Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I start off on a bipartisan note by observing that I think this is a common cause—that everyone agrees the situation in the Murray-Darling Basin is quite horrendous and that we do have a crisis in the Lower Lakes. This is a tragedy of environmental, economic and social proportions that we have never seen before in the Lower Lakes. I think it is at least a common belief that primarily this crisis was caused by the prolonged drought that Australia has suffered and the decades of mismanagement and overallocation in the Murray-Darling Basin.

I say with great respect to Senator Wong, having been down to the Lower Lakes and talked to the communities down there, that they actually feel insulted by the proposition advanced by Mr Rudd and her on their visits down there, which in a sense dismisses all this as the result of climate change. The communities regard that as a massive cop-out, because it suggests to the people suffering down there that signing the Kyoto protocol and having the so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is going to solve all of the problems. Whatever the merits of Labor’s approach to climate change, no-one, surely not even the Labor Party, believes that Australia bringing in a ‘Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme’ in 2010 is going to make any difference to the situation in the Murray-Darling Basin or indeed to the Lower Lakes. With respect, I urge Senator Wong to stop insulting the people of these communities by that sort of reflection. It is only damaging the Labor Party and her own credibility.

In relation to these communities, we have been calling for months for assistance on this. It is insulting to us and to these communities to say that this is Mayo related but, given the focus on the Lower Lakes in this electorate, we urge this government to adopt the coalition’s position of immediately providing $50 million in emergency assistance to this Lower Lakes community. It is all very well for Senator Wong to say, ‘We’ve provided Mr Rann with $200 million to deal with environmental issues’—in other words. ‘We are going to just let the acidification happen or let these communities collapse and then Mr Rann can have a slush fund of $200 million.’ These communities need this assistance now because their businesses and their livelihoods are suffering enormously.

We will introduce our bill for immediate emergency relief assistance of $50 million into the Senate tomorrow. Frankly, the government is showing absolute contempt for these Lower Lakes communities by dismissing our proposal in the way that they have. That contemptuous dismissal of our proposal is doing the Labor Party no good whatsoever in the Lower Lakes community, and of course that simply compounds the contempt which the Labor Party is showing for the Lower Lakes communities by its extraordinary refusal to even put up a candidate in the Mayo by-election. Nothing could be more contemptuous of the Lower Lakes community than that. It shows that the Labor Party is indeed frightened of what the Lower Lakes community might say to the Labor Party were it to run a candidate.

Can I also make the point that the economic life and community cohesion of the Lower Lakes are built on there being a freshwater ecology. Some are arguing that we should solve this problem by simply flooding these lakes with sea water. Indeed, that is no less than option 3 in the paper issued by the minister’s department, which is really quite disturbing. The paper says in relation to option 3 that historical modelling indicates that saline water would have likely flowed into Lake Alexandrina in past times of very low Murray River flows. If you turn to a very good document produced by the River Murray Catchment Water Management Board, it makes clear:

Prior to European settlement, Lakes Alexandrina and Albert at the terminus of the River Murray were predominantly fresh, with river water discharging to sea and keeping the Mouth clear. Contrary to what many believe today, saltwater intrusions into the Lake environment were not common until after 1900 when significant water resource development had occurred in the River Murray system.

Before large-scale extractions of water, the Lakes and lower Murray were rarely subjected to sea water invasions.

That is very important historical data. What is worrying me and our side of politics—and, indeed, the Lower Lakes communities—and is regrettably reinforced by this options paper is that the Rudd and Rann governments seem hell-bent on this seawater option. Indeed, they seem to be on what you might describe as ‘Lower Lakes watch’. They are sitting by, twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the point at which they can simply flood the Lower Lakes with sea water. Our criticism of this government is this: they have now had nine months, they are not doing anything and they are simply waiting and watching to see what will happen. They are now striking fear into the hearts of all those in the Lower Lakes by suggesting—I think quite unequivocally—that they are going to simply build a weir and flood the Lower Lakes with sea water. As I say, this is quite contrary to all the historic evidence about this. This will destroy the freshwater ecology of the Lower Lakes.

Can I in my concluding remarks make the point that I think the government has got a very big problem here. A big part of this problem is that the government made a very big mistake in combining in one portfolio the huge responsibility for water in this nation with the responsibility for climate change. It is our assertion that the minister who has this giant portfolio is clearly spending almost all her time running around and striking fear into the hearts of Australian business that she is going to introduce this so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. That will strike fear into the hearts of all workers in Australian industry. It will be one of the most job destructive experiments that a Labor government has ever inflicted upon this country.

Indeed, she is spending all her time devising this scheme to destroy jobs and destroy Australian industry and not spending any time on the crisis that we face now—that is, the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin and, more particularly, the crisis in the Lower Lakes. She should be spending 100 per cent of her time on her responsibility for water. Instead, we see her running around and devising this Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme so that she can suck up to the greenies around the world, while destroying jobs and destroying Australian industry. Her responsibility is water. She should be stripped of the water responsibility, and it should be given to someone who can apply themselves full-time to the crisis that is gripping the country.