Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the motion moved by the member for Nicholls regarding the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. I'm from South Australia as, I note, are you, Deputy Speaker Sharkie. We are at the bottom of the Murray-Darling system, and while the Murray does not flow through Boothby, it is important to Boothby residents and more broadly to all South Australians. The River Murray is the lifeblood of the state, providing essential water for irrigation, industry, domestic and recreational use and our precious wetlands and floodplains. The Murray provides up to 80 per cent of Adelaide's domestic water supply, and it's essential to the important environmental wetlands of Lake Alexandrina, Lake Albert and the Coorong. It provides irrigation to much of South Australia's horticultural, viticultural and vegetable crop production through the Riverland and Lower Murray regions.

The key to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is that it requires all states—upstream and downstream—to work together for the betterment of the entire system to ensure the health of this important river system. I understand that this water supply is important upstream, but it is also vitally important downstream. As the mover of this motion notes, when water leaves an environment, communities suffer. That is what South Australia is facing.

The Albanese government is committed to delivering the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full, because not to deliver the plan is simply not an option. The CSIRO tells us that water flows in the basin are predicted to reduce by 30 per cent by 2050. While we may have had a series of very wet years recently, let us have no doubt that the overall trend is not a healthy one, particularly for South Australia

During last year's election campaign, I was proud to stand with Senator Penny Wong; the then shadow minister for the environment, Terri Butler; and the current Premier and Deputy Premier of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas and Susan Close, to commit to delivering the 450 gigalitres promised to South Australia. It was an issue raised with me constantly on the campaign trail, right up there with the environment generally and climate change. South Australians care, and the health of the Murray-Darling Basin could not be more important.

More than 2.3 million Australians call the basin home, and in South Australia and the area I represent, many thousands more rely on the river system for a whole host of reasons. It produces a whopping $22 billion a year in agricultural production. It is not only essential to feed Australian households but a huge export to the rest of the world. The basin is also worth $11 billion in tourism annually. And it's an environmental marvel. It supports more than 120 waterbird species and 50 native fish species and contains 16 internationally recognised protected wetlands. The impact of a dying basin doesn't bear thinking about economically, environmentally or socially.

When it comes to Murray-Darling Basin policy those opposite are true to form. The fact is they sabotaged the Murray-Darling Basin Plan put in place by the previous Labor government. They didn't want the plan delivered, so they didn't. Indeed, the Murray Darling Basin Plan is one of those issues that splits the coalition right down the middle. On one side, you have the Nationals from the eastern states. Basically, they pretend that the parts of the plan they don't like, which just happen to be the parts that are good for South Australia, are optional. Shadow water minister Perin Davey called the 450-gigalitre target an upper limit, suggesting only 62 gigalitres of water was needed for South Australia. In June last year, Senator McKenzie told the Senate the additional 450 gigalitres promised to South Australia was never guaranteed, and on 1 August, she tweeted, 'The 450 gigalitres is off the table.' This is while some of my fellow representatives from South Australia who represent the Liberal Party do their best to look serious and say that the coalition is committed to delivering the plan that we need in South Australia. Who are we to believe? We don't know where they stand on delivering the 450 gigalitres for South Australia, but we know where the Albanese government stands.

As with so many other policy areas, this government is getting to work cleaning up the mess left by those opposite. This government is funding infrastructure projects. We're buying water and accrediting state water resource plans so they can be properly policed. We are cracking down on cowboys in the water market, investing in updated science and working with First Nations people—whose knowledge of the system has been ignored for too long.

We have already delivered more water towards the 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water than the coalition did in nine years. We shouldn't have to convince those opposite of the importance of the plan, but it appears we do. At its heart it's about fairly sharing water in the river system. (Time expired)

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