Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

At the outset, let me say that I am delighted to see members of the public and members of the press gallery in attendance here tonight to hear my contribution! There has been a lot of talk about climate change, and I would like to address that a bit further into my contribution. I would like to reflect on a number of things, because the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 is very wide ranging, as I am should you would recognise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I think there are 409 pages. Some of the provisions relate to the developments that can take place and the way in which the EPBC Act can, as some people have suggested, assist developments. There are similar provisions within the various state legislations for developments of significance.

One of the things I would like to touch on is the way in which the current drought has been captured by some and implanted into the climate change debate and the global warming debate. I mentioned this the other day in a speech on a matter of public importance. I was pleased that most of the other members who spoke recognised that problem: that a number of agendas were running parallel to the drought and the pain caused by the drought, particularly to country communities—although, over time, it will cause pain in an economic sense to the broader community as well. A number of speakers have spoken about the way in which Australia has looked at the water debate. A number of people have suggested that Australia has to do much more to rein in some of the over-allocation problems of water that we have had, that we have to address some of these issues agriculturally and that there has to be more water put into the system, particularly the Murray-Darling system, to overcome some of the environmental problems that have occurred in the past.

One of the issues that have been raised from time to time is the water usage patterns of the cotton industry. I know that Senator Bill Heffernan, for instance, in the Senate, has raised the issue of Cubbie Station and the impact of that on the Darling system, particularly, and on the Murray system—the various implications of  Cubbie restricting flows on the environment, not only to the graziers downstream but also to the riverine environment. The two things I am about to say may seem to be in conflict, but I believe that Cubbie Station should be purchased and the water that has been contained in that area should be released into the system. What has happened with Cubbie Station, in particular, is that they have taken a principle—a legal principle, admittedly—too far. Governments—whether it be the Queensland government alone, or in conjunction with the New South Wales government or the Commonwealth government—should look at purchasing Cubbie Station at some time in the future.

The other issue I would like to touch on, if I could, refers directly to the cotton industry and the environmental impacts of that on water flows. It also refers to the Murray mouth and Lake Alexandrina. Many members may not know some of the statistics. Lake Alexandrina is virtually a dam at the end of the Murray system, with what are called ‘barrages’ that have been put in place. That system dams water back about 100 kilometres up the Murray system, partly because the land is very flat in that area. Lake Alexandrina is 22 times the size of the parliamentary secretary for water’s Wentworth electorate. It has an enormous amount of water which is relatively shallow and has a very high evaporation rate.

I am informed from doing some research that the evaporation rate from Lake Alexandrina is probably about 1,000 gigalitres a year. Over time, there have been a lot of arguments about the amount of water going down the Murray-Darling system to reach the Murray mouth. I think most people realise that the Murray mouth has a dam at the end of it now. One thousand gigalitres is an enormous amount of water bearing in mind that the lake itself holds 2,850 gigalitres of water. The government are trying to save 500 gigalitres by buying some of that water from licence holders, by efficiency means, through pipes and leaky channels et cetera to try to get more into the system. Lake Alexandrina, this dam—or lake as people would refer to it—at the end of the system holds nearly six times that amount of water. It holds 2,850 gigalitres of water.

In the debate that was held here the other day, the parliamentary secretary for agriculture—who I have regard for and who I think has great knowledge in terms of water, particularly in the Murray system—mentioned that nearly 1,000 gigalitres has evaporated from that lake system, twice as much as the government is trying to restore. There is 1,000 gigalitres of evaporation taking place on the one system of Lake Alexandrina. The cotton industry in New South Wales, which has been blamed for a lot of water problems in the whole system in the three states, uses 1,500 gigalitres of water, which is about half of what Lake Alexandrina holds. To put it another way, Lake Alexandrina holds twice the amount of water that the total New South Wales cotton industry uses and 1,000 gigalitres of evaporation from the relatively shallow system, which is 22 times the size of the parliamentary secretary for water’s electorate, is two-thirds of the total amount that the cotton industry uses in New South Wales.

I produce those figures to put things into perspective and to use climate change to drive a whole range of other debates so that we have a look at what we are doing with some of the water that we do have. I do not believe Australia has a water shortage. I disagreed with the Business Council of Australia on a number of their solutions to that problem, particularly in transferring water from rural areas to major urban areas to overcome the supposed water problems of our major cities. Those cities are surrounded by water. That is the reason a lot of those people are there, because of the water. There is no water shortage in our cities. People can argue whether re-use arrangements should be put in place. There is plenty of water there if people want to remove the salt from it. In the last figures I saw, in fact in the Business Council’s own document I think, the desalinisation figures were about two-thirds of what it would take to put in place re-use facilities for urban populations.

Nonetheless, the Business Council have looked at a number of issues to do with saving water and our water problems. As I said, I agree with them in that I do not believe that there is a water problem. I think there are problems in the way in which we use water and the way in which water evaporates from open storages. I know the Menindee Lakes is something that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister is actually looking at. There is an enormous amount of evaporation there. It is very shallow; the re-engineering of those lakes could create more water by reducing the surface area and making the system deeper so that the evaporation rate is reduced. So we can have an impact on the water resources if we really want to look at some of those issues.

There is artificial recharge—very little has been done with that. If you visit parts of South Australia, particularly urban South Australia in the north of Adelaide, you can see, I admit on a relatively small scale, some of the recharge of run-off water from urban areas as well through wetlands, which has created an enormous impact from clean water being stored underground and pumped out at a future time. A lot of people would say, ‘If you put water underground, won’t it run away? How do you get it back?’ I wondered the same thing some years ago as well, but in groundwater systems you actually create a bubble with hydraulic pressures and the lateral movement in some of those systems is probably less than a metre a year. In the right sort of aquifers, you can actually contain water in a massive bubble and pump it out at a future date without mixing it with, say, surrounding salt water. So there are number of things that we really have not looked as closely at as we should.

This bill actually looks at the development issue, which I raised in the parliament about 10 days ago, which is the major development west of Werris Creek. I admit I live near Werris Creek. BHP are proposing to put in place a very large coalmine. They are currently doing some investigative work. There is a 500 million tonne massive deposit of coal there. I am not opposed to coal or coalmining. I have a coalmine next door to me. I have a coal loader virtually on my property within view of my house and they are doing a tremendous job. Those I think are the real issues that this bill and the government should look at in terms of the BHP proposal because, unlike the land next door to where I live, this particular proposal has the potential to interfere with the groundwater systems at the head of the Murray-Darling system. The parliamentary secretary on a number of occasions has said—and I agree with him—that we do not understand sufficiently the relationships between groundwater and surface water, let alone the interrelationships between groundwater systems.

Admittedly, this massive development has been assessed through state government departments. The state government has taken it away from local government because of the significance of it. If we allow that process to take place only on a localised impact basis, it could be to the detriment of the surrounding ground water systems, particularly downstream in terms of the Murray-Darling system. In my view, a number of interrelated aquifers are at risk. I do not believe that BHP or any coal-mining company in this nation or the world has ever been in the situation of contemplating mining in high water bearing gravels where there are interrelated groundwater systems. Those same groundwater systems are the subject of constant debate between me, the Prime Minister and others in this place about the compensation and taxation treatment of people who have lost allocations of water to gain sustainability for those systems.

I am pleased that the parliamentary secretary is here. I have argued that we really should examine closely, through the national water initiative, the possibility of an independent study into not only this particular coal project—BHP will do that on a localised basis—but also the potential off-site impacts of mining in high water bearing gravels where you have interrelated groundwater aquifers. I would suggest that, when this act is interpreted, we should look very closely at those problems. If you just look at the localised impacts, you can buy land and you can destroy land, and some would say that is the price of progress. But if you have off-site effects—destroying aquifers or causing leakages and fractures—it affects not just where the mining takes place but also downstream. And those groundwater systems cover many hundreds of kilometres and provide viability not only for many productive people in the farming sector but for ecosystems as well.

I spoke earlier about the use of this bill. The arguments about climate change, drought and water are all being wrapped up into one and the drought is being used as part of the climate change debate. I do not think anybody can suggest that the current drought is part of a greater system. I think the ALP’s definition of climate change in its amendment to the bill is very shaky in that it bases long-term arrangements on some of the definitional issues surrounding climate change. Labor’s amendment (4) states that ‘the Parliament acknowledges that climate change is the greatest threat to Australia’s natural environment’. That is a fairly wide-ranging statement. I believe we can do a hell of a lot more with renewable energy et cetera, and I have spoken about that in the past. The amendment also states:

The Parliament acknowledges that climate change

…           …    …

(b)

will have far-reaching impacts globally, in Australia’s region and in Australia, including:

(i)

possible higher temperatures and lower-rainfall in southern Australia;

(ii)

possible more frequent extreme weather events such as storms, heatwaves and drought, ...

Note that it says ‘possible’. That is one of the definitions of climate change that I think really does need to be looked at.

Many have dragged into the climate change debate the exceptional circumstances provisions for drought. I am pleased that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, the member for Farrer, is here because I think the example I am about to give occurred in her presence. The Prime Minister met a farmer—I think it was in Victoria but it may have been in New South Wales—who spoke about access to and criteria for exceptional circumstances relief. His area had been declared to be in exceptional circumstances. The farmer made the point to the Prime Minister that he could not get any exceptional circumstances relief. The Prime Minister fell into a trap that was promoted in particular by the urban media. The Prime Minister said: ‘Hang on a bit! If you’re in EC you are getting something.’ That is the message that is being promoted: if you are a farmer in an EC declared area, you will receive something. That is quite incorrect—and the parliamentary secretary would know that. The Prime Minister did not know that; I think he does know it now.

It is very important for people to recognise that living in an exceptional circumstance declared area means nothing other than that you can apply for business assistance by way of interest rate subsidies—and most people will be knocked back for a whole range of circumstances. Last week I spoke about Peter Cullen and others saying that the government’s drought assistance is propping up non-viable farmers. Part of the criteria for exceptional circumstances interest rate assistance for farm businesses is that non-viable farmers cannot get it—it is not available to those people—so it cannot be propping up non-viable farmers.

I will conclude by saying that, in the broader debate about climate change, drought and water usage, people should start looking at the facts involved rather than trying to send their own messages and agendas, particularly about the drought circumstances that people find themselves in. (Time expired)

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