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

I rise to talk about a very important issue to part of my electorate, and that is the extreme conditions of the Lower Lakes. Point Sturt, which is on the eastern side of my electorate and the western side of the Lower Lakes, is a bit of a jutting peninsula just near the very end of the Lower Lakes. In fact, at the southern part of it is the Goolwa Channel, which, as members will know, ends up at the Murray Mouth. People in this area are suffering the most extreme circumstances because of the lack of water. Where water used to lap up against their properties, it is now at least a kilometre away. It highlights a point that we have been arguing about in this place.

I did a tour of this land earlier this year with some local residents who cannot access water except through expensive water carting—something that during my by-election last year the then Leader of the Opposition and I addressed with a $50 million policy to help these sorts of people. There is a simple answer, and the state government could have fixed this some time ago. Three and a half million dollars would have seen a spur pipeline travel down the peninsula to Point Sturt and fix the issue that faces these people. The minister, Karlene Maywald, has been asleep at the wheel on this issue. This morning, on Matt and Dave’s morning program on 891 ABC in Adelaide, the minister again refused to answer and refused to confirm that these people would be helped. I suspect that that is because there is not a large amount of voters—there are only 75 people—but it has a real impact on their water security, on their security of living, and it has an impact on the land on that peninsula. The danger is that, if the cattle are taken off that land, the land will be left to rack and ruin, and no-one wants to see that occur.

We hope the federal government will now step in and fix the failure of the state government. It is clearly another area where the state government is just not up to it. This minister has failed completely in representing South Australia, representing the Lower Lakes, and I ask this House, I ask Senator Wong to use $3.5 million. It is not a lot of money. There is $12.9 billion allocated to this crisis to help these people in this time of need. We can find $3.5 billion to build plaques for schools, so I think we should be able to find $3.5 million to help these people.

This is a huge issue in my electorate, as members will understand. It is the single biggest issue. We should be able to ensure water security for our people. This is a small amount of people but we should ensure that this is the case. The Lower Lakes is a national disaster and what we are asking for is not a lot of money to help a small amount of people to get through this crisis.