Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Riverina for bringing this motion to the parliament. These are important issues that he raises; we all know the importance that water plays in our wide brown country—the very dry land that we have. The early farmers recognised that to survive in this naturally arid landscape the availability and control of our water systems and resources would be the key to successful food production. However, we live in a continent of extremely high rainfall variability, with long, severe droughts and massive floods, as we saw this year in Queensland.

It is not as simple as just controlling and diverting rivers. We have to understand the changes in the water cycles over time and how we can drought-proof regions, and each enterprise within those regions, for those years when drought hits hardest. We have to understand and continually research how we can improve our water usage and storage but, by the same token, we need to ensure that the communities around the rivers survive as they help to keep our waterways healthy and productive.

When the Prime Minister was talking at the Global Foundation Summit in Melbourne last year she said, when putting into context what had been quoted in the motion:

… it’s not just about more exports. It is about developing the systems and services that add extra value to them and participating in the development of a market-based solution to food security across the region. It would involve building our food processing industry so that it can supply Asia’s growing consumer markets and developing the research, technologies and logistics that strengthen irrigation—

make it better than it has been by using new technologies and being very innovative—

grow higher yield crops and improve safety.

So, while the Prime Minister is keen to see the research continue to further improve our production and the safety of our food, we cannot just continue to milk the Murray-Darling Basin without having a really good understanding and plan to ensure that we keep the river flowing too.

Recently, I received a book from Vicky Cullen, the wife of the eminent scientist Peter Cullen, who passed away a year or so ago, entitled, This Land, Our Water: Water Challenges for the 21st Century. I had had some correspondence with Peter over the years, and I was very pleased to receive the book. It is a collection of papers by Peter Cullen and some associates. I think Peter, more than anyone, knew that the science behind water allocation in the past had often been based on European knowledge and that we should be developing our own knowledge on the basis of what is known about Australia here and now, about our own climatic conditions, our own lands and our own river systems.

John Williams of the New South Wales Natural Resources Commission discussed this in his book on page 197:

Peter operated within the firm appreciation of our highly variable climate driving droughts and also flooding rains. He knew that we must work hard to go forward with management that can yield river systems resilient to the shocks of drought as well as massive floods which are often amplified by our engineering interventions. He knew that to perform that management with current climate variability would challenge our science and our society. Further he knew that to add to this mix the impact of climate change, our climate variability and changed probabilities distribution of our rainfall would stretch us to our very limits.

Of course, we see some of that constantly. He continues:

The slow and difficult progress strongly suggests that he was correct.

I would support the recognition of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area centenary as a significant milestone in the development of Australian agriculture and food production. That river basin has acted as a food bowl for the whole of Australia for a long time. I believe it has played an important role in underpinning national and international food security, but it is not the only area that needs to be recognised, improved and researched. Our water table, river flows and rainfall on the eastern side of Australia need to be continually monitored and understood.

This government has introduced programs that have assisted and will continue to assist this process. In Tasmania, with the help of the state government, we have developed a series of irrigation schemes that will help the drought-prone areas of the Midlands and the east coast to become more self-reliant. Farmers have been persuaded to take part by investing in these schemes for the future on their own properties and many have undertaken to buy water rights. I believe there are still water rights that have not been completely taken up, but as the value of the scheme has become obvious I am sure they will be taken up. People are now starting to see the significance these rights can have for them in their enterprises.

This is a recognition that Tasmania has a lot of rain. I think we have 10 per cent of the rainfall of the continent of Australia on 1½ to two per cent of the landmass. It is a natural advantage, although looking at the dryness and the fires we have at the moment you would not think that is the case; but it is the case. So we have a great natural advantage and we now have the opportunity to use this water in our irrigation schemes to help produce food and make sure the economics of food production work very well.

Bringing water into areas that have been marginal has made a huge difference to the production of new lines, new crops and new ideas in Tasmania. These things are starting to open up and the water has given us the opportunity to open up bigger areas to produce more on a larger scale. Therefore those economics of size are working to benefit many people. This means a lot of jobs and a lot of opportunities, and a lot of these areas are in the great electorate of Lyons. I was very pleased that Mr Rudd, when Labor came to power, gave me the tick for this policy to come into being. The $140 million has been spent, along with the state contribution, in a very successful way. I am very pleased that farmers have been making their own investment in getting pivots and putting in infrastructure to make this become a reality.

For many years the Murray-Darling Basin was treated as though each river system ended at the state boundaries—the state started where the system ended and started again. It is one system, and we need to look at it as a national system, but there are four states involved. I have often said that they should probably give Tasmanians the job—as the honest brokers without any need or self-interest—of sorting this out for everybody.

It has been a long time getting to where we are with some of the ways forward. We do need to go forward, but we do need to recognise our history and the significance of this area. I am very pleased that you have brought forward the National Food Plan and the national plan into the future. I think we have great opportunities in Australia. Our food is safe and we have to continue that way. We have to meet the issues thrown up in the Asian century white paper. There are great opportunities for Australia into the future and we need to make sure that we get it right. But we do need to look at things that are contemporary for our own nation, such as what we know and what sciences we have, and utilise them for the future. I thank the member for Riverina for bringing this forward.

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