Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It pains me to rise on this motion tonight about the government’s handling of the water crisis, which affects my electorate more than any other throughout the country, because I have half the Lower Lakes in my electorate—the other half being in the electorate of Barker. The Lower Lakes are now at the point of no return; they are at the point of environmental crisis. Last Friday I was lucky enough to be part of an outdoor broadcast by the 891 Morning Show hosts David Bevan and Matthew Abraham, who went down to what used to be the Goolwa yacht club—the oldest yacht club in the country—and had an outdoor broadcast with interested members of the community, and there would have been at least 200 people there. For a small community like Goolwa, that is a reflection of the intense interest that these people have in the water crisis.

I recognise that this has no simple solution. This is not an issue which can, at the click of the fingers, be fixed by some easy policy move or some easy decision. We are in this situation for a couple of major reasons. Firstly, over a period of time both sides of politics, particularly at the state level, in multiple states have made decisions which have made our great Murray-Darling Basin system reach this point. We are also in the middle of the worst drought in the southern part of the basin that our country has seen in many, many years. So there are a couple of reasons for where we are, and I do not lay the whole blame for the situation at the feet of the current government. But what I do condemn them for is their lack of action since they came to government. They will stand up and say that they have purchased water and done certain things, but we are seeing no real improvement in the situation. That is because they have not done the really hard and necessary job of investing in on-farm and off-farm infrastructure, particularly in New South Wales and Victoria, which would get real savings back into the river system and would mean greater environmental flow into the system. As we stand here today there is no environmental flow into the Lower Lakes. The government will claim that 350 gigalitres a year flows through environmental flow but, if truth be told, that is conveyance flow—that is, flow to flush salt out of the system so that the Adelaide water supply is not putrefied.

So we have a situation where there is actually no environmental water flowing into the Lower Lakes. Just Thursday a week ago I was fortunate to take the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Barker to Mannum to see the situation. The pool level in Mannum is 1.5 metres below the average pool level. The situation in the Lower Lakes as of Friday a week ago was that the water had dropped to 1.48 metres below sea level. So we are now at the point of no return. We need some real action very quickly. I urge the government to purchase 30 gigalitres off the water market—which they can do; it is available there today—in temporary allocations to get the Lower Lakes through this crisis period. And I urge them not to flood the Lower Lakes with salt water, not to install the Wellington weir.

I do bemoan the national agreement, which we were told last year was historic, because I believe the government took the easy way out—I suspect the minister for water was focused on the ETS at the time, rather than on the river crisis—and let Victoria off the hook. That is what has caused this agreement to capitulate. How do we know the agreement has capitulated? The Rann government underlined this two Thursdays ago when they announced they would look into a High Court challenge into the very agreement that they signed not 12 months ago.

The Rudd government has failed so far, in the first 16 months of its government. I genuinely hope it improves, because no-one wants to see this area die. I am sure the member for Kingston, in her remarks following mine, will agree that no-one wants to see this area die. I do not think the government wants to see this area die, but I think it can do more to make sure it does not.

I also bemoan the way the state government is going about managing this issue. For instance, on Friday we had a representative of the state government—the minister was not able to make it, which is understandable; I am not criticising—in the so-called independent water commissioner, Mrs Robyn MacLeod, who claims to be an independent authority on this issue. It just turns out that, with a little bit of research, we can establish that Mrs Robyn MacLeod was a candidate for the Australian Labor Party in the Victorian seat of Mordialloc, at the state election in March 1996 and also in March 1999. (Time expired)

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak about the serious issue of water and the Murray-Darling Basin. Certainly, there are a lot of problems that are facing South Australia. I recognise the part of the motion relating to the negative impact that the drought is having on water levels at Goolwa and the effect it is having on tourism operators and small businesses. On my last visit to Goolwa I heard from accommodation providers of their concern with the lack of water and the impact that it was having on the tourism industry. In particular, I heard a lot of concern about the biennial wooden boat festival. I am pleased to hear that the festival did go ahead this month, although I recognise that organisers were forced to put limits on participation due to the low levels of water.

However, in saying that, I will reject outright the first part of this motion, because it is this government, the Rudd government, who has acted and continues to act to address the difficult issues that affect the Murray-Darling system. Governments on both sides in the past have continually ignored the issue of water and the Murray-Darling system. In particular, the previous Howard government did nothing to modernise or invest in infrastructure to address the overallocation of the system. With the Howard government achieving nothing in 12 years it has been up to the Rudd government to begin to address this extremely important issue.

Soon after being elected the government announced Water for the Future, a $12.9 billion plan to start fixing the Murray-Darling Basin. Since this announcement the government has been getting on with the job, despite what the member for Mayo has suggested, of implementing this plan. One of the most important planks of this plan includes $3.1 billion to purchase water in the Murray-Darling Basin. This is critical to ensure that the historic overallocation is redressed. But, importantly, this government has also implemented the establishment of a basin-wide cap of water to improve the health of the whole system.

I assume with this motion that the member for Mayo does support the buying back of water, but it is a pity that his party is divided on this issue. His colleagues further upstream have regularly been on record disagreeing with buybacks. In fact, the division in the Liberal Party is clear on water buybacks and that can no better be demonstrated than by a media release from the Leader of the Opposition. On 5 May the Leader of the Opposition put out a media release when he contradicted himself in the one document on water buybacks. While urging the government to buy 30 gigalitres of water for the Lower Lakes, he also claimed that buying back water would destroy jobs and should be avoided.

So my question to the Liberal Party and to the member for Mayo is: if you do not want to buy back water because it would destroy jobs but you do propose to fix the Lower Lakes, how do you do this? Perhaps the Leader of the Opposition thinks that he can make it rain, but even he is not quite that good.

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Cloud seeding.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Dobell mentions the cloud-seeding proposal, which the minister for the environment contributed to significantly—and overall that area is his own department. But I urge the member for Mayo to speak to his leader to find out which of these positions on buying back water the Liberal Party takes. What is their true position? The Liberal Party is walking both sides of the fence—or, in this case, both sides of the river.

We have heard a lot from the member for Mayo about infrastructure. He will be pleased to know, if he reads the Water for the Future proposal, that it includes a significant investment in infrastructure, for the Lower Lakes in particular. We have already started to deliver pipelines, including $120 million for piping works around the Lower Lakes to secure drinking water for these communities. The government has also made available $200 million to the South Australian government to find a lasting solution. In addition, of course, we need to reduce Adelaide’s reliance on the Murray-Darling system, so we have also committed $1.5 billion to reduce the reliance that towns and cities have on the Murray-Darling system through infrastructure that supports stormwater harvesting, recycling of waste water and desalination. The government has also already announced assistance to communities and, in particular, grants to affected local councils.

I have to say that the last part of the motion is completely false. The only people playing the blame game when it comes to water, the only people playing cheap politics, walking both sides of the fence, are the Liberal Party. (Time expired)

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.