Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on the government’s response to the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin and outline any other responses?

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Julie Bishop interjecting

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition interjects, ‘A holding pattern’. What were the last 12 years? The last 12 years were, I would say, not just standing still but actually taking the entire debate backwards. They had 12 years to act on a climate change crisis which is impacting on the Murray-Darling Basin, and what did they do? How many gigalitres of water entitlements did they buy back after 12 years in office? Zero. Absolutely zero.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hunt interjecting

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Flinders!

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a direct proportional relationship between the loudness of their interjections and the absence of action during their period in office. The situation in the Murray-Darling Basin is serious. There has been some modest reprieve with some recent rains but, with the arrival of warmer weather, evaporation will start again to take its toll, and water levels are again expected to start falling.

If we look at the facts which we are presented with, we have just had the fifth driest winter on record, and that is out of 117 years of records. Normally storages would be starting to fill now but, while there have been some inflows, these are now below the historical average. Active storage in the Murray system is around 20 per cent capacity, and for the basin as a whole it is around 23 per cent capacity. These are the facts that we are presented with. This is a deep challenge to the entire Murray-Darling Basin system; in fact, the system is in real crisis.

I look also to comments made yesterday by the CEO of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Wendy Craik. She said that the current water shortage ‘has the fingerprints of climate change all over it’ and she said:

There are features of the current phenomenon that we find ourselves in—water shortage, drought, whatever you want to call it—that are linked to climate change.

We also have statements by the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology in their technical report on climate change in 2007—when those opposite were in office—which say:

Recent Australian droughts have been accompanied by higher surface temperatures due to anthropogenic—

human induced—

warming.

If you look at the 2008 report of CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology, An assessment of the impact of climate change on the nature and frequency of exceptional climatic events, it states in its conclusion:

About 50 per cent of the rainfall decrease in southwestern Australia since the late 1960s is likely to be due to increases in greenhouse gases. The autumn rainfall decline in southeastern Australia since the late 1950s may be partly due to increases in greenhouse gases.

That is what the scientists have to say. The Chairman of the NFF, David Crombie, said, ‘The NFF believes that climate change may be the greatest threat confronting Australian farmers and their productive capacity now and into the future.’

This is the challenge we face with the Murray-Darling Basin system now. We have clear statements from the scientific community, from those representing farm organisations and from those representing the basin authority itself about the direct linkages between climate change and what is occurring in the Murray-Darling Basin. The government’s course of action is clear-cut.

Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Nelson interjecting

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition says that the government has done nothing. The Leader of the Opposition therefore says that the fact that we have, for the first time in the history of the Murray-Darling Basin, spent $50 million on purchasing back 38 gigalitres of water entitlements—when those opposite had 12 years to buy back one gigalitre—is doing nothing. We have done that in nine months. In 12 years they bought back zero. Secondly, we have allocated, at the Adelaide cabinet meeting, a further half-billion dollars to accelerate the purchase back of water entitlements; thirdly, we have allocated $5.8 billion to improving irrigation infrastructure; fourthly, a new and independent Murray-Darling Basin authority has been established as a consequence of the intergovernmental agreement which this government brought into being—not our predecessors—which will implement a new basin plan from 2011. On top of that, we have for the first time an independently audited account of the total storage within the entire system. These are practical courses of action against a real crisis facing the Murray-Darling Basin system.

I am also asked about alternative responses to the challenges we face. The core problem we face is that those opposite still do not accept that there is any linkage at all between climate change and the impact on the Murray-Darling Basin system. How can we get to first base in reaching a conclusion on what should be done about the Murray-Darling Basin when the alternative government of Australia and, as the Leader of the Opposition often describes himself, the alternative Prime Minister of Australia say that there is no relationship at all between climate change and the current state of the Murray-Darling Basin? That is what he has said. You cannot dispute it. He was asked the other night, ‘Do you accept what’s happening to the Lower Lakes and right up the Murray is also related to climate change? And he answered, ‘No, I don’t.’ It is quite clear-cut.

They were at dinner last night with the former Prime Minister, Mr Howard. Those opposite and those on this side of the chamber may remember the answer that was given at the beginning of last year on climate change when I asked, I think, the Prime Minister at the time whether he accepted the reality of climate change and its relationship to human-induced emissions. He said that the jury was still out. Eighteen months on, that is still the state of the Liberal Party. They are climate change deniers—not in their heart of hearts but in the words put forth this week by the alternative Prime Minister of Australia. Can I just say to those opposite: in terms of the leaderless rabble that the Liberal Party have become, the time has come for the conspirators to come out of the shadows and bring this to a conclusion. It has gone on for too long—whether it is plan A or plan B. It is about time this was brought to a conclusion. We have here a clear statement from the climate change denier who is currently the Leader of the Opposition and the alternative Prime Minister. Our Murray-Darling Basin system is in crisis. It requires, therefore, national political action—not opportunistic, short-term political pointscoring. It is time that the climate change deniers in the Liberal Party got with the government’s program and backed a national solution to a river system in crisis.