Senate debates

Thursday, 7 September 2006

Committees

Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee; Interim Report

11:15 am

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

I want to take the opportunity to speak briefly on this interim report. Because of my responsibilities on other committees, including being Chair of the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee, I have not been able to involve myself directly in this inquiry beyond reading some of the Hansards and submissions. Today is my last sitting day in the role of chair, so perhaps I will have more time and be able to involve myself a little bit more fully in this inquiry, because it is a very important issue.

On the same theme, I take the opportunity to note that it is the final sitting day of Senator Siewert as Chair of the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs References Committee. Her chairing of this committee in the time that she has done so has been an example—among many, I might say—of how having non-government senators chairing committees does not mean that you get a barrage of nasty, malevolent Senate committee reports coming down, deliberately undermining and working against the government of the day. There are many examples of Senate committees chaired by non-government senators, Senator Siewert amongst them, able to produce very comprehensive and balanced reports and run very balanced inquiries across party lines. I think that it is appropriate to mark the contribution of Senator Siewert as chair of this particular committee. Even in the relatively short time she has been in that position she has clearly shown that non-government chairs—even, God forbid, from the crossbenches!—can allow Senate committee inquiries to run effectively. I would suggest that in many cases they are able to run more effectively as cross-party nonpartisan inquiries. Be that as it may, the government takeover of all the Senate committees starts from next week, so we will see what happens.

The City of Toowoomba in my home state of Queensland was mentioned by both the previous speakers. A hearing was held in that city just after the referendum into water recycling. I want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the Toowoomba City Council and staff, and particularly Mayor Di Thorley, for their courage in pushing the need to address the chronic water problems that Toowoomba faces and looking at it in a balanced way, considering all the options and going with the one that provided the best option for Toowoomba. Clearly, it was not the best option politically for the Toowoomba City Council but it was the best option in my view, having looked at it fairly closely, for the people of Toowoomba.

One clear example from the Toowoomba referendum is that to make such changes there needs to be wide-ranging support and the removal of partisanship from an issue in order to make the hard decisions that are needed. Unlike some people, I do not criticise the people of Toowoomba as being somehow conservative country hicks who do not understand a good idea when it is put in front of them. It was understandable that the people were apprehensive. In some of the campaigning that I did in Toowoomba about it and in responses I got to pieces I put on my website, one of the key reasons people were apprehensive was: if it is so good, how come it is just Toowoomba? Why isn’t the rest of south-east Queensland doing it? Why are we being singled out and why do we have to have a referendum?

What is often not commonly recognised is that the referendum was forced on the Toowoomba City Council and the people of Toowoomba by the federal government in an extremely rare example of a federal government grant to a local government body being contingent upon the holding of a referendum in that local government area. It is extremely unusual, and that alone, I think, was enough to make people wonder what was going on. The contribution of the state Labor government, particularly Premier Peter Beattie in taking a different position every second day of the week and repeatedly using terms like the ‘Armageddon option’ when it came to water recycling, obviously did not soothe people’s concerns with regard to water recycling.

It is not just Queensland, of course. I heard Senator Stephens mention her hometown of Goulburn, which has very serious water problems and is considering an approach very similar to that of Toowoomba. I certainly support them in doing so. I do not know whether they will be required to be subjected to a referendum—I would hope not. These are the sorts of decisions that councils and governments are meant to take and, as long as the process is open and transparent, as it was in Toowoomba, then it is an appropriate decision for such bodies to make. I point to the New South Wales government example and regular statements by the relevant minister, Mr Sartor, saying that they could not have water recycling for potable use because the public would not wear it. If you could ever get a perfect definition of a lack of backbone, that is it. Unfortunately, that is what our country is suffering from in this area: easy decisions are being made when hard decisions are needed.

It is often said that we live on the driest inhabited continent on earth, and that is true in a literal sense, but we should not forget that per capita that is not true. Per capita there are many other places that have far less water available per person. The reality is that we cannot just keep saying that our water shortages exist just because we live on the driest continent on earth. It is because we are extraordinarily wasteful with our water, as this inquiry is showing. Indeed, previous Senate inquiries have shown it. I would point to a previous Senate inquiry on water issues by the Senate environment committee which clearly showed how wasteful we are. That is a responsibility that all of us have to take on and that governments at various levels have to seek to confront. When you combine our historical approach of being extraordinarily wasteful with the growing problem of climate change and more variable rainfall patterns, these difficulties are going to be compounded—and they are already being compounded—unless we have significant change. That does mean confronting some of those difficult decisions. That is why we need to try to keep these issues as nonpartisan as possible and based as much as possible on sound policy decision making and the science involved.

Senator Siewert referred a bit to that and also to looking again at various industries. I think we will need to look further at which industries, agricultural and other, can change their practices to reduce waste. There are certainly massive gains that can still be made there. Also, we should be looking more at which of those industries use up more water and making some decisions based a bit more on those sorts of things. Pricing mechanisms are clearly one way of addressing that, as is greater consumer awareness. I think we could do with a lot more of that. A fair few people are now aware of the enormous amount of water used in cotton production, for example, but a lot of people are not aware of the enormous amounts of water used in various foods. I would have to point out that meat is one example. It consumes a lot more water than many other foods. If some of that information were made more directly available to consumers, it might influence their choices.

Given that the Queensland election is in a couple of days time, I want to re-emphasise that, in my view, whilst there are a range of solutions to the water crisis—and clearly recycling is a key one, although it is not the only one—I do not think there is a lot of evidence around that megadams are the solution. People have said that the Queensland election is going to be all about water. Unfortunately, I am not sure that it has panned out that way in terms of genuine, useful, constructive and wide-ranging public debate about water options.

I certainly want to put on the record again my strong opposition to the Traveston Dam on the Mary River. It is going to be incredibly expensive and it is highly unlikely to produce the sort of water volume that is desired. South-east Queensland is already littered with a number of dams that could only be described as failed dams. Adding one more at great expense and with immense social harm to the people of the region—let alone the environmental damage—is a real problem. I take the opportunity to mention it while the Minister for the Environment and Heritage is in the chamber. I know it is not appropriate for him to take a position on the dam yet, but I certainly would urge him to ensure that there is a full public inquiry into at least the relevant aspects under the EPBC Act with regard to that dam.

There was one comment that Senator Siewert made that I do not think was quite accurate. She suggested that the Howard government have done nothing about salinity. I think they quite clearly have done a lot about salinity. As a Senate environment committee report recently showed, there is certainly more that can be done. But we do need to recognise what has been done and build on it rather than continually suggest that we are starting from scratch. I think this inquiry is doing that. I hope to get more involved in it now that I am no longer chair of a different committee. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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