Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to speak to the interim report of the now defunct Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee inquiry into water policy initiatives. I should emphasise that the inquiry is still underway with the new, amalgamated, Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport. The water policy issue, which the committee is still examining, is a critical one. This inquiry follows on from previous inquiries done by both the rural and regional affairs committee and the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts on urban and rural water usage.

This has become a much more pressing debate amongst the Australian community. The current drought is causing immense difficulties in many parts of the country both in the agricultural sector and in regional and rural towns. It is, in combination with other factors, causing growing concern in metropolitan areas about the availability of water for urban usage, for domestic and industrial use.

I will focus particularly on the water issue as it relates to Queensland. I know that the committee has already had some hearings, including one in the fine City of Toowoomba, to examine some of these issues. I asked the Minister for the Environment and Heritage in question time earlier this week about his attitude towards the two megadams that are proposed for south-east Queensland: the Traveston Crossing Dam, on the Mary River just south of Gympie; and the Wyaralong Dam, on a tributary of the Logan River, south of Brisbane.

I want to reiterate that the environment minister does have the power to determine what form the environmental impact assessment will take with regard to both of those dams. Both of them will trigger the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which is clearly the strongest environmental law that our country has had in its history; it certainly provides much greater scope for environmental protection, at least on matters of national environmental significance as defined in the legislation, than any legislation at state level in Queensland.

It is important that the assessments on both of these dams from the environmental perspective are done independently and as transparently and thoroughly as possible. I repeat my view that there is simply no way that the state Labor government should in any way have any role in determining or shaping the nature of the environmental impact assessments, because they have made it absolutely and categorically clear that they are determined to proceed with both of these dams, come what may. So assessments do need to be independent.

The federal environment act can only examine the aspects of the dams that deal with the environmental implications relevant to matters of national and environmental significance, most notably threatened species. There are a number of threatened and endangered species, particularly in respect of the Traveston dam, on the Mary River. The lungfish is the most notable and perhaps the most serious in terms of potential impacts on that most significant of species.

There are wider issues here. I would suggest that, whilst in some ways the environmental arguments against the Traveston Crossing Dam are very strong, the social arguments are in many ways stronger because it will cause immense disruption. It is already causing enormous suffering to the people in the region and not just to those who are at risk of having their houses and properties subsumed; the wider community will be dramatically impacted, and the region is already undergoing enormous stresses and economic loss as a consequence of the threat of this dam hanging over its head. On top of that are the economic and simple water policy arguments against it, and this is where I think the role of Senate inquiries and the federal government becomes more crucial.

If it were actually true that, despite all the environmental and social harm that this dam will cause, it is absolutely essential to build it to ensure that Brisbane and south-east Queenslanders, such as me, have water to drink, then perhaps you could justify it. It is quite clear that not only will it be an extraordinarily expensive piece of infrastructure—the latest costings mentioned in the Australian newspaper today put it at $1.7 billion, which makes it an incredibly expensive dam—but it is not even certain that it will produce anything like the yield that has been suggested. You only have to look at some of the other parts of south-east Queensland. Mr Malcolm Turnbull said in the paper today that it is important to note that Brisbane already has the largest ratio of storage capacity to demand of any major Australian city. So having lots of dam capacity does not necessarily mean the dams will be filled. South-east Queensland is littered with empty or near-empty dams. The other proposed site, the Wyaralong Dam, has two failed or empty or near-empty dams in adjoining catchments, so it seems quite absurd to build a third one in the next catchment across the range when the two in the nearest rainfall zone are already failing.

Whilst a lot of attention has been paid to the Traveston dam in respect of economic and water policy arguments, there are also a lot of reasons why the Wyaralong Dam does not stack up terribly well. I spoke in this place a couple of weeks ago about a report into the water yield estimates from that dam, which was done by professional environmental scientist Mr Brad Witt. He went through the rainfall yields and the water flow statistics, going back decades, and he used that to demonstrate that the Beattie government’s suggested yield from that dam is, to put it politely, highly improbable in an average year—and that is before you take into account the potential for reduced future rainfall due to climate change.

The important thing to consider in this context is which is the best way to spend money to address the water issues. We have to look at water supplies for south-east Queensland and for regional areas, including for agricultural purposes. We are not just talking about these two dams—the state government seems to have gone ‘dam crazy’ and it has announced that it wants to build a few others. There is one in a catchment just inland from Mackay which, apart from other things, will threaten an endangered turtle that has been named after Steve Irwin. That might give a little more reason for people to pay attention to it, but the issue should be considered on its merits—not just because it has a Steve Irwin link and not solely because of its environmental impacts, although they are always important. The fact is that Queensland already has any number of examples of enormous amounts of public money having been spent on water infrastructure—such as dams—that has not delivered. To throw more good money after bad does not make sense.

What I would like to see from the federal government and from Mr Malcolm Turnbull is more direct, overt involvement in these issues. We have a national water policy initiative, and quite significant amounts of federal money will be spent on big-ticket infrastructure items. From the federal level, we should be ensuring that state governments justify in economic terms the money that they are spending on these projects. Certainly there should be no support provided from a federal level for water infrastructure projects in Queensland. If the state government is prepared to waste billions of dollars on highly dubious water infrastructure projects, it should not be seeking subsidies or support from the federal government to help cover some of the cost or to fund other infrastructure projects. That is where we need much more direct federal involvement not just through the federal environment laws but in a proper context of— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.