Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand today to speak to the merits of the Meander Dam development in northern Tasmania. An open day is planned this Sunday for members of the public to visit the Meander Dam, and I am sure it will be a most informative, educational and enjoyable day for all those who attend.

The Meander Dam is a project that has been on the planning board for decades. It is now happening. It is being developed, and I am a very strong supporter together with the Tasmanian Liberal Senate team and Ben Quin, the federal Liberal candidate for Lyons, who is very supportive of the project and is aware of the many benefits that it will deliver to the people of the Meander Valley, northern Tasmania and the entire state of Tasmania.

I will give an overview of the Meander Dam and discuss some of the benefits it will deliver to Tasmania. My family were born and bred on the Meander River at Hagley, and I lived there all of my childhood. My family farmed on the river for 40 years. In the winter it flooded and made farming difficult not just for us but for all the farms along the river. In the summer, of course, it has been getting worse and worse: the Meander River has been trickling almost to a halt. Irrigation has been precarious, so the dam will alleviate those concerns about flooding in the winter and drought and dryness in the summer.

The dam will provide many benefits. It will be constructed using the roller compacted concrete method and will be 47 metres from the bed of the river to the top of the crest. The dam is 170 metres from abutment to abutment, and 50 metres upstream toe to the downstream toe. The area to be inundated is 364 hectares and the gross storage capacity is in the order of 43,000 megalitres. The effective storage capacity is 41,000 megalitres and irrigation water is a little over half that, with 24,000 megalitres per annum available to those who wish to use it.

There are many economic benefits but there are also community and environmental benefits. I would like to speak to each of those. Regarding environmental benefits, the river will be guaranteed a minimum flow, even in midsummer, to sustain the important ecological processes so vital to the future sustainability of such a river.

In terms of community benefits, yes, there will be a reduction in the severity of flooding as I indicated. There will be year-round improvement in water quality and enhanced recreation and tourism opportunities. The dam will provide brilliant opportunities for trout fishing, for example, and I hope to be one of the first members of the public to be able to avail myself of that opportunity. I know many Tasmanians—over 25,000 of them—enjoy trout fishing every year. It is vitally important for our economy and tourism and the Meander Dam will simply add to the tremendous trout fishing opportunities in Tasmania, which are world-class. I commend Tasmania’s trout fishing to my colleagues here and to the members of the public.

Economically, the additional water for irrigation each year will lead to increased farm income of an early estimate of nearly $15 million dollars per annum at full water intake; total benefits, including the flow-on benefits, of some $53 million per annum to the Tasmanian economy; and, on recent advice, an increase in employment of over 150 jobs—that is on-farm and off-farm jobs. There will also be investments of on-farm infrastructure with many of the value added activities that farmers will undertake a result of having access to that water. Across Australia water, particularly over the summer period, is renowned as liquid gold, and we believe it will be well used.

The experience in Tasmania is that in the Cole River Valley the Craigbourne Dam has done wonders. It was dryland farming for decades and it has been transformed into—I will not say an oasis—an area for stone fruit, grapes and a whole range of crops. It has been a tremendous value-adding opportunity—jobs, growth and development—for that entire community and southern Tasmania. The Meander will also produce in the order of 10,000 megawatts of electricity per annum, an added benefit which is good news.

The Australian government has had responsibilities under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and those commitments have been met. I want to thank Minister Truss, who visited the dam site a few years ago, and also more recently the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, who I have had discussions with on behalf of the Tasmanian Liberal team about his interest in and commitment to the Meander Dam. Our government has committed $2.6 million to this development. We believe it is an excellent investment and already we have committed $2.1 million to make this development a success, with a further half a million dollars payable once the irrigation rights have been provided.

I would, however, like to make a few additional comments about the process of the dam development, but, before doing so, say that I believe that the open day organised by the Rivers and Water Supply Commission for this Sunday will be a great success. I thank them for organising it and making it available to the public. I plan to get there via the Western Tiers cycle challenge—that is, riding my pushbike along the Meander Valley Highway with many other Tasmanians, raising money for the New Horizons organisation for people with disabilities. We start at 9 am this Sunday from the Launceston Country Club casino. We are riding to Westbury, and some of us are riding to Deloraine. So that is the mechanism to get there.

Some other additional comments I want to make are on the disappointment I have about the state Labor government’s management of the project—or, more specifically, its mismanagement of the project—over many years. The state government minister at the time, back in 2003, Brian Green, said on the public record that his government and his department had taken a passive approach. That is very disappointing. The Leader of the Opposition at the time, Rene Hidding, the state member for Lyons, said on 10 April 2003:

Mr Green today incredibly admitted his guilt and culpability for losing the Meander Dam appeal, admitting it “could be argued” that he and his department took a “passive” approach to the appeal.

Mr Hidding was right, and I thank Mr Hidding for his advocacy and for his efforts. He has been an ardent supporter of the dam.

Mr Hidding was of course talking about the Greens Tasmanian Conservation Trust appeal, which has delayed the development of the dam. As a result of those delays, there have been many millions of dollars in increased development costs which, of course, have to flow through to the end recipients—that is, the farmers who are involved in accessing the water via their irrigation rights. Up to $13 million was added to the cost of the Meander Dam through unnecessary delays including frivolous and vexatious appeals. In 2001 the dam was priced at approximately $23 million. Several years later, it is in the order of $35 million or more. So, in my view, those frivolous and vexatious appeals by the green lobby or anybody else should not be allowed to occur without consequences. Those undue delays have increased the cost of the dam and placed an unfair burden on the Meander Valley farmers and the community.

I want to pause and congratulate the Tasmanian Farmers and Graziers Association and Mayor Mark Shelton and the Meander Valley Council for their support and commitment to making this dam a success and bringing it to fruition. So I have added those two concerns, and Ben Quin and I will be there this weekend to support those in the community who support the Meander Dam development. We look forward to the benefits ensuing to the local community in the usual way.