Fran Bailey (McEwen, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I want to bring to the attention of this House the ramifications of the decision the Minister for the Environment has made in bowing to the pressure of the Brumby government in Victoria and signing off on the construction of the north-south pipeline that will divert 75 billion litres of water annually from the drought affected and heavily stressed Goulburn River. To put that amount of water in perspective, that is equal to around 20 per cent of the capacity of Sydney Harbour. This decision will have devastating long-term and short-term consequences for the Murray-Darling system. The hundreds of farmers who depend on this water to grow food for not only Victoria but also the wider domestic market and the export market and the magnificent farming properties along the route of this pipeline, together with the protected areas of national park—home to many species of native flora and fauna—will have a swathe some 100 metres wide cut through them to accommodate this pipeline. In addition five pumping stations will be needed to pump the water up steep gradients like those of the King Lake National Park plus filter stations along the route. The National Water Commission listed the Goulburn River as one of the hardest working rivers of the Murray-Darling system. The Goulburn River provides the water needed for $2 billion worth of farmed products each year and the environment that is responsible for attracting increasing numbers of tourists to the region, supported by growing numbers of small businesses that underpin many of the small communities in my electorate.

The question that people in my electorate want answered is: why would the Brumby state government put all of this at risk? To even attempt to find an answer to this question we need to go back to the period before the last state election when the state government was coming under pressure from Melburnians about severe water restrictions. The state government promised that they would build a recycling water plant in Melbourne to alleviate the growing pressure of supply but they also stated categorically that they would never divert water from north of the divide—that is, Eildon and the Goulburn River. Within months of winning that election they did a complete about-face: they scrapped their recycling water plant and announced that they would build the north-south pipeline diverting water from my region north of the divide that has been in severe drought for years and with the major catchment of Eildon being at record low levels—in fact, at 14 per cent of capacity at the time of the announcement.

Let me get on the record that currently there is no more water in Eildon now than there was at the same time last year or the previous year. The reality is that Eildon’s capacity is very stressed. Given that CSIRO states that there must be at least nine per cent capacity in storage to be able to deal with a break-out of blue-green algae, the level of capacity simply cannot accommodate the increased demands the state government has decreed. The state government has claimed that its decree is not unreasonable because the extra 75 billion litres of water will come from savings that will accrue from the irrigation modernisation project. These savings are in fact a myth, but even if some savings were achieved wouldn’t the responsible course of action be to demonstrate those savings before any additional water was diverted out of the system?

Central to the state government’s spin on water-saving initiatives and the irrigation modernisation project is its claim that, with a new automation scheme in place, leaking channels would be identified to enable repairs to be made. However, the Victorian government has allocated funding in its budget to line only five per cent of the 7,000 kilometres of irrigation channels. The total cost, I might add, for repairing the channel system would be around $2 billion. No-one believes that merely repairing five per cent of the channels sometime in the future is going to deliver savings of water in the order of the 30 billion litres that is needed annually.

Importantly, all the water savings that the Victorian government loves to quote are dependent on 100 per cent of water allocation over the entire length of the full irrigation season. The reality is that that has not been achieved for many years because the water quantity needed to fill those allocations has simply not been available. How then does the Victorian government intend to deliver these totally unachievable promises? The answer of course is that it cannot. The amount of water in the Goulburn River now is not able to meet reduced allocations, and it will not be able to meet the amounts of water currently allocated while the amount of water available is reducing by 75 billion litres each and every year. At the numerous public meetings and the committee of inquiry set up by Mr Brumby that I have attended, not one public official or water scientist has been able to verify the Victorian government’s claim of water savings. There simply has not been one shred of evidence to support its assertions.

That begs the question: how could the federal minister for the environment have given the green light to this project using his authority under the EPBC legislation when this is just plain bad policy, no matter which way it is examined? If he honestly was prepared to test the project rigorously, he would ask the following questions: does this project have the potential to threaten our environment? Does it place even greater stress on the Murray-Darling system? Does the project threaten not just the viability but the very livelihood of many hundreds of our farmers and small rural communities? Does it threaten the many species of native flora and fauna? The answer to all these questions is a resounding yes. The fact that the Victorian government refused point-blank to conduct an environmental impact assessment of this project is unbelievable, but the fact that the federal minister was prepared to overlook this total abrogation of responsibility by the Victorians is untenable.

Furthermore, the federal minister for the environment was prepared to sit on his hands and look the other way while the Premier of Victoria decided to remove the Goulburn River from the Murray-Darling system. Yep, that’s right—while the National Water Commission lists the Goulburn River as the hardest-working river of the Murray Darling system, that did not suit Mr Brumby’s purpose. So he simply put out a press release and announced the Goulburn River to be no longer part of the Murray-Darling system, which means he can divert water at his will. Tragically, Mr Brumby’s mate the federal minister for the environment has been more than happy to accommodate his irresponsible and damaging policy.

Then we get to the nub of this issue and why Mr Brumby is so hell-bent on pursuing this bad policy. It is simply that he wants to shore up his support base and his votes in metropolitan Melbourne. He is prepared to damage the environment and people’s lives and add more stress to the Murray-Darling system simply to ensure he holds on to those metropolitan electorates. And the man who has the title of federal minister for the environment is happy to oblige him. While this man is overseeing the removal of 75 billion litres of water from the system, his counterpart, the Minister for Climate Change and Water, is spending almost $24 million of taxpayers’ money to buy Toorale Station to gain a mere $14 billion litres of water for the same system. I say that the minister for the environment has no credibility, and I would like to very quickly read into the record what some of my constituents have said about him. They said:

Today you have approved the ultimate act of environmental vandalism, the go-ahead for the Sugarloaf pipeline in Victoria. When you were elected to office, it was on the basis of your conservation commitments, and now not only have you betrayed those people in your electorate but all the people of the Murray-Darling system who rely on the elected representatives to be true to their beliefs and to fairly represent all Australians.

My constituents went on to say that the minister has received ‘two prestigious awards, all for his supposed environmental work, and yet he has had the audacity to support the Victorian government in this’. They concluded by saying:

I have no doubt that this decision will come back to haunt all those party to this project, but you most of all, with your history of environmental concern, should hang your head in shame.

I challenge the minister to meet my constituents— (Time expired)