Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to make a contribution in the grievance debate on the issue of water, the announcement by the Prime Minister on the Murray-Darling Basin and, subsequent to that, the agreement of some state premiers to the proposal last Friday. Mr Deputy Speaker, as you are well aware, we live in a very dry and arid content. Many communities across Australia are suffering from the lack of water—or, as I like to say, the failure of many administrations to plan for the population increases in their communities. Many communities are on very severe water restrictions—including the ACT and right here in Canberra. However, I refer mainly to the south-east corner of Queensland where there has been a massive failure by Labor government after Labor government—since the coalition lost government in 1989, albeit for a very small period of time between 1995 and 1998 when it was returned to government for about 2½ years—to plan for the growth of the south-east corner of Queensland. That is why we are experiencing water shortages and the crisis in water that is gripping the south-east corner of Queensland—particularly Brisbane, where people will move to level 5 water restrictions in early April.

It is an appalling indictment of the Labor government of Queensland. Peter Beattie always finds a reason to divert people’s attention from the crisis that he and his government find themselves in. I can assure you that, as federal members and as Queensland members of the coalition, we will continue to keep the Labor government accountable for its failure to plan for the future needs of Queensland. We have not seen a dam built in Queensland since the coalition government was in power for that 30-odd year period. There has been one extension to the Paradise Dam near Bundaberg. The coalition government built Queensland, it built dams and it planned for the future growth that has continued to occur in Queensland.

I turn now to the Murray-Darling Basin. I commend the package that has been put forward by the Prime Minister and the government to address the longstanding problem in the Murray-Darling Basin—that is, the allocation and sharing of water resources in the basin. For many years, Queensland governments were not prepared to join the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. Their view was that Queensland was not the problem in terms of overallocation. I am sure that you, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, without casting any reflection on the chair, would be aware that New South Wales has been massively overallocated. What is important is not what has happened in the past but how we address this issue now to ensure sure that the Murray-Darling Basin can be sustained in the future.

The Darling River is fed from many parts of New South Wales and some parts of Queensland. Some of the catchments that the river flows through are in very dry and arid parts of Australia. In fact, the Darling River runs on the edge of Beaudesert. It is no wonder that we see the Darling River in a very sad state at the moment. But that is not the fault of Queensland or necessarily of New South Wales. Any reading of history will tell you that the Darling River has been dry in the past. It is a feature of the Darling River. Paddle-steamers used to be the mode of transport for the wool industry from as far up as Burke in western New South Wales. I am interested to note that the port of Burke is the most inland port in Australia. For many years paddle-steamers used to carry produce up and down the Darling River. But there have been times throughout history when the paddle-steamers could not get up the river or those that did get up the river could not get back for a number of years. That was long before large water allocations were made in New South Wales and before the development of the irrigation industry in Queensland. I believe that it is important that we look back in history because the further you can look back, the further you can look ahead.

Our investment in the Murray-Darling Basin will lead to the sharing of these resources; it will lead to more efficient irrigation schemes; and it will close a lot of the open drains or open channels that distribute water to many of the irrigation areas such as the Murray-Darling MIA in Victoria. The savings from a more efficient mode of transport of water will deliver a huge dividend to the rivers and they will also make more water available for other purposes—perhaps urban or agricultural—in this area. We ought to look at the dividend that will flow from this investment by the government in the Murray-Darling Basin and see it as a great positive.

Our good economic management has put us in a position to invest $10 billion in the Murray-Darling Basin. Ten billion dollars is equivalent to the interest that this government had to pay on the debts which we inherited from the Labor government after their 13 years on the treasury bench. We were paying something like $10½ billion a year to service the interest on the capital borrowed by the former Labor government to pay their bills. We are now in a very strong position to invest the equivalent of the interest paid by the previous Labor government, to bring about coordination and cooperation between the four states which share the Murray-Darling Basin. My own electorate of Maranoa covers almost the entire area of the Murray-Darling Basin in Queensland. I have a very keen interest in the detail of the plan as it will unfold over the next few months in legislation to be brought before this parliament and complementary legislation in state parliaments.

I want to touch on the proposal by the Queensland Premier to reactivate interest in the Bradfield scheme. Last week before the Premier came to Canberra there was scandal in the state parliament about a former minister, Minister Nuttall, who resigned. It now looks as though he is going to be disgraced by his actions as a minister. Premier Beattie paid for a full-page ad in an open letter to all Australians about directing the Burdekin into the Murray-Darling Basin. In his first statement he said that, if you pump water over the Great Dividing Range and put it into the Thomson River, it will end up in the Murray-Darling Basin. I have news for him. The Thomson River does not run into the Murray-Darling Basin; it is part of the Lake Eyre Basin. If you did lift the water over the Great Dividing Range and let it flow into the Thomson River, you would then have another 1,000 feet of elevation over which to lift that water to get it into the headwaters of the Warrego before it would enter the Murray-Darling Basin.

The Bradfield scheme has been around for a long time and has been considered by many governments on both sides at federal and state levels. Obviously Premier Beattie’s push last week—we have not heard him talk about it this week—was merely a stunt. My concern would be the environmental impact, if it were ever to happen, of bringing that water into the Lake Eyre Basin. We would see the introduction of cane toads into the Lake Eyre Basin. We would see fish species that are not native to the area predating on the yellow bellies and inland fish in the Lake Eyre Basin. Enormous damage could be done by the transfer of weeds from the coastal river streams to the Lake Eyre Basin. (Time expired)