Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The future of the Mary Valley, which lies in the heart of my electorate, will be decided by the federal Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts in just a few weeks. The livelihoods of the communities of the Mary Valley, as well as the survival of a range of endangered species, are in his hands. The minister has received the environmental impact statement for his consideration, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, for the Queensland government’s Traveston Crossing dam. The Queensland coordinator-general, incredibly, has recommended approval of this project with more than 1,200 conditions. Any project which requires 1,200 conditions and requirements, just to reduce the environmental damage, should never be approved.

Mary Valley residents have sent a very strong message to Mr Garrett over the past couple of years. I have delivered more than 9,450 dam protest letters to Parliament House in Canberra from local residents; 16,000 submissions were made in response to the Queensland government’s environmental impact statement; and a 5,393-signature petition was tabled in the House of Representatives last month. Just today, a friend of the minister, former Midnight Oil drummer Rob Hirst, has joined the campaign to demand that the minister reject this proposal.

What is at stake is not just the minister’s credibility and the survival of a river system, its people and industry, but also a number of extraordinary rare and endangered species—the Australian lungfish, the only Australian fish with lungs; the Mary River turtle, and another recently discovered turtle, both with gills; and the Mary River cod, found nowhere else in the world outside this river. The Queensland government plans to build a fish lift, like the one on the Paradise Dam, to provide a way for the lungfish and the cod to move around the dam. But this $24 million structure has been a complete failure, not moving a single mature lungfish since its construction. The proposed turtle bypass for Traveston has not even been invented. The government’s fallback position is to continuously catch these endangered creatures and carry them around the dam. It is simply farcical that the survival of these rare and endangered species is going to be dependent upon a continual process of endeavouring to catch these fish and turtles and move them around the dam—up or down.

The Queensland coordinator-general has acknowledged that building the second stage of the dam is too great a risk, so only the first stage should be approved. Stage 1 delivers only 80,000 megalitres of yield. There are plenty of ways of delivering that amount of extra water to Brisbane without having to destroy the environment. Raising the Borumba Dam, on the same river system, would be acceptable. Improved management of the existing dams would achieve the same amount of extra water. One extra desalination plant and recycling could all deliver that quantity of water. There is no need for the government to improve this environmental destruction.

I am deeply concerned about the approval process for the Traveston Crossing Dam. The dam is a proposal that was elevated by the state Labor government above the options that were recommended by their advisers. The state government have been the political advocates for the project. The state government undertook the environmental impact assessment. And now a state government official has reviewed the assessment and has recommended conditions which should apply. If it goes ahead, the state government will build the dam. It will be state government bureaucrats who then decide whether the conditions have been fulfilled. It will be the state government which imposes any penalties on itself when these conditions are not honoured. How can anybody believe that that is a fair and honest process? The minister, Mr Garrett, is the only outside voice. I appeal to him to make the right environmental decision—not a political decision. There are plenty of ways that Brisbane can be delivered the water it needs without destroying this beautiful valley and the people who live there.