Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to address the matter of public importance currently being debated in this place. Can I say to begin with that I do not know why Senator Joyce thinks you have to shout and scream to get a point across. I sat there and listened to the raving that went on and I think the only truth that I heard, the only thing that was actually correct, was the title that he gave when he referred to the report, when he said that it was the Guide to the proposed Basin Plan. It is not the plan; it is a guide to the plan, Senator Joyce—and we know the fearmongering that your side has already started. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority, as you would well know, is an independent authority. What has been produced by that authority is a guide; it is not the plan. There is a consultation process now which people can be involved in, and you are aware of that. Let me just go through it now.

The government acknowledges that the Murray-Darling Basin is, without doubt, one of our most precious environmental assets and is our largest single source of food. We do not disagree on that, do we? Healthy river systems are essential to the long-term future of communities throughout the Murray-Darling Basin, and that is why it is important that we develop long-term, sustainable extraction limits. The government understands also the issue of impact on local communities and the very real need to get the balance right. On many occasions those on this side of the chamber have spoken about this issue, both in opposition and, in more recent years, while in government. Not only have we spoken about it, but in government we have taken action which has gone some way to addressing some of the challenges we are now facing.

We know that poor management and the lack of a national plan saw the health of the Murray-Darling Basin reach a critical point over the past decade. I have said it before and it still rings true today: for more than 11 years, while those opposite were in government, they failed to prepare Australia for the tough challenges of the future. And we all know that amongst those failures are the challenges facing us today: climate change, skills shortages, water availability and the Murray-Darling Basin.

This government refuses to turn its back on a crisis, denying its existence, like those opposite did for more than 11 years. History will record that it was a former coalition government—which included many of those sitting opposite in this chamber today—who were in government for nearly 12 years that failed to act in a timely manner to better collect, store, use and reuse water. It took a Labor government—confronting the problem of historic overallocation, compounded by more than 10 years of drought and a future where it is likely that there will be less water in the Murray-Darling Basin—to act. When we were elected to government, we needed to act to protect Australia’s long-term future and our children’s future, to protect our economic security, and to insist on protecting our environment.

For too long, those opposite have had many different positions on many important changes. They cannot agree on climate change. They cannot agree on a national broadband network. They cannot agree on how to address the issues facing us in water. What we have seen, though, and what they have demonstrated is that, in many cases, their position depends on which state they live in, which state they are visiting or who they are speaking to. When in South Australia, some of them express outrage at the state of the Lower Lakes and call for emergency action. When they are upstream, they tell their constituents that the lakes cannot and should not be saved and the government should stop purchasing water entitlements. So, on the issue of water, as on many other issues, they are all over the place. They lacked leadership when it came to our environment, and they continue to lack leadership.

The Labor government was the first federal government to purchase water entitlements. The opposition failed to deliver a single drop of water over their 12 years in government. They refused to support urban water infrastructure, and now they are running a fear campaign with the promotion of misinformation. They are not dedicated to taking the high road when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan; they simply want to destabilise the government’s plans. The people of the Murray-Darling Basin will suffer as a result. In other words, the opposition have pulled out their wrecking ball and, shamefully, have no genuine interest in the long-term future of Australia’s water supply or their constituents along the Murray-Darling. An interesting article I read recently in the Business Spectator points out that the opposition is only interested in ‘maximum fear, minimum policy’. To quote from the article, as printed, about the opposition’s ‘maximum fear’ policy when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin:

This is not behaviour befitting an ‘alternative government’. If the Coalition really has abandoned the independent body its own legislation set up, perhaps it should explain to its Murray-Darling constituents why trusting their future to such a statutory body was a good idea in the first place.

This shameful politicking by the opposition is in stark contrast to the government’s reform agenda.

What we cannot do is to hide away from the fact that our wetlands have been devastated and many of our irrigators have gone out of business. We cannot hide away from the fact that algal blooms and acid sulphate soils have made much of the water unusable to farmers and destructive to the environment. And we cannot hide away from the fact that the way we have been using water in the Murray-Darling Basin is not working—it is not working to support the long-term viability of the rivers or of rural communities. Climate forecasts show that we can expect hotter and drier conditions in the southern basin; longer and drier droughts; and more extreme weather events, including floods and storms. Only by returning that river to health, and managing limited water supplies, will we be able to provide more certainty for the businesses and the communities that rely on it.

As I have already mentioned, there has been, unfortunately, and sadly, a fear campaign generated by those opposite regarding this issue. The government is aware that communities are suffering—that they are worried. This is a very difficult issue, and we understand that anything that involves reform to water usage is particularly difficult for irrigation based communities.

We need to be very clear about the process that we are going through to achieve these goals, and we need to understand that process. As I have already said, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority is an independent authority. The document released on Friday, 8 October, is officially titled Guide to the proposed Basin Plan. The guide that is out now is just that—a guide to a draft plan. It is not the plan. It is not a proposal from the government. It is a proposal from the independent authority. And what this guide does is to provide for additional opportunity for consultation and engagement with communities.

Public community consultations for the guide will run until mid-November. The authority will release its proposed basin plan next year and, under the legislation, it will be followed by 16 weeks of consultation. There are over 12 months to run this consultation process, and the authority will be conducting these consultations to get better feedback on the social and economic implications of the plan before the minister is presented with the plan at the end of next year—that is, 2011, not 2010.

The authority will then present a final plan to the Ministerial Council, which includes representatives from each of the basin states, for consideration. The minister can ask the authority to reconsider issues or make some changes. The final plan will then be signed off by the minister. Once the minister has signed off on the final plan, it is tabled in parliament, where it may be disallowed in either house. It is a disallowable instrument and it needs to go through both houses. (Time expired)