Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I would like to thank the chair, the member for O'Connor, for leading this inquiry and also thank all the committee members for their participation and engagement, and for partaking in the work that we've done. It's a very complex policy area, and I'd like to thank them for their work. The committee made a decision over a year ago to make water use efficiency a priority for our work, particularly in light of the billions of dollars in the public spend directed towards water resource programs like those in the Murray-Darling. As deputy chair of the committee, I'm pleased to join the chair to table this report.

In many areas of Australia, water as a resource is a scarce commodity, limiting the agricultural productivity and diversity of a region. In areas where there is an abundance—for example, in my electorate—or even low to moderate levels, capturing and storing water and delivering it to where it needs to go can dramatically increase productivity and diversity to allow high-value production that benefits not just the farmers but also the regional economy and the national economy.

However, enormous pressure is placed on communities and the environment when this resource is not properly managed or planning of the resource in the system is flawed or non-existent. Conversely, when the system is managed and public funds are provided to do this, as is the case in a number of regions—Tasmania has been a large recipient of public funds to irrigate areas that were quite arid, as has, notably, the Murray-Darling Basin—it is imperative that the management provide effective value for money to ensure agricultural production is enhanced, the environment protected and communities sustained, particularly in an ever-changing climate.

One aim of the committee was to investigate the effectiveness of government-funded water use efficiency programs not just for the Murray-Darling but across the country and to provide recommendations to improve program delivery. The committee has made recommendations on measures and initiatives to further enhance work in this space. I trust the government will implement these recommendations in the interests of the agricultural sector in many areas outside the Murray-Darling Basin, and of course within the basin, and in the interests of the environment. Such new measures recommended by the committee include the provision of seed funding to establish a coordinating research, development and extension body to work with the agricultural sector in order to accelerate the adoption of existing cutting-edge irrigation technologies—we did see some of them while we were undertaking this inquiry—and promote innovation and the development of new water efficiency technologies.

Much evidence supported the need for coordinated and additional research to inform future programs and policies. Importantly, a review of water use efficiency programs is needed, and the committee has recommended this be conducted with a focus on the removal of impediments for smaller irrigators to apply for funding sources; expediting the process for funding allocation; undertaking baseline measuring of groundwater and surface water in a system before implementing water use efficiency programs, which in my view is the most important; and ongoing measuring to assess any impacts from such programs.

The Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, in their evidence, recommended to the committee that further research into water use efficiency programs is vital. They said in their submission:

It is essential to establish the hydrological impacts of WUE—

water use efficiency—

on surface and groundwater systems, and to ensure that policy development is informed by sound hydrological research.

This is a fairly basic concept, and one that I was quite surprised we have not quite got right. Professor Lin Crase from the University of South Australia also raised concerns about the benefits of water use efficiency programs. He noted that, because policymakers are not informed by a detailed hydrological picture, investments in water use efficiency can have unintended consequences. He said:

The published literature in this area shows that investments in water use efficiency in most parts of the world usually lead to an expansion of irrigation, not a contraction. That's usually because we don't fully understand where the water goes when we start to invest in efficiency.

Evidence that we heard, and that I am particularly concerned about, dealt with the issue of intensification or changes to perennial crops. We should be monitoring to ensure short-term cropping gains are not sought at the expense of long-term water efficiency gains. That is why this recommendation is so important to the future success and value for money of any water use efficiency programs.

The committee heard significant evidence from farmers and irrigation bodies that the cost of energy to run irrigation is becoming a barrier to utilising water-efficient technologies, and farmers are sadly thinking about going back to diesel power and more traditional and less efficient irrigation methods. Therefore, and in light of an energy policy malaise, the committee has recommended that the Australian government investigate mechanisms to address factors such as the rising costs of electricity and costs of alternative energies, or all our efforts will be futile. Particularly in regional communities, we have seen and heard that they have been impacted by measures to gain efficiencies within the systems. Thus the committee also recommends that the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources and the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development establish an integrated task force to develop targeted initiatives to assist regional communities impacted by the local irrigation agriculture sector transitioning to water use efficiencies and to ensure ongoing monitoring of the social and economic health of those communities.

I join with the chair to firstly thank the many individuals, organisations and government departments that made submissions and gave evidence at hearings. I thank those that facilitated the committee's visits to many irrigation districts, organisations and farming operations, from beef and dairy in Southern WA to grapes in South Australia and to rice and cotton in Griffith. I would have loved to have the committee come to Tasmania to see what we do with our irrigation, but, unfortunately, that did not occur. I would also like to thank the secretariat for enabling this investigation and for the drafting of a very comprehensive report into such a complex policy area. Thank you.

See this speech in context