Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I present the explanatory memorandum and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

CONSTITUTION ALTERATION (WATER RESOURCES) 2019

The water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin and the Great Artesian Basin are of tremendous importance and must be managed on an environmentally sustainable basis in the interests of our nation as a whole.

If passed, this legislation would ask the Australian people whether the Australian Constitution should be amended to give the Commonwealth Parliament the power to make laws for the use and management of water resources that extend beyond the limits of a State, while preventing the making of laws that would have an overall detrimental effect on the environment.

The Murray-Darling is the largest and most complex river system in Australia. It runs from Queensland, through New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and South Australia, spanning 77,000 kilometres of rivers. Some three million people have access to drinking water from the Basin. Agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin is worth $24 billion annually while its river system supports unique and diverse ecosystems including habitats for some 120 water bird species and 46 native fish species.

The Great Artesian Basin is another vital national water resource. It underlies an area of 1.7 million square kilometres, approximately 22 per cent of the Australian continent. It is the only source of reliable water for human activity and water-dependent ecosystems across large parts of the arid and semi-arid inland regions of Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

The findings of the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission and the Australian Academy of Science's investigation of the causes of mass fish kills in the Menindee Region of New South Wales leave little doubt that the management of the water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin is dysfunctional and leading to significant adverse environmental impacts. The Murray-Darling is highly likely to face more severe challenges as a consequence of climate change.

Similarly it has long been acknowledged that the Great Artesian Basin is under stress through excessive pumping and waste of bore water with a consequent need of more effective and sustainable management of what is a unique resource. Given the significant overlap of the Murray-Darling Basin and Great Artesian Basin, these great natural water resources should be managed on a fully integrated, national basis.

That is not the case now. Despite the passage of the Commonwealth Water Act 2007 and the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, we still have different water rules in each state, different compliance measures in each state, different governments distributing money for different elements of the Basin Plan, different accountability measures and general opaqueness in the execution and oversight of the Basin Plan caused by its multi-jurisdictional nature.

Little progress can be made while vested interests can exert an effective veto through their state governments over any proposed reform to Basin-wide water management. Every time changes to the Murray-Darling Basin plan are proposed state water ministers threaten to pull their state out of the Basin Plan.

The Murray-Darling is a vital resource that cannot be managed on the basis of lowest common denominator agreements. We need a fully national framework that operates in the national interest.

The failure of federal and state governments to make a substantive response to the recommendations of South Australia's Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission has made clear the absolute bankruptcy of the current management of Australia's most important river system.

This bill calls for a referendum under section 128 of the Constitution to add to the list of matters on which the Commonwealth Parliament can make laws: the use and management of water resources that extend beyond the limits of a State.

Such an alteration would put beyond doubt the Commonwealth's ability to legislate to manage the water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin river system and the Great Artesian Basin and if necessary to override inconsistent state water management legislation.

The Commonwealth already plays a key role in management of the Murray Darling Basin river system through the Water Actand the implementation of the Basin Plan. The constitutionality of the Water Act and the Basin Plan have been the subject of argument and successive Commonwealth Governments have declined to release relevant legal advice on the question. The Water Act states that the Act variously relies on:

Future management of the Basin, including any amendment to the Basin Plan, remains contingent on agreement between the Commonwealth, state and territory governments. Past experience shows that it is very difficult to secure agreement and the parochial interests often trump the national interest.

Management of the water resources of the Great Artesian Basin is currently achieved through consultation and agreement between the Commonwealth, Queensland, New South Wales, South Australian and Northern Territory governments. Again, a requirement for interjurisdictional agreement gives parochial interests much influence over management outcomes.

The Constitution alteration proposed by this legislation would provide the Commonwealth Parliament with unambiguous authority to make laws relating to water resources that extend beyond the limits of a state.

Such an alteration would put beyond doubt the power of the Commonwealth to legislate to manage the Murray-Darling river system and the Great Artesian Basin without relying on the referral of power from state parliaments and if necessary, to override state water management legislation.

The proposed alteration would further ensure that any law of the Commonwealth that relates to water resources must not affect water resources in a way that has an overall detrimental effect on the environment. This requirement would apply to all laws relating to water resources made by the Commonwealth Parliament under section 51 of the Constitution.

This provision reflects the Commonwealth Parliament's already stated view, as expressed through the purposes of the Water Act, on the importance of protecting and restoring ecosystems reliant on the Murray-Darling Basin. More broadly it provides constitutional recognition of the vital importance of protecting and preserving Australia's major national water resources.

If passed, this legislation would affirm the Parliament's intention to rely on the new legislative power to create a nationally consistent regulatory framework for the use and management of all or particular water resources that extend beyond the limits of a State. For the avoidance of doubt, the legislation would further confirm that water resources that extend beyond the limits of a State include the Murray-Darling Basin and the Great Artesian Basin.

This legislation does not propose any amendment or change to section 100 of the Constitution which provides that the Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a State or its residents to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation.

This legislation does not propose any change to section 99 of the Constitution that provides that the Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade, commerce, or revenue, give preference to one State or any part thereof over another State or any part thereof.

The vital importance of protecting and preserving Australia's major national water resources should be clearly recognised and entrenched in our Constitution. Our water resources, rivers and the environment must come first.

This is not a new problem. In 1897 and 1898 parochial state interests blocked the federal constitutional conventions from adopting South Australian proposals that the new Commonwealth Parliament be given full power to control and regulate the River Murray and other interstate inland waterways.

120 years later, the Australian people should be given the opportunity to fix this constitutional flaw.

Our great river system the Murray-Darling, and the unique resource of the Great Artesian Basin, can't wait any longer.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.