Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bendigo for giving me the opportunity to contribute shortly before the 4.30 pm cut-off, so I'll keep my remarks brief. We'll make further contributions in the Senate, but I want to give an indication of the Greens' position. I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House notes that:

(1) after more than a decade, the Murray Darling Basin Plan has failed to deliver the 450GL promised for the environment and South Australia; and

(2) a guarantee is required to ensure delivery of the 450GL from the Southern Basin in full and on time."

The Greens are willing to work with the government to improve this bill, but, as it stands, the bill provides no guarantees that water will be delivered for South Australia and for the environment. As such, although the Greens will support the passage of the bill here, we can't support the bill in its current form and reserve our final position in the Senate.

I spent a fair chunk of time as a kid in the areas around the Murray Mouth. As people know, it's an amazing part of this country, and it breaks the hearts of people who live there and people who know that area to hear tales of the increasing salinity, to see the effect of drought, to hear people talking about going and playing cricket on areas of the riverbed where there should be water, to look around the rest of the country and see the fish kills that are happening and to understand that this is happening because the river doesn't have enough water. We also know that the river dies from the mouth. We had too many warning signs about the effect of not giving the Murray enough water, in particular the effect on South Australia.

We were staunch critics of the previous government's approach, including to water buybacks when the member for New England, Barnaby Joyce, came into this place and boasted about not putting enough water in to ensure environmental flows. That was a badge of honour for him, but it is something that contributes to the slow death of the Murray. The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists released a report last week that found that the Murray is missing out on key environmental flows and, since the plan came into effect, only 26 per cent of all environmental flow requirements assessed were achieved and only two of the eight Ramsar wetlands received the flows required to stay healthy. As the New South Wales DPI found, those 2023 fish kills that I spoke about are a symptom of the broader degradation of the river's ecosystem health.

To protect our wildlife and our ecosystems, to ensure that there's enough drinking water for all the communities that rely on it and to ensure, in particular, that the Lower Lakes in those areas in South Australia get the water they need, we must ensure that water is delivered. Of course, we're talking about 450 gigalitres which hasn't been delivered. Remember that the scientists originally said that, for a fully healthy Murray, you would need 4,000—you'd need 10 times the amount—so we're talking about a 10th of what is actually required, and even that's not being delivered. You will find no stronger advocates than the Greens, saying this needs to be delivered, and we've been saying this for years. The problem is that this bill extends a deadline but doesn't provide any guarantee that it's going to be delivered. As such there is a real risk that it is just kicking the can further down the road and prolonging the pain. So we are prepared to work with the government, but there needs to be a guarantee that the water is going to come and that South Australia, in particular, is going to see it.

I'll say one other thing to the government and to the environment minister, who's bringing the bill to this place: if the environment minister truly cared about the fate of the Murray, then the minister would stop approving new coal and gas projects because we know that climate change is likely to reduce the basin's flow by as much as 30 per cent by 2050 according to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, potentially even more according to other research, and we know that coal and gas are driving the climate crisis. So we've got a minister, who, on the one hand, says we need to take action to protect the river and, on the other hand, directly threatens it by approving new coal and gas projects. The Greens are willing to work on this bill with the government, but we need a guarantee.

See this speech in context