Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

I have to say that, of all the contributions to a matter of public importance debate on an issue which is of critical importance to Australia, I am seriously disappointed at what we have heard from the opposition this afternoon. I have to say that I actually expected a lot better from the member for Flinders, as he made a series of totally inaccurate, unsubstantiated claims about the government’s position on water and particularly about the Sugarloaf pipeline. For the record, I should simply say that this project, in particular, is subject to specific conditions in relation to the responsibilities that I am required to discharge under the Environment Protection Act. The Victorian government has provided assurances that there will be no reduction in flows to the environment, and particularly to the Murray River, as a consequence of this decision.

I have also imposed conditions to be sure that Victoria’s assurances are met. The proponent in this project, Melbourne Water, is no different from any other proponent. They are bound by the law to comply with the conditions that I have imposed, and it is a specific condition of approval that no water can be taken from savings allocated to the Living Murray Initiative, from the Waters for Rivers entitlements or from environmental reserves, and that all water savings projects supplying the pipeline are compliant with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

It is also a condition of my approval that the water savings must be directed to Melbourne through the pipeline and that they must be independently audited. The member for Flinders knows full well that this is part of a larger project in place, the Food Bowl Modernisation Project—which he saw fit not to mention on one occasion at all—which has identified potential savings of 225 gigalitres, of which a third, a third and a third will go to the city of Melbourne, to the environment and to irrigators.

This matter of public importance comes at a critical time. It comes at a critical time because of the parlous state of the Murray-Darling Basin and the fact that we do have a problem of extreme drought impacted upon by climate change conditions which are seeing allocations, entitlements and water generally within the system at all-time historic lows. So you would think that the opposition would come in here and, firstly, be able to agree on what its position is—and I will come to that later—and, secondly, recognising the seriousness of this challenge on water, not come forward with some scattered political attack and funny little punchlines about ‘Pete’s pipeline’ and so on but rather address in substance what this government is actually bringing forward in Water for the Future.

What has happened here is that the member for Flinders has seen this MPI as an opportunity to audition for his position on the front bench. That is what has happened. As in his past activities, the shadow minister is searching for a headline. This is the shadow minister who accused a minister in the other house of being akin to Saddam Hussein. I have to say, with all respect, that I thought that that was an overreach on your part, Shadow Minister. This is a shadow minister who referred to Brendan Nelson in the same breath as Abraham Lincoln and Churchill. I thought that was a little bit of an overreach as well. This is the shadow minister who jumped out of a plane with a parachute to say that solar panel rebates were going into freefall when in fact they were heading to an all-time high.

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