Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to bring to the parliament’s attention the commendable actions of the Cooper Creek Protection Group, which is based in my electorate of Maranoa. This group is chaired by a local grazier, the untiring Dr Bob Morrish, who along with his group is dedicated to the ecological sustainability of Cooper Creek in western Queensland. While travelling through the western part of my electorate during the winter parliamentary recess, I had the opportunity of meeting with Bob in Windorah, where he and a few other committed locals kindly gave me a tour of the creek and Windorah’s tourist nature drive. Standing on the banks, we witnessed the beauty of Cooper Creek being shared between its amazing birdlife, including herons and pelicans, which fly from the coast every winter to nest and breed on the Cooper, and humans, whether they be camping families, grey nomads or just keen local fishers.

Calling it a creek is rather deceptive; in fact it is one of Australia’s most significant desert rivers and the largest catchment in the Lake Eyre Basin. The survival of unique species of flora and fauna is dependent on local cyclical flooding. Here, cattle thrive on the flood-borne plains of the channel country and it is from here that some of our best beef, including organic beef, originates.

However, Dr Morrish and the members of the Cooper Creek Protection Group are worried, and I certainly understand their concerns. Around 12 years ago, due to the concerted effort by local pastoralists and city based scientists, the farming community of Windorah was able to prevent the development of cotton irrigation in the Cooper Creek basin and keep the creek flowing and flooding naturally. In 1999, a 10-year moratorium was passed, ensuring the creek was protected from irrigation. The Cooper Creek Catchment Water Resource Plan is currently being reviewed, and I support Dr Morrish and the local Cooper Creek action group’s call for the 10-year moratorium on irrigation along Cooper Creek to be made permanent.

I welcome the assurance of Queensland’s state Minister for Natural Resources, Craig Wallace, that there will be no increase in water taken from the creek’s catchment, and I hope that the review will confirm what the locals of Windorah already know: keeping the creek untouched is the most ecologically sustainable course of action. I believe local grazier and cattleman Sandy Kidd summed it up best. He said that the people of Windorah will fight for this and that ‘there will not be a cup of water come out of the Cooper to grow cotton’ in this very fragile part of Queensland.

‘Creek’ is not an accurate description of this magnificent system. In Queensland, the Thomson River and the Barcoo River join just below Jundah, and two rivers become a creek. It floods out into areas often 30 or 40 kilometres wide and goes right down into Lake Eyre in big flood times. It is a magnificent part of Australia. I thank the Committee. (Time expired)