Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is interesting to look at this parliament on the ninth day of sitting of the new government. We have had three disasters already. On the first day of sitting we sat until two o’clock in the morning, we all know about the disaster of the first Friday sitting and here we are on the ninth day of sitting and we are already two hours beyond our normal adjournment time. If the government cannot manage the parliament, how do we expect it to manage the $1.1 trillion economy of the state?

I speak tonight of a far more important issue in my electorate, and that is the devastating impact of declining water access and quality on the Narrung Peninsula. To make it a bit easier for those opposite to understand where the Narrung Peninsula is, it is basically on the east side of Lake Alexandrina in South Australia. Meningie is the nearest town of some significance, to give people some idea of where we are talking about. More than 40 farmers along the Narrung Peninsula are facing the prospect of going out of business this year as water in the lower lakes drops below sea level. In fact it is now, I believe, about two feet below sea level. If it were not for the barrages instituted 80 or 90 years ago down there, that whole area would be immensely salty now. This is a result of what is happening with the whole Murray-Darling Basin.

The problem is one not only of the saltiness of Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert, which might be called an offshoot of Lake Alexandrina, but also of access to the water. In normal situations over the last 100 years a simple pipe only a few metres out could provide access to water for stock and in some cases irrigation. Irrigation basically has not been a possibility there for some time due to the lack of water.

We actually have farmers who go out in silt that is knee-high, and in some cases waist-high, for up to three kilometres to try and get access to water for their stock and for their households. In fact, many of them now have no access to water for their households or for their stock. As a result they are losing the ability to farm in that area. Carting water is an option for some landholders, and they have been forced into that. But at $1,000 a day for freight and with no emergency water-carting assistance from the state government, most have been forced to drastically destock. The fact is it is very hard to live if you do not have water. You cannot live in a household without water.

Several proposals have been submitted to state and federal governments on how to resolve the Lower Lakes issue, including a River Murray Wellington weir and, most recently, the piping of water from Lake Alexandrina into Lake Albert. This is robbing Peter to pay Paul. What that is going to achieve, I am not sure. It will not actually achieve better access to water; in fact, it will have a detrimental effect on Lake Alexandrina.

Not so long ago, we had about 22 quite large dairy farms on the Narrung Peninsula and now there are only eight, and I suspect that before long there will be zero. South Australia simply cannot afford to lose primary industry in the region.

Last month I met with 40 or more irrigators and farmers desperate to get some answers. They told me of having to take pipes up to three kilometres offshore of Lake Albert through dangerous, thigh-high silt.

Unfortunately, the state Labor government and the federal Labor government are not doing much about this at all. In fact, when asked, the Minister for Climate Change and Water, the senator from that other place, said that she was not likely to get to that area before the end of the year—even then she could not guarantee it and even though this is in her own state and a mere 150 kilometres away from Adelaide.

Minister Wong’s ignorance has resulted in  Victoria gaining key concessions to the  detriment of the management of the Murray-Darling Basin and in particular South Australia. Meanwhile, the Lower Lakes is in a desperate plight. (Time expired)