Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

As chair of the committee, I present the report of the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee entitled Living with salinity—a report on progress: the extent and economic impact of salinity in Australia, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Firstly, I would like to note that this report is the result of a motion agreed to by the Senate on 17 March last year, so it is just over one year ago. In that period of time, there has been a significant amount of change in the membership of the committee. That has meant that more senators have had experience and had their eyes opened to the issues of salinity and the ongoing issues that need to be addressed. It has also created extra challenges for the secretariat in ensuring the continuity of understanding of the issues raised. I would particularly like to thank the workers in the secretariat, as always, for their professionalism and their ability in getting this report together. I would also like to note the work of the senators who came along, particularly in the second half of the inquiry, and really pulled together a lot of information from submissions and public hearings. It is important to emphasise up-front that this is a unanimous inquiry. The point is made from time to time by government ministers in dismissing reports that they are partisan, that they are point-scoring and that they are just seeking to take political advantage. I hope that there is genuine seriousness from the government in absorbing this report and responding promptly and positively to the recommendations within it, because it is unanimous.

The committee consisted not just of me as a Democrat in the chair but also of Labor, Liberal and Greens senators all working together to try to produce a strong report that will build on the positive work that has been done in this area to date. I believe we have done that. I would like to thank the other senators involved in the committee, particularly the deputy chair, Liberal Senator Judith Adams, a Western Australian from the wheatbelt who therefore knows a lot about salinity, at least how it affects wheat growers in Western Australia. We had the opportunity to inspect part of that region. I would also like to extend the thanks of the committee to all those who helped in the field visits and organising hearings, because that certainly contributed to the value of the experience. One of the things that became clear to me and the committee over the course of the inquiry was that the nature of salinity and the ways to address it vary significantly from region to region and that the ability to tailor research and solutions to different regions is something we need to do better.

If I had to summarise in my own words or give a very brief snapshot of progress in dealing with salinity I would say: we are doing okay but we can certainly do better. We need to get more value from the dollars that are spent. We need to get more certainty about that funding and continuity of funding. We need better coordination of the research, better sharing of the knowledge and the ability to apply it in different ways at the regional level. We also need to do more to ensure we do not keep maintaining some of the behaviours that are exacerbating the problem. The report is titled Living with salinity precisely because we need to acknowledge more clearly that salinity is part of the Australian environment and something that we have to learn to live with much better than we have. There has been improvement but there is room for more. One thing I believe we certainly have to do is to not keep repeating the mistakes of the past.

The committee has produced 23 recommendations aimed at ensuring that further strong progress is made in addressing the economic and environmental consequences of salinity. One of those recommendations is to seek greater assurance, through the Natural Resource Management Ministerial Council, that the states and territories are doing better at effectively regulating land clearing and that extensions to the national action plan funding be conditional on the states and territories meeting more rigorous accountability measures in this and other areas. There is no point in taxpayers putting up significant amounts of money or, for that matter, industries or local councils or in everybody contributing their voluntary labour to try and address the issue of salinity if people are allowed to continue the sorts of behaviours that keep maintaining the problem.

This also applies to another area where the committee believes more attention is needed than has occurred to date, and that is the issue of urban salinity. The committee has described urban salinity as ‘a sleeping giant’ in the title of the chapter relating to that issue, or a potential sleeping giant—there is a question mark in the title: ‘Urban salinity: a sleeping giant?’ It is clear that the programs that have been developed to date, whilst mentioning urban salinity, do not give it sufficient priority. Perhaps more importantly, it is also clear that many authorities are simply not aware of or not fully informed of the issues of urban salinity, some of the reasons behind it and the enormous costs that it can cause. This is something we need to do more about now, for the reason I have just mentioned—that we do not want to be putting money into addressing salinity if activities are still occurring that exacerbate the problem.

We have recommended that the very effective salinity mapping that has been occurring in recent times needs to be conducted in areas where salinity is known to be a potential hazard before further urban development is approved in those areas. Decisions made today will affect the next generation. The cost of repairing the damage from urban salinity, whether it is to housing or, more immediately, to infrastructure such as roads, pipes and other underground and aboveground infrastructure, can be quite enormous. It is a cost that will be borne by the next generation—by local councils and state and federal governments in 20 or 30 years time, by the taxpayer and the public more broadly—if decisions are allowed to be made today that ignore those potential consequences. That is a key area where more action is needed.

In all the recommendations by the committee there is no suggestion that this is all brand new, that we have discovered all this for ourselves or that nothing has happened to date. The report is specifically and deliberately called A report on progress. Under its terms of reference the inquiry was set up to look at progress made to date, including what had happened since the House of Representatives committee inquiry into this area in 2004. There has been progress, but there certainly needs to be improvement.

The other areas that the committee emphasised included the need to extend funding for the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality and the Natural Heritage Trust to ensure that people can do the long-term planning that is needed. As with many areas, this is as much about government’s role of enabling the community to address the problems. They can best do that, because in the end it will be up to the community—whether it is agricultural producers, local government authorities, landholders or the community more widely—to address this issue and to do the work that needs to be done. The role of government is to provide the resources, to ensure that coordination occurs effectively and to assist people to be able to do that. Something that needs to be done in that area is to ensure continuity, certainty and adequacy of funding. But it is also important to do more to try and provide ways for private investment to occur in these areas, and we recommend that examination be given to opening that up further.

There was a lot of comment during the inquiry about the need for an independent body to coordinate salinity research, to maintain a focus on dryland irrigation and urban salinity, to identify and prioritise gaps in research and leverage research from existing providers, to provide a sort of one-stop shop for salinity research and information and to have a website that provides a gateway for all relevant research. There is a lot of great science being done out there, but it is not necessarily all getting through to the people who need to know about it. So there are still lots of areas for improvement. I recommend this report to anybody interested in this issue. I particularly urge the minister and the government to respond to it positively and promptly. The committee put a lot of effort into trying to ensure that this was a unanimous report that focused on what things could be done quickly to produce strong results for the community. It would be very disappointing for the Senate and, I would suggest, a slap in the face for all those people who put their time into providing evidence and submissions—in some cases, driving very long distances to make sure their expertise was provided—if the government does not respond quickly.