Howard government. The concept when the Water Act was brought in and the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder was established, in the face of an acknowledgement from the Howard government and supported by our side in opposition, was that the river system had been overallocated to death. The concerns that were put by the member for Barker, in terms of people living within the basin wanting the system to be healthy, are something that has been acknowledge and acknowledged really strongly.

There is a regular characteristic within the basin that people will generally acknowledge overallocation for the water entitlements that are given to their north, effectively. In areas like the Riverland—I spent time in the Riverland when I was putting the basin plan together—there was a view back then, which I presume is still the view but I haven't ground-truthed it recently, that people were concerned that there was overallocation in catchments further north and higher up in the system. That certainly was the view back then. I remember the view by the member for Groom back at the time before he went off to his current minerals job—

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