Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment for the opportunity to speak and acknowledge the bipartisanship that lies very much of the heart of the Basin Plan. I congratulate him on his appointment to this portfolio. Both of us, representing our respective parties, bear a great deal of responsibility to continue the implementation of a plan that was very much one of the highlights of the last parliament. I also acknowledge and thank him for the work that his office continues to do in keeping us in touch with the work of the government in that implementation. As the parliamentary secretary has acknowledged, continuing that bipartisanship is absolutely essential to achieving the objectives that people worked so hard to put into the plan in the last term of parliament.

As many of us in this place know—as many who have come in to participate in this part of the debate know—the question of allocation around the river Murray, the sharing and the regulation of waters in the Murray, is a dispute that goes back to way before Federation. This is something I am deeply aware of. My family were fruit growers, and my great-great-grandfather represented South Australia at the conference that achieved the 1915 River Murray agreement, which, for the first time, dealt with some questions of regulation and sharing of water. This was important not only for South Australia but also for New South Wales and Victoria in terms of the waters upstream and downstream from Albury. It started the locking of the river that allowed, in times of drought, for waters to stay in the system and to continue to sustain production in so many of the communities in the basin. All of us understand just how important these issues have been for, really, many decades in restoring our rivers to health or sustaining the health of our rivers, supporting strong regional communities right up and down the basin, and ensuring sustainable food production.

I acknowledge the work on the reform process that was started in the mid-1990s but particularly during the Howard government, including with Minister Turnbull, and carried through our period of government. In particular, Minister Burke, the member for Watson, had the very difficult task at times to bring this together into an intergovernmental agreement and to deal with the very serious concerns of different members of the community—basin communities, most obviously, but also communities in my own state of South Australia, including Adelaide, which probably is the most affected of all of the large metropolitan communities in Australia. The plan and the agreement, as is the nature of these things, did not satisfy everyone entirely.

There are concerns from all perspectives in this debate about the contents of this agreement, but that demonstrates it is an agreement—if we all work hard enough—that can be sustained for the long-term. As the parliamentary secretary has said, the Basin Plan will set basin-wide sustainable diversion limits and return 2,750 gigalitres to the environment. Basin states are required to prepare water-resource plans that will give effect to the SDLs from July 2019. Under the SDL adjustment mechanism up to 650 gigalitres can be provided through supply measures, projects that deliver environmental outcomes with less water. Proposals for these supply measures are, as I understand it, in varying states of preparation and assessment still. There is a bipartisan commitment to bridge the gap between what these supply measures can provide and the 2,750 gigalitres to be returned to the environment.

As members know, on top of that 2,750-gigalitre target, an additional 450 gigalitres will be returned to the environment. Funding was provided through legislation, in 2013, for the additional 450 gigalitres, which must be obtained through projects that ensure no social or economic downsides for communities, such as on-farm irrigation projects. There is $1.78 billion in the Water for the Environment Special Account, including $200 million for the removal of constraints identified in the constraints management strategy.

To date, 1,951 gigalitres has been recovered for the environment through a mix, as the parliamentary secretary identified in detail, of water purchase, infrastructure, investment and other basin state recovery actions. This is water that can be used at appropriate times and where it is needed to improve flow and help restore health throughout the system. Already, we have seen successful water releases overseen by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, CEWH—or 'chew', as he is affectionately known—and the state and regional water management agencies.

Importantly, there has been significant Commonwealth investment in ensuring that farms remain productive as the plan is delivered. As stated by the parliamentary secretary, $2 million a day is being and will continue to be spent on efficiency and infrastructure measures out to 2019. This is not only a significant amount of taxpayers' money but also it is a significant commitment to the Basin Plan itself—to the health of our rivers, to the ecosystems and to the regional communities that they support.

The basin supports agriculture, as everyone knows, on a grand scale—around 40 per cent of Australia's agricultural production. According to ABS figures, in 2012-13 the basin accounted for over 50 per cent of Australia's irrigated produce, including almost 100 per cent of Australia's rice, 96 per cent of Australia's cotton, 75 per cent of Australia's grapes, 59 per cent of Australia's hay, 54 per cent of Australia's fruit, 52 per cent of Australia's production from sheep and livestock and 45 per cent of Australia's dairy. They are extraordinary statistics.

Around two million people live and work in the basin, in communities ranging from fewer than 1,000 people to large urban centres, like Wagga Wagga, with over 45,000 people. A further 1.2 million people depend on the waters of the basin to survive. All of this agricultural production and the two million people living in the basin rely on a healthy, functioning river system.

There are also the environmental needs of the river. Within the basin there are approximately 30,000 wetlands, over 60 species of fish, 124 families of macroinvertebrates, 98 species of waterbirds, four threatened water-dependent ecological communities and hundreds of plant species supported by key floodplains. The health of the river, the channels themselves and the flora and fauna they support, is not only vital in its own right but also vital for the economic and social wellbeing of basin communities. As a South Australian, I know the health of the basin—and particularly the Murray—is epitomised by the health of the Lower Lakes and the Murray Mouth as well.

Related to environmental needs and flows, the Aboriginal nations and communities in the basin want and should have access to the flows they need to ensure the continuation of their culture and their social and economic wellbeing. Aboriginal people feel a deep connection to their land and the waters that flow through and across them. This needs to be recognised and provided for, not as an exercise in imperial patronage but by ensuring Aboriginal people are empowered through water rights. When environmental water is released into the rivers and wetlands, Aboriginal expertise should also be called upon.

The deep knowledge of Aboriginal people of the river systems means that they have important, if not vital, advice to give our water managers that, if heeded, can add great value to their work. Groups such as the Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations and the Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations have a lot to offer us if we listen. Engagement with Aboriginal people in the basin cannot be done as a simple tick-the-box exercise. Proper, ongoing engagement will benefit all of us.

I recognise, at the core of the parliamentary secretary's ministerial statement today, that the government wishes to provide certainty to basin communities by placing a cap of 1,500 gigalitres on water purchases. As with the Basin Plan itself and many aspects of it, there are different points of view on the issue of water purchase versus infrastructure measures as the best means of achieving the agreed outcomes of the Basin Plan. I have spoken with a number of different stakeholders about this particular issue, including the National Farmers' Federation, the National Irrigators Council, the Australian Conservation Foundation and many others. I very much appreciate the time taken by those groups—most recently the NIC and the NFF, whom I met with over the last couple of weeks—to give me the benefit of their views about this issue, in particular, and implementation of the plan, in general. I also acknowledge the work that the parliamentary secretary and his office has done to try to continue the bipartisan basis on which this parliament has dealt with this plan over the past few years.

For the opposition there are two key imperatives around the success of the Basin Plan, beyond the engagement I have talked about with stakeholders, such as the NIC, NFF, ACF and others. Those imperatives are: firstly, to achieve, as far as possible, bipartisanship within this parliament, and I acknowledge that is a discussion we are in the process of having; and secondly, that there is the support of those basin states. That is the unknown position, from our perspective.

We understand there are some views that the South Australian government has already expressed about this cap. We will continue to talk with them, and I am sure the parliamentary secretary will as well. For understandable reasons, the Victorian and Queensland governments are fairly new to the job and I am not aware that they have expressed a developed position about this. But, obviously, the opposition—and I am sure, the government—would be very keen to know the views of those new governments and, for very obvious reasons—being 48 hours out from a New South Wales election—I think the New South Wales government has been distracted by other matters.

I do encourage—not that I probably need to—the government to continue to talk with those basin states, because the opposition will certainly be very keen to understand the views of those four states before we reach a view about the wisdom or otherwise of imposing a legislated cap on water buybacks to the tune of 1,500 gigalitres.

We do look forward to further reports from the parliamentary secretary about the implementation of this plan, and we do undertake to continue to work constructively with the government on that very important work.

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