Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

This bill mirrors the bill introduced by my colleague Senator Rex Patrick in the other place on 4 July 2019.

The water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin and of the Great Artesian Basin stretch across multiple state and territory jurisdictions and are both of national importance.

This bill recognises that in order to manage these water resources in an environmentally sustainable way, they must be federally managed to the benefit of the long-term national interest rather than the short-term, parochial or, indeed, state interest.

If enacted, this legislation would require a referendum asking the Australian people whether the Australian Constitution should be amended to give the Commonwealth parliament the power to make laws for the use and management of water resources that extend beyond the limits of a state, while preventing the making of laws that would have an overall detrimental effect on the environment.

The Murray-Darling is the largest and most complex river system in Australia. It spans Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and South Australia, and finishes its journey in my electorate of Mayo—the sum total of approximately 77,000 kilometres of river.

Three million people access drinking water from the Murray-Darling Basin. The river system supports unique and diverse ecosystems, including—but not limited to—120 water bird species and 46 native fish species. Agricultural production from the basin is worth an estimated $24 billion per year.

The Great Artesian Basin is a lesser known but similarly vital national water resource. It sits beneath an area of 1.7 million square kilometres, just over a fifth of the entire continent of Australia. It is the only source of reliable water for swathes of arid and semi-arid inland regions of Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

The findings of the South Australian Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission and the Australian Academy of Science's investigation into the cause of mass fish kills in the Menindee region of New South Wales leave little doubt that the current management of the water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin is dysfunctional and leading to significant adverse social, environmental and economic impacts.

Sadly, the Murray-Darling is also facing increasing strain as the impacts of climate change accelerate.

The Great Artesian Basin is also under stress through inefficient and excessive water management practices, and significantly overlaps the Murray-Darling Basin. This bill envisages that the management of these great national and natural water resources would and should be fully integrated.

And yet, despite the passage of the Water Act 2007 and the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, there are still different water rules in every state, and different transparency, accountability, compliance and enforcement measures in every state.

We are now in a state of multijurisdictional gridlock. Next to no progress can be made while vested interests are exerting an effective veto through their respective state governments over the proposed reform of basin-wide water management.

Every time changes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan are proposed, state water ministers counterproductively threaten to pull their state out of the Basin Plan.

The Murray-Darling is a vital resource that cannot be managed on the basis of lowest common denominator agreements. We need a fully national framework that operates in the national interest.

For example, the failure of federal and state governments to make substantive responses to the recommendations of South Australia's Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission has made clear that the current management of Australia's most important river system is, quite frankly, bankrupt.

This bill therefore calls for a constitutional referendum to add to the list of matters on which the Commonwealth parliament can make laws the use and management of water resources that extend beyond the limits of a state.

Such an alteration would put the Commonwealth's ability to legislate to manage the water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin river system and the Great Artesian Basin beyond doubt, and would allow the possibility of overriding inconsistent state water management practices and legislation.

The proposed alteration would, further, ensure that any law of the Commonwealth that relates to water resources must not affect them in such a way that has a detrimental effect upon our environment overall. This requirement would apply to all laws relating to water resources made by the Commonwealth parliament under section 51 of the Constitution.

This legislation does not propose any amendment or change to section 100 of the Constitution, which provides that the Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a state or its residents to the reasonable use of waters or rivers for conservation and irrigation. This legislation also does not propose any change to section 99 of the Constitution, which provides that the Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade, commerce or revenue, give preference to one state or any part thereof over another state or any part thereof.

The vital importance of protecting and preserving Australia's major national water resources should be clearly recognised and entrenched in our Constitution. Our water resources, rivers and environment must come first. This is not the first time that South Australian advocates have proposed that the Commonwealth parliament be given full power to control and regulate the River Murray and other interstate inland waterways. Indeed, in 1897 and 1898 the attempts by South Australia at the federal constitutional conventions were blocked by the parochialism of interstate interests. That has always been a flaw, I believe, in our Constitution, and 120 years later it is now time that the Australian people should be given the opportunity to fix this oversight. The future health of our two multijurisdictional water resources—the Murray-Darling Basin and the Great Artesian Basin—is relying on us.

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