Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

If you look at the actual chemical make-up, you've got carbon dioxide and H2O. CO2 and H2O will give you carbonic acid, which, of course, is H2CO3. With that, you get the acidification of water at a pH of about 3.75 at 25 degrees Celsius. Then we have a capacity for leaching of materials, especially with, as my good colleague has said, things such as arsenic and lead coming into the water. We might also note—this is why we have a concern—that, once the pH of water gets below around 6.5, cattle are less likely to drink it. In fact, they get a condition called acidosis. Acidosis means their capacity to convert feed is dramatically reduced.

In Western areas, what we see is that the Great Artesian Basin underwrites and underlies the country and economy. It also underwrites the capacity for towns to exist out there. When I was living in Western Queensland, in Charleville and Saint George, running out of hot water was never a problem; running out of cold water was. That's because the water temperature was between 30 and 100 degrees Celsius. We also note that this goes right back to the Pliocene era. Some of the water that comes up is between thousands and two million years old. That's when it was absorbed by the Great Artesian Basin. That is a completely different epoch. It's from an epoch from way before the land bridges. It's an epoch when Australia was a lot wetter. We're borrowing from a time millions of years ago. For a political and policy view, and for a tiny little fraction of that two million years, we're willing to put it all at risk. We haven't got another two million years to fill up the Great Artesian Basin.

The Great Artesian Basin is about 3,000 metres at its deepest. That's over 9,000 feet. It is vastly deeper than Mt Kosciuszko is high. This is the biggest aquifer in the world. I find it peculiar that we're willing to put it at risk. Putting swindle factories and wind towers everywhere—that's okay. Knock over whatever you want. Painting fields photovoltaic black is okay; you can do that. Strip clearing 28,000 kilometres for transmission lines—that's okay. Tearing up environmental laws to put all this in place—that's okay. Changing the pH of the Great Artesian Basin—that's okay. But, if you graze country in certain areas, that's a criminal offence. If you take down timber in certain areas, you need a logging permit, or it's a criminal offence. This goes to show the conversion and confusion that has happened because of this cult-like activity surrounding climate policy. It is a cult. It has left logic behind and become a cult.

Something the previous speaker, the member for Blair, brought up, was: 'What are we talking about?' I put it back to the member for Blair, if he's still there after the preselection. If he thinks everything is fine, then he should be able to change the legislation so that anything pertaining to the Great Artesian Basin becomes a controlled action. It's not a controlled action at present, and that is the issue. For some unknown reason in this cultish behaviour, we've left the Great Artesian Basin out as a controlled action, so it should come in as a controlled action under the EPBC Act. There are so many thing I would want out of the EPBC Act, but I'd actually want that in.

In closing, I'd like to thank the member for Flynn, because he has been the champion of this. If it hadn't been for his [inaudible] approach within party rooms and his absolute dedication to this cause, I genuinely believe this issue would not have been addressed. The changes we have seen in Queensland and at the federal level would not have happened. There are few things a person does in their political career which they can hang their hat on, and I think the member for Flynn, who is sitting beside me at this moment, can talk in his annals about what he did to save the Great Artesian Basin.

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