Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to rise to talk about the critical issue of water, but I am rather disappointed that the occasion comes about through this bill, because this bill—the Water Amendment Bill 2008falls significantly short of what it needs to do to implement the necessary reform for water across the country. Many of my colleagues have already spoken in large part about significant numbers of the shortcomings, and we will be addressing those in the committee stage. To that extent I clearly support and endorse their comments.

I want to focus on two aspects of this bill: the first is so-called critical human water needs and the provision of the bill that relates thereto, and the second is the failure of this bill to prevent the construction of the north-south pipeline, and the fact that this bill offers this government the opportunity to do just that—to stop the construction of the north-south pipeline.

Firstly, I will address the terminology ‘critical human water needs’ as used in the bill. Why does this matter? This matters because, once water is designated for critical human needs, it is excised from the system. The user to whom that water is given is able to enjoy the use of that water as a first priority user. In short, they get to go to the front of the queue. The evidence provided to the Senate committee inquiring into this bill was overwhelming. It was overwhelming about the need for a definition of the term ‘critical human water needs’ and overwhelming in its agreement that the bill failed to provide a definition of ‘critical human water needs’. The bill failed to provide a definition that was clear, transparent and equitable and that gave all water users in Australia a fair opportunity to work out how you get to the front of the queue. Instead, we have a bill that talks about critical human water needs, core human requirements and non-core human requirements. It talks about human critical water needs having first priority and then in the next breath—