Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee, Water policy initiatives, 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.

This is a reference that was set up under the old arrangements of the Senate committee system. It is an important inquiry. The terms of reference included: the impact on rural water usage of recent water policy initiatives and the possible role for Commonwealth agencies, with particular reference to the development of water property titles; methods of protection for rivers and aquifers; farming innovation; monitoring drought and predicting farm water demand; and the implications for agriculture of predicted changes in patterns of precipitation and temperature—in other words, climate change.

I congratulate the members of my committee and acknowledge the hardworking and diligent secretarial backup that we have had. An interesting lot of evidence was taken, and I have to say that a lot of it was not news to me. It is patently obvious that in Australia we have had some catastrophic mismanagement of water under the present administrative rules, which basically means that the states run water. Even though nature says that rivers do not stop at the borders, the legislation does, which does not make a lot of sense to me.

I will not speak for very long because I am sure that other members of the committee wish to speak. I intend to speak on another occasion in great detail on what I think should be the creation of some federal influence in the management of Australia’s water resources and the investigation of the 60 per cent of Australia’s water that is in three catchments in the north of Australia.

Australia is in a fortunate position. With climate change there will be significant pain, and that is being felt at the present time in everything from the sheep market and the cattle market to the land market and our farmers, with their crops. But in southern Australia, if you believe the science, there will be a considerable reduction in run-off—in fact, something like 3,000 gigalitres—in the Murray-Darling Basin; mainly in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, where 38 per cent of the run-off comes from two per cent of the landscape.

Today there was a rice growers lunch—I have forgotten the name of the group. The rice industry is very efficient. They now have their challenges. Australia’s dairy farmers using irrigation have certainly got some great challenges with the price of water. These are all challenges we will have to meet. There was some anxiety from some environmental groups about developing the north and making the mistakes of the south.

One message that this committee got out of some of the evidence was that Australia needs to put all its information onto one database and give serious consideration to understanding our water resources before we allocate them. Obviously, some serious mistakes were made in the past—none more spectacular than the overallocation of some of our groundwater aquifers and a complete breakdown of water auditing, which has been evident this year. A lot of farmers in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, the Murrumbidgee and the Murray catchments thought they were implementing good drought policy by acquiring water from outside, in the water-trading market, and were then told that, despite the fact that they had bought the water, they would not get the water. All of these issues are being considered.

We collected evidence of water thieving, both from flood plains and by other means. It is blatant water thieving. With some of the wetlands—there is certainly the spectacular example of the Macquarie Marshes—there is an argument, which I have to say is a furphy, that they should not send the environmental flows to the wetlands, because the wetlands are dying. But we quickly discovered, and we have the evidence, that in fact the 50,000 megs, or whatever it was, that were sent down there were actually diverted before they got there. That is why the wetlands were in a poor state. There is quite obvious evidence of unlicensed, unauthorised earthworks that divert this water onto private land. There is some beautiful feed growing on some private land there, and the water should actually be in the wetlands. I was pleased to see a motion in this chamber the other day that the government accept that we have to do something about that and put everyone on notice.

Obviously we dealt with the contentious Lower Balonne issues. There is a recommendation from our committee, which I am sure other members will articulate, that there ought to be an independent scientific study—a genuine study, that is; there have been some studies which have, shall I say, been selectively quoted—on the impact of overland floodplain harvesting and the interception of downstream riparian rights in that process. The committee thinks that all consideration of future overland or floodplain harvesting licences should be halted until there is an independent study, because there is a potential lurk with the process that is under way in the Lower Balonne. You would issue a whole lot of licences—and bear in mind that the committee thinks that there are some strong conflicts of interest at work there, which would be laughable if they were not so serious—and those licences should not be issued until there is consideration of the impact in the long term.

Peter Cullen has certainly pointed to the fact—in his selectively quoted study—that the river itself is in reasonable order, but, if the capacity of flood harvesting is put in place, there will be long-term damage. All of that needs to be considered because, if we issue the licence to them, there will be a case for compensation. We ought to look at the overallocation before we look at the compensation. I note that the Mayor of St George said, ‘Of course there’s damage downstream with the graziers, and the solution to that is to not send them water but send them money.’ I do not know what nature thinks about that.

It is a comprehensive report. I congratulate the committee. Obviously, I have a strong view that, because of climate change and the positives, within a constructive and scientific way, with the right data on the right database, we could have some development in the north of Australia that would complement the development of some of those remote communities and, at the same time, not damage the environment. From a previous inquiry that took evidence in Kununurra, which I will not bore the Senate with today, there are some fundamental issues that have delayed that development process up there. I would like to make a detailed and full speech on this matter at an appropriate time. As we are pressed for time at the moment, I would like to give my deputy chair a full shot at this, so I will sit down.