Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In rising to address the Water Amendment Bill 2008 I begin with the simple proposition that in January 2007 the then Prime Minister, John Howard, and Malcolm Turnbull introduced a once-in-a-century water revolution. That revolution was built on two great pillars. The first was a $10 billion plan for real water savings which involved piping, covering of channels, lining of dams—funded practical, real initiatives which would make real, practical savings. The second pillar was of institutional reform, of a once-in-a-century bringing together of the different powers and the differing state approaches to water management. It was designed to give real power and real authority to a single national institution.

For 21 months, almost two years, the Labor Party in opposition and subsequently in government have either opposed or delayed real reform along these two lines. Finally, almost two years later, after having stood in the way of real reform whilst in opposition, a position which we regard as having been a venal violation of their sacred trust to advance reforms in this place and in this country, we now see a partial embrace of the Turnbull reforms in this bill. To the extent that this bill embraces the institutional reform principles of, firstly, a single authority, secondly, greater transparency and, thirdly, an agreed national framework for water allocation, we support those reforms. They are the principles which are part of the institutional changes we proposed for a once-in-a-century revolution in water and which we put on the table.

We do not seek to delay these principles. We have sought to bring them forwards and now we will not delay them. We do, however, unashamedly seek to improve them in some cases. In that respect, the bill is too slow in a number of areas. Firstly, there is the lack of a truly national referral of powers. Secondly, there is the lack of an effective early Basin Plan for allocation, for identification of priority water efficiency sites and for identification of those communities which are at risk from ad hoc buyouts and which are in need of support. In addition, the bill is too slow, because we have seen the abolition of structural adjustment funding, which was disclosed in answers to questions on notice before the Senate estimates hearings. The bill is too slow because it fails to address the reprehensible action of wiping out the beginning of real on-farm water efficiency projects. These projects have been stalled under the present government. The bill is too slow because it fails to provide for a transparent water market, and the bill is too slow to the extent that it embodies the passive acceptance of a north-south pipeline and does not push the states—in particular Victoria—to embrace the urban water revolution which is necessary.

Having said all that, I would say this: it is imperfect and it is flawed—it only goes part of the way to completing that element of the institutional revolution which the current Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, put on the table—but we do not seek to delay it. Our criticism has been that it is too little too slow, not too much too fast. So by comparison with that which we have seen from the government—and, as they previously were, the opposition—we are the party of water reform, having put this once-in-a-century package on the table. There is $10 billion in funding and a once-in-a-century reform of our institutions.

It was indeed the Turnbull $10 billion water plan which put in place a three-part rural recovery plan, and that was a rural recovery plan, firstly, for infrastructure investments in practical efficiency—of piping, of the covering of channels, of the lining of dams. Secondly, it was a plan of selected voluntary trading and purchasing, where we have seen real gains in water efficiency and, thirdly, it was a plan of community support where communities are going to suffer as a consequence of the buyouts. That is the constructive plan which we will continue to pursue as the blueprint for water reform in Australia. By comparison, the water reform model which we have seen is a slow grind in relation to the big institutional steps, which see some progress in this bill. They are for the most part in line with the principles we laid down, only less ambitious. We have seen, unfortunately, rather than a rural recovery plan, a buyout only plan. The water efficiency components of piping, of the covering of channels and of the lining of dams have been lost. The community support elements have been lost.

That brings me to this bill. As I said at the outset, the coalition’s National Plan for Water Security announced on 25 January 2007—21 months or almost two years ago—comprised the two major pillars of institutional reform and the $10 billion rural recovery plan. This particular bill implements some of the missing elements of the institutional reform package. In particular, the Water Amendment Bill aims to amend the Water Act 2007 by giving effect to the intergovernmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform, which was signed by the Commonwealth and the premiers on the 3 July 2008 meeting of the Council of Australian Governments. This agreement should have been signed shortly after the January 2007 announcement, only the Victorian government held out, unfortunately—and it did so, I posit, for the most base of electoral reasons. This was an agreement which should have been reached, which could have been reached and which was delayed simply to ensure that there was no national agreement on water prior to the federal election. Conveniently, with no additional funds, Victoria signed on. The posited $1 billion of additional funds was a mirage. It is money to which they were entitled and which they were going to receive in any event and which was presented—I see the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry smile—in such a way as to imply that it was new. It was not new. It was false.

Having said that, the principles which were put in place were largely based on the coalition’s National Plan for Water Security reform, and this bill largely picks up four of those principles in action. Firstly, it transfers the powers of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority. This provides, as we always intended, one independent body to manage both the planning and the ongoing affairs of the Murray-Darling Basin. Secondly, it enables the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, through the Basin Plan, to specify three tiers of water allocation and emergency management guidelines so as to balance critical human water needs and irrigators’ needs. Thirdly, it strengthens the role of the ACCC by giving it jurisdiction to monitor water transactions carried out under the act and in accordance with the provisions of the act. Fourthly, it gives the Commonwealth a greater share of the risks relating to future reductions in water allocations if unforeseen events are to occur which were previously the responsibility of states and individual contractors. These are not objectionable principles. These are the principles which we laid down, and we are pleased that they are finally being brought before the House as part of an overdue intergovernmental agreement.

Against that background—having laid out these principles, having laid out the plan, having laid out the revolution—I want to make some comments about the coalition’s record on not just Murray-Darling Basin reform but the once-in-a-century water revolution which is now being given most of the missing elements. The coalition has a very clear and profound record on tackling the issues faced by the basin. We are proud of that record. As I said earlier, on 25 January 2007 Malcolm Turnbull and John Howard announced the coalition’s National Plan for Water Security. The $10 billion plan agreed to fund, in more detail than I have set out previously, a series of elements: (1) a nationwide investment in Australia’s irrigation infrastructure to line and pipe major delivery channels; (2) a  nationwide program to improve on-farm irrigation technology and metering; (3) the sharing of water savings on a fifty-fifty basis between irrigators and the Commonwealth government, leading to greater water security and increased environmental flows; (4) addressing once and for all water overallocation in the Murray-Darling Basin; (5) a new set of governance arrangements for the Murray-Darling Basin; (6) a sustainable cap on surface and groundwater use in the Murray-Darling Basin in many different areas; (7) expanding the role of the Bureau of Meteorology to provide the water data necessary for good decisions by governments and industry; (8) a task force to explore future land and water development in Northern Australia; and (9) completion of the restoration of the Great Artesian Basin. This was not a minor proposal. This was the most significant change in water policy at federal or state level since Federation.

We know that less than a month later, on 23 February 2007, the coalition sought a reference of additional powers to ensure a single, accountable and comprehensive management arrangement for the Murray-Darling Basin. It was agreed to by New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory, but not Victoria—again, for reasons which were not explicable by reference to any substantive point but simply a desire to ensure that there was no agreement prior to the federal election. The consequence has been that real water reform has been delayed for 21 months, close to two years.

Given that background, in August 2007 the coalition government passed the Water Act 2007, which implemented as best as possible the coalition’s National Plan for Water Security. Existing constitutional powers enabled the coalition to implement a large part of the national plan without the need for a referral of additional power by states and territories. We vowed to complete the rest of the plan as soon as we could get Victorian support after the election, knowing that their opposition would melt away. That is what has happened—the opposition has melted away. In the circumstances, the additional funding which should be available for piping and lining of channels and for river and storage operations, the $3.55 billion which had been earmarked, has largely been left to lie fallow. That money is earning interest; it is not digging out dams, not doing the things which can be done.

Only a week and a half ago I visited the town of Bourke. I spoke with farmers there and I spoke with people in western New South Wales who are involved with agriculture. They said that, in their small area alone, they could save eight billion litres of water were they given some small assistance in local irrigation and water efficiency projects. That is the sort of thing which was intended. That is the sort of thing which has not occurred. By comparison, with the greatest respect to the other side, we have seen a dragging of the chain on real water reform.

At the federal level, the ALP supported the coalition’s water plan but they were fundamentally complicit in the Victorian Labor government refusing to sign the agreement prior to the election. It suited their purposes to delay national water reform. A single word in the ear of Victorian premiers, either Premier Bracks or Premier Brumby, could have ensured that this plan was passed and water reform was not delayed. In addition, Senator Wong could have had a functioning basin authority working on the Basin Plan from March this year, thanks to the Water Act 2007. This was not put in place and we will not see an effective Basin Plan or an effective basin authority for some time yet. We have one or two staffers in place at this time.

What we see ultimately is a comparison between a three-point water rural recovery water plan as opposed to an ad hoc buyout of farmers. We proposed a water efficiency revolution based on the $6 billion of total water efficiency funding for infrastructure. Unfortunately, this has largely been abandoned—an investment in water efficient infrastructure of pipes, covering of channels and lining of dams, which should be a national priority.

We should also be seeing the cleaning up of our coasts and the recycling of the almost 1,800 gigalitres from 140 ocean outfalls, water which should be made available for industry and agriculture. The second thing is the planned and limited buyback, not an ad hoc buyout such as Toorale Station, primarily after water efficiencies, to allow for sharing between farmers and the environment. Thirdly, the community support program: the Rudd government has abandoned the $1.5 billion structural adjustment component of our original water plan—not acceptable, not good enough. So we see that the $50 million emergency assistance package which we had previously proposed for the people of the Lower Lakes and Coorong region has been ignored. These people need assistance, support in a time of drought, because they have suffered at the bottom of the Murray-Darling system.

In relation to the specific items in this bill, I want to make these points. We support urgent and long-term action for the Murray-Darling Basin. We believe that we need to get this legislation right, however. The coalition will not oppose this bill and supports an inquiry in the Senate. We will be constructive. We will seek to hasten rather than to delay because for too long we have seen an approach which is too little, too slow, rather than too much, too fast. Our approach in opposition will not be the same as the ALP’s. Therefore, in this House, we will not oppose the bill but we will seek to amend the bill to ensure that there are provisions to support the coalition’s $50 million Lower Lakes and Coorong communities package.

After the report of the Senate inquiry into the bill is presented in the other place, the coalition will consider the following amendments because we have concerns with principles contained within the act that, for the most part, do not go far enough. Firstly, we want to ensure that there is a guaranteed community impact statement for water purchases by the Commonwealth from each subregion of the basin. Secondly, we want to ensure that there is a structural adjustment assessment program for communities affected by water purchases. Thirdly, we want to set time frames for on-farm infrastructure to be delivered—not simply be delayed. Fourthly, we want to establish a fully transparent disclosure process so any water purchases undertaken by the Commonwealth are disclosed in real time with regards to price, volume, security and location. Fifthly, we want to prevent new and additional extractions from the basin for non-basin purposes, such as the north-south pipeline—a project which we believe is a serious error. In addition, we will also consider as possible amendments, following the Senate inquiry, strengthening the powers of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority so as to remove the veto of the ministerial council and bringing forward an interim Basin Plan.

We will be guided in all of these whilst recognising that we do not want to prevent the intergovernmental agreement from coming into force. We do not want to delay it. So as not to be misrepresented I make it absolutely clear to the government and to this House that we will work to a fast timetable on this bill. We do not seek to oppose the bill, but we are serious about improving it.

The coalition is listening to the people of the Murray and to people throughout Australia. In particular we want to help right now the communities of Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert, of the Lower Lakes and the Coorong area, who are suffering and have been ignored in relation to accessing community support. That is why we are proposing an amendment that will provide $50 million in emergency assistance to the people of the Murray Lower Lakes and the Coorong. Our amendment will: (1) require that the federal government provide $50 million to help local residents, farmers and tourist operators to deal with the ongoing record low levels of water in the region; (2) provide urgent and real assistance to help the community to deal with this unfolding environmental crisis in South Australia; (3) help with practical measures such as carting water for domestic and stock use, building a boat lift, providing rent relief for small businesses, and providing retraining and skills development; and (4) support a rescue plan for the Murray turtles and wildlife and provide assistance to the schoolchildren who are trying to save them. We are calling this the Briggs and Secker amendment. I move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:“while not declining to give the Bill a second reading, in respect of the Lower Lakes and Coorong area of South Australia the House acknowledges the dire situation faced by the local people, local businesses, local communities and wildlife due to the devastation of the area’s economy, and calls on the Government to support the Opposition in its commitment to the provision of $50 million for immediate and practical assistance to provide support

(a)

to the local community, small business, tourism operators, the fishing industry and farmers, and

(b)

to protect wildlife and flora in the region”.

I conclude by making the point that we do not intend to oppose the bill in this House and we will support it in the other house. This amendment supports the devastated communities of the Murray Lower Lakes and the Coorong. We support the concept of a Senate inquiry and we await the findings of that Senate inquiry. We have a series of amendments that we will seek to make which will be consistent with the actions and provisions of the intergovernmental agreement. We want this bill to go through. It is imperfect and it does not go as far as the Turnbull reforms, but it at least enshrines some of the key principles on institutional reform.

Ultimately, the coalition believe in real and urgent reform of the Murray-Darling Basin. We want to see action that provides immediate and long-term assistance for the Murray, but we must get this right. Above all else, the government should get on with the business of real water savings through the urgent delivery of water efficiency infrastructure: the piping of water, the covering of channels and the lining of dams. Whilst we are not opposed to institutional reforms—indeed, we are the generators of those reforms—above all else this bill is no substitute for the real rural recovery plan needed in infrastructure, in allocation and in support for communities in place of merely a buyout of our farms and the destruction of our food security.

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

Is the amendment seconded?

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

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak at a later time in the debate.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Water Amendment Bill 2008. There is no place in the country more acutely aware of the impact of drought, climate change and overallocation in the Murray-Darling Basin than my home state of South Australia. For this reason I am very pleased to see the introduction of this bill. The Australian community have been crying out for genuine and decisive action to help improve conditions in the river and in particular our Lower Lakes system. They waited for 11 long years under the Howard government. Despite many pronouncements, nothing really changed.

The river system cannot survive unless we act decisively. The Rudd government, in collaboration with the basin states, has formulated a plan to deliver the much-needed reforms. Reform is long overdue. I am pleased to be part of a federal government that understands the issues and will deliver genuine reform in the Murray-Darling Basin in particular.

The Water Amendment Bill ushers in a new era of cooperation and collaboration between basin states in the interests of genuine basin-wide water reform. We have not sought to override the legitimate interests of the states in our approach; instead, we have engaged them in cooperative and constructive reform. It is clear that the road ahead will continue to be tough, but we made a commitment to the Australian community, who backed the election of the Rudd government, that we would act decisively to bring about water reform, and that is precisely what this bill does.

This bill amends the Water Act 2007 to give effect to the intergovernmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform. The agreement between the Prime Minister and the ministers in each of the basin states—New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, as well as the ACT—was signed at COAG in July this year. Basin states have agreed to propose legislation in their respective parliaments which will provide for the referral of certain powers to the Commonwealth parliament. It is pleasing to see the early efforts of the states, particularly New South Wales and my own state of South Australia, to meet their commitment under the agreement. I will speak briefly later about a proposed government amendment to the bill in recognition of the New South Wales legislation.

The intergovernmental agreement covers three main areas: firstly, the transfer of current powers and functions of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority; secondly, the strengthening of the role of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission by extending the application of the water market rules and water charge rules; and, thirdly, enabling the development of a Basin Plan to provide arrangements for meeting critical human water needs.

The Water Amendment Bill represents a historic agreement for the long-term reform of water management in the Murray-Darling Basin. It introduces a new era of cooperative arrangements between the Commonwealth and the states, and it provides the opportunity for governments, industry and the community to work together on water sustainability and security. The arrangements given effect by this bill will drive improvements to the management of the basin and are in the national interest. It reflects a clear commitment to significant reform by ensuring we have the correct structural mechanisms in place to facilitate future decisions that are made in the interests of the basin. The bill will bring together the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission into one body—the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. It will be expert, independent and responsible for the oversight of water resource management across the basin. The authority will also have enforcement powers to ensure that basin water resources are managed in a sustainable way. One of the key mechanisms to secure basin-wide reform will be the development of a whole-of-basin plan by the authority under a clear mechanism of accountability to the Commonwealth minister.

Basin states will have a clear role in the preparation of a Basin Plan through a new Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council and the Basin Officials Committee. The basin states will also have a major role in putting the Basin Plan into effect, while final approval of the plan will rest with the Commonwealth. The states will also retain a decision-making role through the new ministerial council in relation to specific functions that will be moved from the Murray-Darling Basin Commission into the new authority. Significantly, the Basin Plan will take account of future climate change and address the legacy of past overallocation. In stark contrast to the opposition on this issue, this government does not deny the science on climate change in this area. Taking the realities of climate change into account, the Basin Plan will be the mechanism for setting out future arrangements to secure the critical human water needs of communities reliant on the Murray-Darling Basin.

The whole-of-basin plan will also include an environmental-watering plan to coordinate management of environmental flows throughout the basin. It will also formulate a sustainable diversion limit for the use of surface and groundwater in the basin to ensure future health and prosperity in the basin and to safeguard the water needs of the communities that depend on it. In South Australia this will be very welcome action. It will also be very welcome to the South Australian community to see that the Commonwealth minister, in approving the Basin Plan and the future cap on water diversions, will at long last be accountable to the people of Australia through this parliament.

We also understand that an effectively functioning water market will be essential to help the irrigation industry manage future reductions in water availability. Therefore, the government has proposed that the role of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission be strengthened to help improve the functioning of the water market in the basin. This will be achieved through monitoring and enforcing compliance with water charge rules and water market rules. Specifically, the bill strengthens the role of the ACCC by providing for the water charge rules and the water market rules to apply to all water service providers and transactions. This means that all users will be assured of a uniform approach to regulation, irrespective of the structure of their water service providers. The bill also extends the reach of the water charge rules to enable the ACCC to determine or accredit determination arrangements for all regulated water charges. This will promote a uniform approach to the regulation of rural water charges to the benefit of water providers and users.

The bill will implement governance arrangements that, in the long term, will improve the use and management of the basin’s water resources and will protect and enhance the basin’s social, environmental and economic values. The government is proposing amendments that relate to three distinct matters. The first matter involves clarifying the processes of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority when it is providing the proposed Basin Plan or a proposed amendment to the Basin Plan to ensure all consultation processes, including those with the ministerial council, have been completed. The second matter involves an amendment to recognise states applying the National Water Initiative risk assignment framework. This was agreed in the negotiations leading up to the agreement. As agreed, any state that enacts legislation to adopt the National Water Initiative risk assignment framework will be recognised in the bill. On 24 September 2008, the New South Wales parliament passed amendments to its Water Management Act 2000 to adopt the National Water Initiative risk assignment framework, as modified by the Murray-Darling Basin intergovernmental agreement. The government has therefore proposed an amendment to the Water Amendment Bill to recognise that New South Wales has applied that risk assignment framework.

The third matter involves amendments to schedule 2, item 93, of the bill to clarify that water access rights and interests held by the Commonwealth for the purposes of the Living Murray initiative are not part of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder holdings and therefore do not fall under the management of the CEWH. In its original form the bill only separated Murray-Darling Basin Authority rights and interests from those holdings. The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts also holds some water access rights and interests for the purposes of the Living Murray initiative. The proposed amendment will separate these rights and interests from those of the CEWH.

This bill departs from years of the Howard government passing the buck and blaming the states. There will be no more shifting of responsibility for the future of the Murray-Darling Basin, because the Rudd government is serious about delivering basin-wide reform. We are serious about reform, unlike the opposition, who we see still cynically courting votes by trying to have a bet each way on the river. In South Australia the opposition give one message, yet upstream they give another. In Victoria, they tell their constituents that the Lower Lakes cannot be saved and the government should stop purchasing water entitlements. Then, in South Australia, they say that the government should purchase more water and that the Lower Lakes can be saved. I am still unsure what they actually believe.

I commend this bill to the parliament as a genuine and comprehensive plan for the future of the Murray-Darling Basin. The Rudd government’s plan will address the fundamental problems in the basin, and we will address them collaboratively and thoroughly with the first Basin Plan, due to commence in 2011.

In closing, while our bill seeks to improve management in the longer term, it comes on top of our short- to medium-term strategies to reduce the stress on the Murray-Darling Basin. Our $12.9 billion Water for the Future program has four priorities: tackling climate change, supporting healthy rivers, using water wisely and securing our water supplies. In July this year, the government announced investments close to $3.7 billion for significant water projects in South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory. These projects are aimed at improving irrigation efficiency, raising the productivity of water use and making water savings that will be returned to the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin.

We have, for the first time in history, commenced a buyback of water entitlements from willing sellers in the water market to reduce the overallocation that prevails under historic caps and agreements over water in the basin. While it will not end the drought in the basin, when it does rain more water will be retained in the river system and important habitats and wetlands will receive a greater share of water. These medium- and long-term strategies are part of this government’s clear and decisive plan of action. Our plan will address the historic overallocation of the river system and secure the future of the basin and of the many communities reliant on it for social and economic survival.

Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Water Amendment Bill 2008. From the outset I would like to speak about the concerns that I have for the future of the Riverina and particularly for the future of irrigation, especially with the Labor government’s decisions on water acquisitions that the member for Port Adelaide just spoke about. Whilst we may have buybacks and, as the previous member has just indicated, when it does rain there will be water for wetlands and habitat, we have obviously forgotten about food for the people. I would like to bring back into the debate the issue of the people.

It is true that irrigation has brought life to many communities across Australia. John Oxley, over 100 years ago, when he arrived in the Murrumbidgee irrigation area, said that this was the ‘worst godforsaken place’ he had ever seen and there was absolutely no chance that anything could come of this horrific place. He said that he could not imagine anywhere worse to be. It was a dry and dusty bowl with absolutely no potential for any future. Of course, years later came the advent of irrigation and the Snowy hydro system, which fulfilled two purposes: (1) to generate electricity and (2) to drought-proof the area and ensure that there were irrigation waters available for the production of food. Then we had the building of the MIA system, and years later we had the development of the area of Coleambally by the New South Wales state government. In fact, they celebrated their 40th anniversary of being a township just a few months ago. So it has been a significant concern of my electorate to be very involved and cognisant of water—the benefits of water, the efficient use of water, the cost of water and, more importantly, the reliance of communities on water.

Over the years we have been able to achieve enormous outcomes and efficiencies. My concern, as I pointed out to the minister just recently in a meeting when she visited Wagga Wagga to address a dinner—the minister was kind enough to allocate me a short time beforehand—was the fact that there needs to be recognition of how much we have progressed and how much we have achieved. From where I stand, it seems that everyone thinks we are coming from ground zero in irrigation areas. Everybody thinks that nothing has been done, that water has flown out over the paddocks and fields in quantities of flood irrigation and that it is still happening—everything is inundated with water and there have been no efficiencies gained. The perception is that this is a government starting from ground zero; this is a government that has to take harsh measures because nobody else has done anything about being efficient, conservative and understanding of the balance of needs between the environment and irrigators.

I stand in this House today to say that is simply not true. As a matter of fact, we have made extraordinary gains in efficiencies in water delivery and water technology. It is important for the House to understand that irrigators do not waste water. They cannot afford to waste water.

I might point out to the House that the irrigators in my electorate have had no allocation now for well over three or four years so there have been enormous efficiencies. We talk about water here as if it is all surface water in my electorate. We do not hear about the groundwater preservation that has taken place and the cuts that have been made to entitlements of the groundwater users, who produce myriad crops and food resources from groundwater. We never hear anything about the understanding of catchments; the understanding of how groundwater has been used, has been allocated and has been withdrawn; and the savage cuts that have been applied to the many people who are reliant on those areas—quite correctly reliant. They have done nothing wrong. We talk, we listen and we hear about these irrigators who are out there wasting this water—achieving no gains; achieving no efficiencies—as though they are some sort of criminal on the black market. That is simply not true. They are doing this within the legal framework that has been provided to them over the years of successive governments in many states. I can specifically talk about New South Wales. These irrigators have done nothing wrong. In fact they are at one with the environment—they are at one with water use.

We talk about the crops grown, such as rice, and people say off the top of their heads, in ignorance, ‘We should never grow rice in Australia. It is a dry and arid continent and we should not be growing the most water-thirsty crop.’ I do not mind if somebody has come into my electorate, understood rice from paddy to plate and then comes away and makes some comment—so long as they are speaking from a base of knowledge. I disagree with and vehemently oppose people who come into this place and speak about something as if they had knowledge when in fact they speak from ignorance. I abhor that type of behaviour. If you want to talk about rice and whether or not we should grow rice in Australia then come to my electorate. I invite everybody to come to my electorate to see how rice is grown, and you will leave with a different point of view. You will leave saying, ‘Why aren’t we growing rice in more areas in Australia?’

Rice is a crop that only grows when there is water available. Rice does not need watering every day; unlike stock, which need water every day just to stay alive. Rice is a crop that feeds 40 million people a day. Rice is a crop that is part of one of the four food companies left in Australia. Rice is a crop that does not export its jobs; a crop that value-adds in a regional town, Leeton; a crop that has every one of its products leaving the port of Melbourne, and is the largest exporter from the port of Melbourne, branded with an Australian brand name; a crop that promotes and generates Australian jobs. Not one bin of rice goes out of this country; it is branded. Rice is a crop that may use a sheet of water as a warmth blanket to generate the first process of growth, but from there on it has a totally waterless value-adding process—it does not use water in one part of that process. Rice is a crop that invests in an environmental champions program; a crop that is so highly regulated that not just anyone can go and put a crop of rice in. You have to have the right conditions. You have to have impervious clay liners. You have to have entire reticulation schemes. You have to be approved to grow rice and you have to have the right soil conditions to grow rice. You tell me how many other crops in Australia are regulated like that.

Yet I hear people come into this House and speak about rice when they would not have even seen rice growing. I have seen people come into this House and speak about not buying Australian grown rice but rather buying imported rice. They would be shocked and disturbed to know that the countries they are buying it from have the worst environmental conditions and are the worst environmental bandits. They are supporting that environmental vandalism. I find that entirely unacceptable. I make my offer again: if people want to make comments about crops like rice then they are welcome to come out into my electorate. I will personally take people around and show them the truth of the matter. Then they will have knowledge, not ignorance. Then I am quite happy for them to have their views, because I know they will not have any adverse views about crops like rice. I object to people believing that there is a requirement for this kind of legislation to overcome those environmental bandits like irrigators.

Just recently, on 1 September 2008, there was an article in the Australian from the Chairman of the Coleambally Irrigation Area in my electorate. I think what it showed was the desperation about and the exasperation with the non-consultative process that is currently taking place. That non-consultative process meant that the chairman of Coleambally irrigation offered up a whole community, a town, for sale. He said, ‘Buy our town. If you want 500 gigalitres, we will give you 600 gigalitres. That is what our allocation is—not that we can get it, because there is no rain so you cannot get 600 gigalitres.’ There is a furphy here—all of these applications that may be received for the government to purchase entitlements are actually yielding no water because there is no water to give. But 600 gigs have been offered for sale by the Coleambally irrigation community.

What that article did was to create a lot of heat, but the one very valuable role that it played was that, for once, it brought people back into the equation. You will hear time and time again in this water debate in this House about habitat, environment, wetlands and river processes. You will hear a lot about frogs and a whole host of things that should survive in a great environment. But you will hear little about the people. You will hear little about a social impact study on the people affected and the communities affected. The reason you will hear little—in fact you will hear nothing—about a social impact study on the effects of buying out licences in an uncontrolled manner is that there is no such social impact study. There is not one in place and there will not be one, and that is the crime of the process that is being undertaken now.

I go back to this article in the Australian to see whether or not there was real sincerity in this water buyback. That is what Mr Black was looking at. According to that article, Mr Black said:

I’m just trying to see how serious the Government is in its water purchase program …

Of course the government would not take it up. Mr Black said: ‘Give us 3.5 billion. We will give the town people a billion for their businesses and everything and we will give the irrigators and the land and water entitlement holders the rest. Then at least you could have your 600 gigalitres in one fell swoop and they could go away and start their lives. That way you would not be killing them by stealth—a death of a thousand cuts with no concern, no care and no responsibility taken for what happens after that.’

We had a public meeting in Coleambally. There are only 800 people in Coleambally and there were probably 600 people at that public meeting. The meeting place was absolutely filled to capacity. One thing the meeting did was galvanise those people into standing together, because they knew that they could not afford to be divided on this—that united they will stand and divided they will fall. They determined to fight for their township. I guess the telling part of that public meeting was when the young female captain of Coleambally Central School spoke at the meeting and said that 38 students had left the school that year as a result of the shortage of water. But when the 38 students left that meant that the school lost three teachers. That meant that the remaining students lost access to elective subjects and subjects that were vital for them to gain their HSC. The captain talked about her aspirations and what it meant to the students to be left in the lurch, as they have been with teachers having to vacate because of the drop in the number of students at the school. The students are personally affected by the lack of subjects that are available to study.

These are powerful, real issues for the future of our nation, and I am not sure that anyone is taking the time to understand this. I am also concerned about the government’s proposal to buy out small irrigators on 15 hectares or less. It is just total destruction. Many of these 15-hectare farms are citrus groves or stone fruit orchards, or belong to someone who has been contributing financially to the community. It would be different if there were some sort of organised and structurally balanced plan, but there is not.

The water plan was started off by the former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson—and I congratulate him for that—and the state stood in his way year on year. Then when Malcolm Turnbull, the current Leader of the Opposition, took on this portfolio he understood how this worked. When the New South Wales state government offered a buyback, they just offered a general buyback; it did not have to be for efficiencies. When we offered our tender it had to arise from efficiencies that had been gained. It had to be surplus water gained through efficiencies. It projected that we were working as a team—not to have less irrigation but to have more effective irrigation and more effective crop production. This is the type of attitude that we need to put in place now.

I look at some of the issues involved with this bill, and I note that item 3 of this bill is to strengthen the role of the ACCC by giving them jurisdiction to monitor water transactions carried out under the act. Might I say that that fills me with fear. It fills me with uncertainty, as it does the irrigation companies that I represent, because I do not trust that the ACCC have any idea what they are talking about. I speak specifically about termination fees. Termination fees are payable to an irrigation infrastructure operator when a customer cancels their service—that means they are going to exit the system—and is required because all of the other people in that system have to meet the additional cost of the fixed infrastructure charges, the delivery charges and all of the maintenance. A larger burden falls on a smaller number of people so we have to have a termination fee. The fees provide compensation or recompense towards the future fixed costs that are avoided by these people who choose to have an early exit from a scheme. Thus the termination fee avoids any third-party impacts from water trade.

The methodology endorsed by the ACCC allows our operators to impose a maximum fee of 15 times their annual fixed charges. But this has resulted in a perverse outcome. It means that inefficient regions that have not invested any capital, effort or intelligence and who have failed to institute cost and infrastructure reforms over the last decade, have high fixed charges and therefore have high termination fees—fees of over $900 a megalitre. Efficient regions that have taken the hard decisions in recent years will have lower fixed costs and therefore lower termination fees—as low as $180 a megalitre. The problem is that the efficient regions will become the target. Because they have been efficient they are the target because they have cheaper termination fees, so everyone wants to come and buy out of that area. They are the ones at risk now. This process of applying a maximum fee of 15 times the annual fixed charges has seen perverse economic outcomes. To strengthen the powers of the ACCC to do even more damage and involve themselves in something they have no idea about is an absolutely frightful thought. (Time expired)

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to support this bill, the Water Amendment Bill 2008. People throughout the Murray-Darling Basin have been experiencing tremendous pain for years due to the dying river system. We know that low inflows of water into the system have obviously been reducing the economic activity of farms and the resultant income for their workers, for local food processing and production businesses and for dependant communities right along the system’s water courses. The drying of channels both above and below ground has been causing what water that is coming into the system to be soaked up before it can even be used. The lack of inflows has brought about the loss of economic assets in permanent plantings across multiple regions along the Murray-Darling, and 100-plus-year-old gums and reserves of native vegetation have been stressed beyond their ability to cope.

We have seen graphic images of the fluorescent yellow-orange acidification of soil, creating what looks like a toxic wasteland in many parts of the river—it looks like mud, but this mud has pH readings of 1.7—the resultant loss of habitat and life, and the threatened expansion of acidification along the river and in the Lower Lakes. We have seen desperate public meetings, public rallies and a government at the national level hell-bent on doing all it can to remedy this situation. We have seen the $12.9 billion Water for the Future program being rolled out—including the $3 billion water licence buyback program. Obviously the outcome of this measure will be, as the program’s name suggests, restoring the balance—that is, the proportional and actual decrease in the total Murray-Darling Basin volume of water potentially used for non-environmental pursuits. And we have also seen the development of an agreement between governments on what will be the future governance of the Murray-Darling Basin water supply.

It is this agreement that we today seek to honour, for all that is regrettable and with all that is commendable, in debating and ultimately passing the bill before us at this time—the Water Amendment Bill 2008, as I said. I believe all stakeholders support the intention that underlies this bill: that the Murray-Darling Basin’s water resource be responsibly managed by one authority system wide which will be accountable through one minister to one government alone—that is, the Commonwealth. For the first time in this continent’s history, there will be clear management of the overall system. As I said, this is what people have been calling for for years. The Australian public has also asked that tiers of governments, rival governments, stop boasting of their provincialism and get down to working for a sustainable future for the river and for both the people and the biodiversity reliant upon it.

Residents throughout South Australia, my home state, have been demanding improvement for a very long time so that the interrelated interests of the River Murray and the population be simultaneously, adequately and sustainably accommodated. And so, on the basis of this Water Amendment Bill 2008 being agreed to, we look forward to the development and implementation of the overall Murray-Darling Basin water allocation plan. Looking well into the future, it is anticipated that the basin, and those reliant upon it, will not again be comfortable with the historic average of water abundance. It is expected that the long-term average annual yield will continue to decrease well into the future. This is the reality that scientists give us reason to expect. And it is necessarily going to be this new reality that the Murray-Darling plan is going to have to work within.

It seems to be a very commonly held belief these days that the Murray-Darling system is overallocated: too many licences exist for drawing too much water out of the rivers. That seems to be an almost universally held view at the moment, irrespective of whom you talk to or where they come from. People are expecting a notable decrease in the overall volume of Murray water being used for economic purposes. In Adelaide a couple of months ago, a rally was held on the steps of state parliament. There were people from two great regions of the South Australian state: people from the Riverland and people from the Lower Lakes. Their expressed concern was the lack of available water. Those from the Lower Lakes were arguing that too much is being drawn out of the river for upstream agricultural purposes. I gather that those from the Riverland were arguing the same for people even further up the river. I am not aware if this was evident to those attending the rally, but half the crowd was largely rationalising their immense problem—that of the drying and potential acidification of the Lower Lakes and the complete ecological destruction of a world-renowned wetland—on upstream users, of whom the Riverland contingent could have been seen to be representative.

This is the dynamic that the water plan will need to address with incredible finesse: the decrease in average inflows, the decreasing proportion of what water there is being made available for irrigation, and the ongoing economic stressors weighing down upon regional communities along the river. There are currently tremendous stressors. People are screaming for change and an improvement in life reliant on the basin’s rivers. The river system stakeholders that may not be facing a more challenging future are the environment and the domestic water consumers. The increase in the proportion of available water that will be reserved for and allocated to the environment will make the river system itself the biggest winner in the years ahead—that is, those of its elements that survive this current drought. And this is a necessity. If we were to let the river system itself deteriorate for sectional interests, all interests would become increasingly compromised.

This amendment bill makes provision for critical human water needs. Adelaide and other towns reliant on the Murray for their supply of water will continue as required. I note in the wash-up of the Senate inquiry that the opposition are unhappy with the city of Adelaide extracting water from the River Murray. They clearly plan for 100-plus gigalitres of water to be harvested over the course of a few wettish months, if we get them, each year and stored for the rest of the year for domestic and industrial use, with another 100 gigalitres on top of that stored elsewhere as a contingency. I expect that treated waste water and Labor’s desalination plant will provide the other 100-plus gigalitres per year that Adelaide uses. That is one heck of a lot of additional storage capacity.

It is a brave political move by the opposition to plan to flood Clarendon in the Adelaide Hills to build a new reservoir, with perhaps another one at Bridgewater and probably a couple more elsewhere, maybe in Lobethal or Coromandel Valley. It is brave to tell the population that they are going to mix their drinking water stored at Happy Valley with road run-off. It would be extremely brave of them to tell the residents and councillors of Mitcham that Brownhill Creek Reserve is going to be closed off and flooded. I look forward to reading their detailed policy statement on how they are going to do all of this in due course. In the meantime, the Liberal Party have an opportunity to support this legislation, which is clearly necessary and a highly substantial leap forward in the management of water in this country.

It was under the leadership of former Prime Minister Paul Keating that the first great step forward was made in Australia’s water management within the Murray-Darling Basin. That was the 1994 COAG agreement to separate land titles and water licences, freeing up water licences to be traded as goods for use in the marketplace, where they could do most good. Fourteen years later we are taking the step of the establishment of a basin-wide plan under the authority of a single minister. I note that the bill will enable the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to better monitor the trading of water within the water market.

I look forward to a time when trade will not be restricted between regions as it is today and when this resource will be able to be applied commercially, where it can deliver the greatest amount towards our nation’s agricultural production. This bill points the way toward better water management, maintenance of the water supply in the preservation of the environment, better systems for the allocation of water within sectors and the most sustainable and productive working river that southern and eastern Australia can enjoy, which we would all benefit from. I commend the bill to the House.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My first comment regarding the Water Amendment Bill 2008 is that the amendments in the bill seem to be quite ponderous in their length, in fact longer than the original bill—and I do not mention that because of the amount of paper being used. The National Plan for Water Security, the plan that the coalition government put forward for the Murray-Darling Basin, was the first time anything as all-embracing had been done in the world, as the Leader of the Opposition mentioned just after question time. In the course of working out the plan and putting together the legislation, which came into effect on 3 March this year, there was consultation with industry, the states and all the people involved. That consultation involved the community as well as irrigators and various industries, including the dairy and horticulture industries, and it was very intense and thorough. I recall the last meeting held on it, which I personally was not at, that the then water minister, Malcolm Turnbull, held in Sydney. A lot was done to make sure that the Water Bill 2007 encompassed what was needed by all parties as much as possible in something as far reaching as it was. The difference between that bill and this amendment bill is that as far as I can see virtually no-one has been consulted as to what is in the legislation. For the amount of pages and input that is involved—and, more to the point, despite the importance of the bill—it does not seem to me that anyone except the states has been involved. The more I look at it the more I think this is really a water amendment bill put forward by the states rather than the Commonwealth.

After some return of water to the new commission by the states, the states can look at the water plan and return it. At the end of the day the minister has the ability to decide what is in the plan, although this bill does not quite specify that in so many words. But it seems to me that in every other respect the states pretty much have the same powers as they do currently in the National Water Commission. The commission is a conglomeration of all the states where the schedules involving the direction and method of water-sharing plans and the like, with the exception of the water-sharing agreement between the states, can be changed simply by unanimous agreement, which any one state can veto. The states retaining those powers means that the powers of the Commonwealth are very limited.

In talking to this bill we have to look at the whole point of the National Plan for Water Security as we first put it up. It was to invest in, not buy, the Murray-Darling Basin. A plan for the long-term sustainable use of water and for the people and the environment in the Murray-Darling Basin could have started from 3 March. It seems to me, looking at this now and what has been done so far, that there is no plan. There has been no attempt to put one together, even though the authority could have been up and going. That would not have affected its ability to join with the commission, as this amendment bill envisages. I have no problem with putting the commission together with the authority, but they could have been working on a plan by 10 March. They could have had people ready to take up positions to start on it and to do the serious work.

In actual fact there is very little I can see that this amendment bill will do which could not have already been in process. As is quite obvious, the main plan that the minister, Senator Wong, has is simply to buy water—buying people’s lives, buying towns’ ability to act as cohesive social parts of Australian life by buying the water. Of course, after six years of drought, there are going to be a lot of people in bad situations economically, physically and mentally. There are going to be people who will sell water—plenty of them, for all the wrong reasons. Senator Wong is very much focused on spending nearly $4 billion. The $3.1 billion seems to have been extended by the priorities of the Queensland government, which includes another $350 million, I think, for which a tender is currently up, and there is another $80 million for the South Australian government. We are starting to approach about $3.6 billion, not $3.1 billion, to be used for the purchase of water.

At this point you have got to look at what really matters and what the big issues of this century will be—food security and water security. It is all very well for the Prime Minister to stand by the side of the Murray River and say, ‘Go with me on carbon trading and I’ll fill this river,’ which he did not actually say, but it is certainly what he intimated. This is to carry out a hoax on the Australian people. It is to prey on the fact that a lot of people do not actually understand what carbon trading means. They certainly do not understand what is happening in the Murray-Darling Basin. He tried to use the current drought to excuse his haste. Perhaps in the light of recent economic events that might slow down somewhat. I hope for the sake of Australia—industry and people, and the working families of Australia, very much the working families of Australia—that we might slow down now and have a bit of a look at how that is done.

We wanted to invest in the Murray-Darling Basin, not to buy it. Yes, of course, we were going to spend up to around $1½ billion buying water where we had to. But that was going to be the hard way to do it. The fact that it is the best way to deal with the sustainability and the use of water in eastern Australia is not the point; it was the correct thing to do. The easy way, the nasty way, the way to try to impress the cities of Australia with action in dealing with the water problems in the basin is to simply say, ‘We’re fixing it; we’re buying it.’ To go down this track without having socioeconomic studies is wrong. To do what happened in the Bourke shire in my own electorate—to go and buy the main productive station in that shire, irrespective of the effect it had on the ratepayers of that shire, the fact that they will all have to pay four per cent more in rates to make up for the fact that the Commonwealth is going to hand over to New South Wales for a national park, so it will not pay rates—will mean it will become a burden on the community rather than a bonus.

We wanted—yes, very much—to do the more complicated, hard thing, but the right thing: invest in the Murray-Darling Basin; invest in the efficiencies and share the savings with those within it. In other words, not cut the production, but maintain it—I would think even increase it, but do it sustainably—so that, be it the environment, be it the roughly one million people that live within it, be it the whole of Australia who profit from the best fresh food in the world that is grown there, we would arrive at the end of the day with a sustainable situation, with a healthy basin, with a good industry.

Irrigation is a good industry. Only an hour or so ago I was talking to the bill which brings to an end the Dairy Industry Adjustment Package. That brings to an end eight years of a program designed to help the dairy industry adjust to deregulation. In the course of that debate I mentioned the fact that it is now one of the most efficient industries in the world. It has become one of our star trading agricultural commodities. It has learned to do it well. It is one of the most efficient dairy industries in the world. That is pretty true of most of our irrigation industries and the way they deal with it in the basin, but it does not mean that they cannot be a lot better. It does not mean that within the basin there are not some very old methods of irrigation as well as the best. But we wanted to make the whole basin world’s best practice in terms of efficiency and use of water and production. And, given that we are the country in the world with probably the best reputation for providing clean, green food, we are going to be needed by the world.

We are buying properties as well as water without conducting socioeconomic studies on the effect upon the communities before we do so. As the department admitted at the last Senate estimates committee hearings, we also had about $1.5 billion to help areas restructure where efficiencies or gains were to be found or where we had no choice because the plan told us we had to buy there rather than just buy ad hoc, as Minister Wong and Kevin Rudd are currently doing. We wanted to go in there with a restructuring package if that money had had an effect. That has been wiped. I also believe that on-farm water is something that the minister cannot get her head around and does not want to.

Going through the states in this also worries me. We provide for their priorities rather than for the priorities to make efficiencies and savings in the Murray-Darling Basin. The industry has forgotten more abut irrigation than state governments are ever likely to know. The most efficient and best run irrigation systems are those in New South Wales which are run by private companies in various guises. The most inefficient tend to be run by the state governments, be they in Queensland, New South Wales or Victoria. There are enormous gains to be made, but unfortunately no-one has waited.

As I am sure the shadow minister for climate change, environment and water, the member for Flinders, mentioned earlier, there are certain aspects of this amendment bill that we believe we have to put to the Australian people and to the parliament for amendment. Earlier I mentioned the ad hoc buying, but I did not mention that the buying is happening through closed, secret tenders. You have to remember that we are not just talking about any old buyer; we are talking about the Commonwealth government coming in with $3.6 billion to buy water when up to this time the most that had ever been spent in one year was around $100 million. How in heaven’s name are they going to find the water to buy? But it really means they are the overwhelming force in the purchase of water and in the operation of the water market.

It being the case that the money is taxpayer money and it being the case that we are talking about people who have been stressed out over a long period of time, we have to have a totally open water market. It is essential in every facet of the irrigation industry. I have spoken to all the opposition members right around the basin and I have yet to find somebody who has not said that it is ridiculous, dishonest and totally amoral to have a water market where people do not know the value within it. I think Senator Wong has admitted that there has been a lack of transparency, but I am not talking about suddenly just telling at the end of a tender what everyone paid, be it $50 million, $500 million or $1 billion. I mean a market where every poor devil who has to sell water can look up his section of his particular valley—be it the Lachlan Valley, the Macquarie, the Macintyre, the Goulburn or the Murray—and see where the last sale of water in his section of the river was, what security of water it was, what the price was and how much water was sold. It does not have to say who owned it, but heaven! I think they have the right, with somebody coming in with a hammer like this, to know what the actual, true value of their water is.

There are two things we know about water: they are not making any more of it and it is not getting any cheaper. It can only get dearer. We are talking about the lifeblood of a lot of people and a nation. This is the food bowl of Australia. They come in with a secret tender so people do not know what is being paid—I do not mean at the end of tender but while a tender is going on. Every time someone signs up, that should be up there on the board just like it is in the stock exchange. We have a right to know, sellers have a right to know and other buyers have a right to know what the value of water is. That is different from what has happened in the past. Never before has someone come in and said, ‘I don’t care what’s happened before; I’m taking it all.’ If they are going to take it, they should damn well have to pay for it. They should have to pay top dollar for it and say what it is they are buying, how much and what security. It is not just the lives of individual irrigators involved here; it is communities and towns.

The current economic situation has made one thing very plain: times are going to get tougher. Of course they are; you do not need me to say that. Instead of simply going in with $3.6 billion, why would you not go in and say: ‘Let’s do what the original intent of the National Plan for Water Security was. Let’s go and, instead of spending $3.6 billion on buying, let’s invest it in the industry.’ Believe it or not, we are in a drought and, believe it or not, one day we will all get our water. When that happens, we will have the ability and the need to not lose the jobs which buying all this water will lose and to not kill off all the communities that buying $3.6 billion of water will kill off but to invest in them. Instead of taking jobs out of the Murray-Darling Basin, put some in there. Make an investment in the water industry to make it sustainable, to fix the rivers up where they are fixable and to deal with the overallocation.

I am very proud to be the shadow minister for agriculture, fisheries and forestry. It may have escaped the notice of some on the other side of the House that nobody uses more water or is more reliant on it than agriculturalists, whether they are irrigators or not. Apart from the towns that live off them, the only people in the Murray-Darling Basin being targeted by the current nonplan—the buying—of the Rudd government are farmers. If the current Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry will not stand up for farming, I certainly will. Nobody knows better than me that it is one of the best industries in Australia and it produces the best, the cleanest and the greenest food in the world. But in a few years time, after $3.6 billion worth of water is taken out of that industry, it will no longer have the opportunity to service not only Australia but the rest of the world with that food. If they are going to help states like Victoria steal water out of the basin, they are going to make it a lot worse. (Time expired)

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of the Water Amendment Bill 2008. This is one of the most important pieces of legislation most of us are likely to see. This bill is particularly critical for my own state of South Australia. After years of inaction and neglect it is the Rudd Labor government that is putting this historic, landmark law into place. This bill provides the legislative framework for the unprecedented agreement reached at the Council of Australian Governments in July this year. The importance of this agreement cannot be overestimated as it marks many firsts for the Murray-Darling Basin. For the first time ever, this bill will ensure that the Murray-Darling Basin is managed in the national interest and not for sectional interests.

The Murray-Darling Basin is the most significant combination of water systems in Australia and includes three of the largest rivers in Australia—the River Murray, the Darling River and the Murrumbidgee River—and covers over one million square kilometres. Ten per cent of our nation’s population live in the basin and millions of residents in the Adelaide metropolitan area rely on the Murray River for drinking water. In addition, the basin accounts for 40 per cent of the value of Australia’s agricultural output. This data highlights the huge significance of this water system to our country. Considering the importance of the basin it is extremely disappointing that previous governments have failed to take the necessary steps to protect this vital river system.

As a representative of South Australia I know only too well the dire situation that is now facing the Murray-Darling system. As the state at the end of the line, we are now seeing the result of years of overallocation of water and inaction by previous governments. The crisis has been severely exacerbated by an acute drought and climate change. The dire state of the Murray-Darling system has many significant impacts for South Australia, including for our irrigators in the Riverland and elsewhere that rely on the Murray. This also goes for the communities of the Lower Lakes, Lake Albert and Lake Alexandrina, and the Coorong, which are at the end of the river. The impact is also pronounced for the city of Adelaide. Residents rely heavily on the River Murray for water for critical human needs. They rely on it for drinking water.

The bill before the parliament today and the agreement struck through the COAG process will for the first time in our history establish a single body which will have the responsibility for oversight of the Murray-Darling Basin. The new body will be called the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and will bring the existing Murray-Darling Basin Commission and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority into one. This independent authority will be responsible for developing a basin-wide plan and will report to the Commonwealth minister for approval. The government has appointed Mr Robert Freeman as the first chief executive officer. He previously headed up the Department of Water, Land, Biodiversity and Conservation in my home state of South Australia and has extensive experience in handling the Murray-Darling Basin.

The new Murray-Darling Basin Authority will be charged with administering the basin in the national interest. One of its first tasks will be to set a scientifically based cap for the basin on how much water can be extracted from the system—both surface and groundwater. After 100 years of overallocation of water from the system this will be the first time that this has occurred—a move that finally recognises that the whole system is connected and does not start and end at state borders.

Of critical interest to South Australians is the part of the bill that enables the Basin Plan to provide arrangements to provide for critical human needs, protecting drinking water for communities along the river. Earlier in this debate the member for Riverina reminded us not to forget the people in this debate. There can be fewer greater calls on us as a community than to provide safe, clean and affordable drinking water for everyone, for all people in our communities. In the southern suburbs of Adelaide the most significant holding of drinking water is at the Happy Valley Reservoir, which has a capacity of 11,600 megalitres.

I recently visited the Happy Valley Reservoir with the Prime Minister and we talked to a number of people working there. These employees estimated that over the last year 90 per cent of the reservoir water has been extracted from the Murray River, illustrating the significant reliance that Adelaide has on the Murray during periods of extreme drought. Protecting the one million-plus people who rely on drinking water from the Murray River should be and is the government’s priority. The previous government left Adelaide high and dry when they failed to implement a plan that addressed the important issue of an adequate supply of drinking water. However, securing Adelaide’s drinking water is not the priority of the Liberal opposition, and the member for Murray in her press release dated 27 March criticised the Rudd government for making human critical needs a priority, saying:

There is further worry when Mr Rudd declared that human consumption of the Murray system water is to take precedence over all other water uses. Does this mean that when Adelaide squeaks, irrigation systems shudder?

This statement shows a reckless disregard for the city of Adelaide and other communities that rely on the Murray for drinking water.

The bill before us today and the funding associated with the changes are part of the Rudd government’s wider water plan, Water for the Future, the $12.9 billion plan to secure the water supply for all Australians. The Water for the Future plan addresses four key priority areas: taking action on climate change, using water wisely, securing water supplies and supporting healthy rivers. To help immediately, the Rudd Labor government, for the first time in the nation’s history, is spending $3.1 billion to purchase water entitlements from willing sellers, returning water to the system and increasing environmental flows, giving our rivers a greater share now and when it rains. At the beginning of this year, the Rudd Labor government moved swiftly to purchase $15 million of water entitlements along the basin. We have heard some concern about this measure within this debate. However, there has been extremely strong support expressed for our government’s decision to buy back water to help the Murray-Darling system. This was expressed at the many functions and forums I go to within my electorate and, most importantly, at the community cabinet which was held in my electorate at Hallett Cove.

Residents in my electorate also have welcomed the landmark announcement to assist the New South Wales government to purchase Toorale Station, including entitlements of up to 14 billion litres of water. The buying back of water entitlements will deliver significant boosts to environmental flows in the Darling River. The action taken by the Rudd government is in stark contrast to the divided and incoherent policy positions of the opposition when it comes to buying back water entitlements for the Murray-Darling Basin, and I think we have heard that in this debate.

The opposition, over the last few months, have had many positions when it comes to buying back water. Let us just have a quick look at some of these positions. Position 1 of the opposition was proposed by the member for Sturt on Adelaide radio. He suggested that the government should spend more money on buying back water. The second position was announced in a press release by the member for Calare, who stated that water buybacks were ‘meaningless’. The member for Wide Bay, in a press release, advocated position 3, which was a scare tactic statement that shoppers would pay more if the government was to buy back water.  Position 4 was advocated by the previous Leader of the Opposition, who went further than anyone in suggesting that we should compulsorily acquire water entitlements. Finally, the shadow minister for the environment suggested in a doorstop interview on 29 April, which I assume is position 5, that buybacks would not work.

These many positions show just how divided the Liberals are. It seems that there is one message coming from the opposition downstream and another from the opposition upstream. This haphazard approach from the opposition demonstrates exactly why this legislation is so necessary. This unseemly back and forth illustrates what has been wrong with the previous system. Every group, every state, every landholder and every community has their own interests at stake and, naturally, they would like to see their interests protected. But that has meant that things have not been happening in the national interest. The overall interests of the basin have not been paramount. We need to move beyond this approach of everyone looking out for their own interests at the expense of the long-term health and vitality of the river system. That is why the Rudd Labor government is getting on with the job of increasing the amount of water in the system. While the opposition squabbles over whether they even support water buybacks, we are actually doing what is necessary—sitting down with other governments and sorting this out once and for all.

Those living along the River Murray system are suffering with the drought that is ravaging the area. However, it must be recognised that those communities at the end of the Murray-Darling system are doing it tough. Those communities around the Lower Lakes in South Australia have relied on the water in the lakes not only for irrigation but also for domestic use. The sites are, of course, also of immense environmental significance. The Rudd government has announced significant money to help these communities by providing $120 million for an integrated network of pipes to service the township communities and irrigators currently reliant on the Lower Lakes. In addition, the government has provided an extra $200 million to the South Australian government to be invested in a long-term response to the environmental problems facing the Lower Lakes and the Coorong.

It is the Rudd Labor government that is acting now when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin for the short term, for the medium term and for the long term. We are not going to rely just on quick fixes—no more passing the buck; no more saying it is up to someone else to sort this out. The Rudd government is providing national leadership. We are not trying to play politics with this issue, running around telling each constituency a different answer, a different solution, and telling each community that they are No. 1. We are saying the Murray-Darling Basin is No. 1. Protecting the entire basin for the future is No. 1. It will be cold comfort to particular communities if they get a disproportionate share of water in the short term, only to find the river system is degraded beyond repair. What will it profit anyone to have ample water now if the whole river system is a disaster? It will be a short-term, shallow victory from which we all suffer in the long term.

More than anything else, we need rain. We need vast amounts of rain to fall throughout the country and to flow down our rivers, but we cannot make it rain. I should probably qualify that statement: most of us believe that we cannot make it rain. Perhaps an exception is the Leader of the Opposition, who, as the previous shadow minister for the environment, thought he could make it rain by spending $10 million on scientifically dubious Russian cloud-seeding machines against departmental advice. However, the Rudd Labor government is focused on what we can do, and what we can do is put in place the long-term water infrastructure that is required. What we can do is put the right framework in place. That is what we are doing—establishing a national authority with the responsibility of administering the basin in the national interest. We are investing billions of dollars to do what needs to be done—buying back water entitlements, improving water harvesting and making water use more efficient both in the basin and outside of the basin.

We are also investing in alternatives which can help alleviate the pressure on the Murray-Darling system. The Rudd Labor government has invested $1.5 billion in infrastructure which will use water more wisely and efficiently from other sources. This includes water recycling, desalination, stormwater harvesting and grey water reuse. Projects to use water more efficiently have already started in my electorate of Kingston. In April this year, the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, announced formal funding of $34 million for the Water Proofing the South project, a large-scale water recycling project run by the City of Onkaparinga. These projects will enable high-quality recycled water to be used in industry, gardens and playing fields rather than mains water.

In addition, the Rudd government has announced a further $3.5 million to help 120 McLaren Vale irrigators to move from mains water to recycled water. This project aims to substitute 780 million litres of mains water with recycled water. The funds will provide grants for irrigators to cover the costs of connection to recycled water and also the water licence fee. Using recycled water from the southern suburbs of Adelaide is not only important to reduce our reliance on the Murray-Darling system but will also improve the health of the Gulf of St Vincent, which suffers significantly from the discharge of high-nutrient water.

These types of projects are possible because of this government’s significant commitment to invest in water infrastructure. The Rudd Labor government has committed $1 billion for the National Urban Water and Desalination Plan, $250 million for the National Water Security Plan for Towns and Cities and $250 million for the National Rainwater and Greywater Initiative. The bill before us today also provides for a more uniform approach to regulation by extending the ACCC’s regulatory role, which will improve the functioning of the water market in the Murray-Darling Basin.

The need to provide for future water needs is one of the most fundamental duties we have as a parliament. The Rudd Labor government is not prepared to sit back and let the river system deteriorate beyond salvation. We are not prepared to allow for the years of neglect and petty toing and froing to continue. This government is acting now. We are putting in place the framework needed to run the Murray-Darling Basin in the interests of all Australians. We are backing that up with massive investments to achieve better water conservation and environmental flows. Let us not miss this opportunity. It is the Rudd government that is making the most significant change in water management since Federation and also laying the groundwork for the future health of our great river system. Therefore, I commend the bill to the House.

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

I rise to speak on the Water Amendment Bill 2008. I come to this debate representing the seat of Maranoa in Queensland which covers almost the entirety of the Murray-Darling Basin that is in Queensland. The only exception to that is a small area around the city of Toowoomba which is represented by the member for Groom.

Listening to the previous speaker and to the speeches of others from the other side of the House, you would wonder whether anything had happened over the last 10, 15 or 20 years in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin. There has been a great deal happen in relation to water entitlements and efficiency measures, and I want to commend the actions of so many farmers who have invested heavily in water efficiency measures. No farmer wants to waste water. They know it is one of the most valuable resources they have, particularly if they are involved in irrigation.

My life has involved being in western Queensland, where water is a critical issue. In the last 10 years we have seen a drying up of many parts of the basin of the Darling and the Murray. It has been part of a long cycle of drought. Anyone who understands or who has taken the time to look back through the records of rainfall patterns dating back to the late 1800s or read any of the history in the diaries of the early explorers who went into many parts of what we now loosely call the Murray-Darling Basin would know that there have been many times throughout history that the Darling and, at times, the Murray riverbed have been dry. The Murray has not constantly throughout history had water flowing through it. There are stretches of the Darling River system that the early explorers can tell us about, and their diaries are worth reading because they provide us with invaluable knowledge of what happened long before this parliament and of course the Federation of the Commonwealth of Australia were established. It is important to draw on that knowledge of the experience of the early explorers and of the settlement that has taken place since European settlement in Australia in many parts of the Murray and the Darling system.

I talk deliberately of the Murray and the Darling systems because they are two totally different ecological systems. The Murray system that I like to refer to, from the Lachlan River in the south, largely gets its rainfall and its water from either melting snow or a Mediterranean type of winter rainfall pattern. North of that, the Darling River system travels through some of the most arid lands in New South Wales. Once you get south of Bourke and down through Louth and Tilpa you are on the edge of desert. North of that, largely in my own electorate of Maranoa, the water can come from an area with an average rainfall of eight to 10 inches per year, in the old measurement scale, up to catchment areas with up to 25 to 30 inches of rainfall on average. So the Darling system is totally different, albeit that the two systems connect below Menindee Lakes. We talk, though, of the Murray-Darling Basin. I think it is time for it to be recognised as the Darling system so as to avoid confusion when people in the cities read the newspapers or see the headlines at night on the news and so they can gain an understanding, as I am sure many Australians want to, about the Murray system and its importance to Australia both ecologically and as a food bowl, as well as the importance of the Darling system as a totally different ecological system, albeit that they have a common point many kilometres south of Menindee Lakes.

I want to put some facts into this debate and put them on the public record. We hear a great deal from the other side, much of it ill-informed. I often wonder about the people who are speaking here. They talk about their own electorate in Adelaide or somewhere in Melbourne. Sometimes we get speakers from the city of Sydney. I welcome their comments, but it is important that we look at the facts. On the Murray and the Darling, which make up this basin, let us have a look at each state’s usage of water from the system as a percentage of the total average annual run-off in that state. In New South Wales, for instance, there is something like 11,295 gigalitres of run-off each year, and the total average usage as a percentage of the total run-off in New South Wales is something like 54 per cent. In Victoria they use approximately 34 per cent of the 9,319 gigalitres of run-off available on average each year. South Australia has an average annual run-off in this system of 132 gigalitres and uses six per cent of the total run-off. Queensland has 3,104 gigalitres per year on average over a long period of time and uses five per cent of the run-off of water into the systems. The ACT, where we are now, uses less than one per cent. It is obviously a very small area. In fact, it has an average total usage of 0.3 per cent.

It is important to get those facts on the record in order to have some idea, when we talk about Queensland being some bogey and an overallocated state, that five per cent of the average run-off in Queensland is used for domestic purposes and irrigation. By comparison with Queensland, which uses 584 gigalitres in total per year on average, the Menindee Lakes lose 700 gigalitres per year to evaporation through very inefficient storage of water for Broken Hill. It is not all for Broken Hill, but I lay that on the public record here to put a few facts, rather than myths, on the table about the way Queensland and successive Queensland governments have allocated water for farmers and for town and domestic use along the river systems in Queensland.

I want to talk about the catchment management authorities that we have in Queensland in my electorate and to commend to this government those catchment management authorities, the people involved in them, the knowledge that they have, the research that they have done and the understanding that they have of the local ecology. It is an invaluable resource. I say to the minister and the Prime Minister: do not sit in Canberra, turn on your computer, look up some science and say, ‘We know all about this.’ Go out to these catchment management authorities. Draw on their knowledge. Draw on the knowledge of the local councils and the councillors, who are there for the wellbeing of their own community. Draw on the knowledge of the local farmers, because they have a vested interest in the sustainability of the river systems.

I will mention the Food and Fibre people in Goondiwindi on the border between New South Wales and Queensland. Funded by locals, they indeed have a wonderful knowledge, and I urge the minister to consult with them. Smartrivers at St George is, once again, funded by local farmers because they are interested in the sustainability of their operations and, of course, of the river systems there. There is the Condamine Alliance up near Dalby and, of course, we have the Murray-Darling Basin local government bodies, one in Roma and one in Toowoomba in my own electorate. So I say to the minister and the government: do not sit at a computer here in Canberra. Go out and meet these people and draw on their knowledge or bring them to Canberra and sit down with them, because I can assure you that they have valuable knowledge and a vested interest in the sustainability, including the ecological sustainability, of the river systems in their area.

I want to touch on buybacks. We have recently seen the federal government buy Toorale Station at Bourke. We heard the previous speaker talking about the amount of water that it will provide for the environment in that area. But it was not an open and transparent process; it was not at open auction. They went in the night before and bought from a private company. I know Senate estimates will want to tease out the information as to what was bought, who bought it, who inspected the property and what sort of compensation will be made available to the local community of Bourke because of the loss of 100 jobs directly through the purchase of that property and the shutting down of what was a very valuable producer of both food and fibre, not to mention, of course, the value to the local economy of Bourke. It was not a transparent purchase but one done behind closed doors the night before the property went to public auction.

I want to talk about an investment in water efficiency. I was talking to a farmer in my electorate recently about how he has, as many have, invested in water efficiency. They have gone to the trouble of laser levelling their property and making sure that any run-off on the property is caught at the other end so that you do not see any residue that might have otherwise ended up in the river system. It is all recycled and put back through the property. Once these properties have their fields laser levelled, if it is a flood irrigation system the water will run evenly down the property rather than lie in pools and waste water and overwater in some cases. There has been a huge investment in water efficiency by farmers.

I was talking to a farmer who has moved from flood irrigation and some spray irrigation to microspray irrigation. He has gone from using water for a summer crop or a cotton crop to using microspray for growing vegetables. And by that investment in water efficiency he has gone from using seven megalitres per hectare to grow a cotton crop, a grain crop or a pastoral crop to using 0.7 megalitres per hectare to grow vegetables. That is the extent to which farmers understand the importance of water efficiency. Just think: even if we take that as one megalitre per hectare, there are seven megalitres per hectare being saved. That could be used for environmental flows or it could be shared between the environment and further expansion of irrigation in that area based on that efficiency model. So, quite to the contrary that farmers are not out there investing in efficiency, that model quite clearly shows that if the government were prepared to invest in water efficiency they would deliver water to the environment and for farmers in a more efficient manner. They should have been doing things like that, rather than going in on the night before a property went up for auction and, in the dark of night, signing a secret agreement with the state of New South Wales to buy Toorale Station at Bourke.

I want to touch on the issue of food security. We talk about environmental flows; we hear it all the time from the other side, and farmers, communities and local governments are committed to that end. But what about food security? The World Food Organisation, based in Rome, has said that within the next 20 years the world has to double its food production or we are going to see large populations go without and starve. Food security, I believe, ranks alongside energy and water security. I want to see more debate in this House about the need for this nation to ensure that in the long term we are addressing the issue of food security.

It is our farmers who are going to provide the basis for that food security in Australia. Their knowledge and expertise will be invaluable in providing the clean, green food that this nation has so often taken for granted. We have seen recently the costs of groceries going up in Australia as a result of greater global demand on commodities. Whether that will be sustained in the long term, I am not quite sure. But I know that Australians for generations have had some of the cheapest—the most affordable—and cleanest food in the world. It is important that we look at that into the future.

I spoke last night in the adjournment about the Premier of South Australia accusing a very hardworking farming family near Eulo on the Paroo River of being linked to a terrorist because the farmer was alleged by a scientist—one of these experts sitting in the leafy suburbs of Sydney—to have put more water investment on his property than he was allowed to. The Department of Water Resources in Queensland, as I said in my speech last night, has been out there and they commended this farmer for the way that he is using water. He is not in breach of any moratorium. It infuriates me when we get these statements and people start finger pointing at others out of ignorance and with no knowledge. So often, it is by people who have never even taken the time to go out to the Murray-Darling river system. If they do, they go to a spot on the river where they can get a great snapshot for the front page of the local paper or maybe the national paper or the national television. I am happy to take any member from either side of this House out into the back of my electorate. We will spend a few days there and I will show you some wonderful farmers. I will show you some science that is being done at a local level with knowledge input from communities. It is important that we speak more from understanding rather than politically finger point in ignorance of what some farmers or communities are doing, because it is ignorant and it is an embarrassment for me to hear some of these people talk in the manner that they have—particularly the Premier of South Australia and a scientist from Sydney.

The lower Balonne River farmers fund what they call Smartrivers. In Queensland, as opposed to other parts of Australia, the storages are owned privately. To give you an example of what they do in the lower Balonne River system, their allocations are event based allocations. They are based on the amount of water and the time of year; it is not just that there is water flowing so that they can harvest. This year, out of those privately owned storages, the federal government was able to buy 10,000 megalitres of water and send that down to the Narran Lakes to ensure the survival of the second hatchings of an endangered bird species. If it were not for those storages owned by those farmers, that second hatching of birds would have perished. Mr Acting Deputy Speaker, my time to speak in this debate is about to expire. I will be supporting the position put by our side of the House, but I wanted to put some very important issues on the record. (Time expired)

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the honourable member for Wills, I would like to remind all honourable members that the correct means of address for the occupant of the chair is Mr Deputy Speaker or Madam Deputy Speaker, unless of course Mr Speaker himself happens to be in the chair at the time.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is hard to imagine a clearer example than the question of water policy to substantiate the proposition that the Liberal Party creates problems and engages in divide and conquer politics while the Labor Party brings people together to solve problems. The Water Amendment Bill 2008 before the House represents a historic agreement for the long-term reform of water management in the Murray-Darling Basin. It introduces a new set of cooperative arrangements between the Commonwealth and states so that governments, industry and community can tackle water scarcity and water security. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority created by this bill will have the autonomy to prepare a Basin Plan, the first ever single basin-wide water resource management plan. The Basin Plan will take account of future climate change and address the legacy of past overallocation. Labor wants to tackle the consequences of climate change and tackle the problems of overallocation of water from the Murray-Darling Basin to irrigators.

Contrast this constructive, forward-looking attitude to solving this nation’s serious water problems with the undermining efforts of the Liberal and National parties. About four weeks ago the Victorian Liberal Party horrified the business community by coming out against the Victorian north-south pipeline. This is a win-win pipeline which improves water supply both for regional communities and for Melbourne. The Liberals oppose it. And in his first week as opposition leader, Opposition Leader Turnbull allowed the member for McMillan to ask a question opposing the desalination plant at Wonthaggi. This plant is an important part of the planning for Melbourne to continue to have drinking water, given Melbourne’s rapidly increasing population and the change which has occurred to Melbourne’s climate by way of reduced rainfall.

It is the same with the Murray-Darling. The Australian and New South Wales governments spent $24 million to jointly acquire the Toorale property to restore flows in the Warrego River to the Murray-Darling Basin. This move was welcomed by farmers downstream of Toorale Station. It was welcomed by water experts. It was welcomed by environmentalists. But was it welcomed by the opposition? No. The National Party member for Calare and the member for Maranoa, who just spoke, said that the move would remove a productive property from the food chain. The member for Calare said that the economy of far western New South Wales had ‘taken a massive hit’.

There is a common theme here. When it comes to water issues, from Melbourne to the Macquarie Marshes the Liberal and National parties created this nation’s water problems through their overallocations and inaction. They have no solutions for this nation’s water problems and when Labor come up with a solution—whether it is a pipeline or a desalination plant or an irrigation property purchase—they run interference on our solutions. The attitude of the Liberal and National parties towards water problems is a terrible shame. It has damaged the Murray-Darling and it still stands in the way of improving the situation. This is regrettable, even disgraceful, given just how serious the problems of the Murray-Darling are.

I have been pointing out these problems in the House for over seven years and during that time the health of the river system has continued to decline. The Murray-Darling Basin Commission advised me in August this year that average annual inflows to the River Murray system over the period 1891 to 2007 were over 11,000 gigalitres. In 2006-07, inflows to the River Murray system were approximately 1,000 gigalitres—only nine per cent of average annual inflows. It is worth noting that the Murray-Darling Basin Commission says:

Findings to date suggest that large scale drivers of south eastern Australian climate are already being affected by global warming, reducing rainfall and runoff in the southern Basin and Victoria.

It is important that members opposite wake up and realise what is going down here. We have members opposite who still do not believe that carbon emissions are causing changes in the world’s weather, or who think we do not have to worry about this till next century. The National Party member for Calare said in parliament:

We were not going to make long-term decisions based on a six- or seven-year drought.

He and other members opposite say that the only problem is that there is a drought on and we are not getting enough rain. Just what does he think climate change is? It is when your climate changes and you do not get the rain you used to get. I wish Bill Clinton, who famously said to the Republicans, ‘It’s the economy, stupid,’ was around to listen to the Murray-Darling debate. I am sure he would tell some of those opposite: ‘It’s climate change, stupid,’ or ‘It’s global warming, stupid,’ because they just don’t get it.

The present situation facing the Murray-Darling is very, very dire. Acid sulphate soils, referred to as the ‘cancer of the Murray’, are present in the Lower Lakes in South Australia, in northern Victoria, in south-western New South Wales and in southern Queensland. In Queensland it has been reported that 12,000 wetlands are at risk. The Coorong and the Macquarie Marshes have been trashed and turned into basket cases. I, and I am sure other MPs, have received desperate correspondence from Mr Bill Barton, a Hindmarsh Island farmer and real estate agent, and from the Marina, Hindmarsh Island, imploring us to take action to tackle the overallocation of water to upstream irrigators and to save the Lower Lakes and the Coorong. In August, thousands of people gathered at the mouth of the Murray at Goolwa to call for action to save the stricken Lower Lakes. We read articles about the Coorong headed ‘Death of a Ramsar site’ and ‘Death of the Coorong’, noting the catastrophic decline in numbers of birds and fish. We read that the level of the Lower Lakes has now fallen to 50 centimetres below sea level. If it continues to fall and the lake beds are exposed, they will become irreversibly acidic and toxic. There has been an 85 per cent reduction in shorebirds in the Coorong since 1985. It is a dramatic decline in just 20 years, and I commend the work of the Adelaide academic Dr David Paton, who has been drawing this unfolding debacle to our attention for years.

The Macquarie Marshes, another Ramsar listed wetland, has gone the same way with declines in wetland vegetation and decreases in the number and diversity of wetland birds. The Humane Society International reports that the wetland vegetation of the southern Macquarie Marshes is almost completely dead and that of the northern region of the marshes is barely surviving. I commend the work of the New South Wales academic Professor Richard Kingsford who, like Dr Paton, has been drawing this unfolding debacle to our attention for years.

But while the Murray-Darling has deteriorated the Liberal Party, through front groups like the Institute of Public Affairs and the Australian Environment Foundation, has tried to undermine efforts to save it. The Institute of Public Affairs employs senior Liberal Party personnel like John Roskam and Mike Nahan. Its board contains former Liberal Party ministers, Alan Stockdale and Rod Kemp, son of the Institute’s founder, Charles Kemp.

In June 2004 it was revealed that Australia’s largest irrigation company, Murray Irrigation Ltd, had contributed $40,000 to the Institute of Public Affairs. The director of the IPA’s environment unit—quaintly named because it is actually an anti-environment unit—Jennifer Marohasy, is reported to have played a critical role in persuading a government committee to overturn recommendations to increase the volume of water released into the Murray River. In June 2006 Bill Hetherington, who had been chairman of Murray Irrigation Ltd from 1995 to 2005—that is, the period when Murray Irrigation Ltd was a major funder of the IPA—was appointed to the IPA’s board of management. So the Institute of Public Affairs, a Liberal Party front, was getting corporate dollars to run junk science about the Murray River claiming it was all right and did not need action by way of environmental flows. They should hang their heads in shame at their role in this debacle.

But Jennifer Marohasy continues to undermine efforts to save the Murray. She is opposing the Victorian state government agency, the Victorian Environment Assessment Council, recommendation that 100,000 hectares of river red gum forests along the Murray be converted from state forest to national park. For the record, I support the establishment of the Barmah, Gunbower and other national parks recommended by the Victorian Environment Assessment Council and I commend the Victorian National Parks Association on its efforts to secure a very significant nature conservation outcome for the Murray River.

I also want to congratulate Dr Arlene Buchan from the Australian Conservation Foundation and Amy Hankinson from the Inland Rivers Network for the great work they have done to try to save the Murray-Darling. I have no doubt that, if more attention had been paid to what they have been saying over the years, this mighty river system would be in much better shape rather than reliant on the life support it is now on. The Lower Lakes and the Coorong would be in much better shape, the Macquarie Marshes would be in much better shape and Adelaide, which depends on the Murray River for its drinking water, would be in much better shape.

Members opposite have sat on their hands and allowed this tragedy to happen before our eyes. The purpose of the Water Amendment Bill 2008 is to amend the Water Act 2007 to give effect to the intergovernmental agreement on Murray-Darling Basin reform signed by the Prime Minister and the first ministers of each of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory at the July 2008 meeting of the Council of Australian Governments. The reform intergovernmental agreement has also resulted in the negotiation of a revised Murray-Darling Basin agreement, which will come into effect at the same time as this bill commences.

The bill will enable water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin to be managed in the national interest, optimising environmental, economic and social outcomes. The bill complements the Commonwealth government’s $12.9 billion Water for the Future plan announced by the Minister for Climate Change and Water in April. It relies on the Commonwealth’s constitutional powers and a referral of powers to the Commonwealth by New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland to enact certain measures which include transfer of the current powers and functions of the Murray-Darling Basin to the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority, strengthening of the role of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and enabling the Basin Plan to provide for critical human water needs.

This bill delivers on a Labor election commitment to bring the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission together into a single body known as the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. It will be an expert agency with functions and powers, including enforcement powers, that will ensure sustainable and integrated management of basin water resources. It will establish arrangements for securing critical human water needs for people dependent on the River Murray. Murray-Darling Basin regions will benefit from improved strategic water planning and management arrangements that will reflect the interests of the basin as a whole.

The coalition has never embraced a holistic solution to the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin. For example, the member for Farrer said to the parliament in 2003:

I would like to see our own agriculture department detach itself from the environmental debate somewhat and conduct some critical analysis of exactly what these proposals mean—

referring to conclusions of the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists—

to agriculture and what threats they pose to agriculture.

Of course under the policies championed by the member for Farrer agriculture in the Murray-Darling has suffered greatly. We had the now Leader of the National Party answering a question from the member for Farrer in the parliament in 2003. He said:

The Labor Party policy is essentially to take 1,500 gigalitres off irrigators in country towns and just flush it down the river—who knows where, who knows when and who knows why? …

What an appalling ignorance he displayed of the significance of environmental flows. This is the kind of attitude which has brought the Murray to its knees. The former Leader of the National Party, Mark Vaile, in February 2007 said:

The member for Grayndler says that the Murray needs a drink but he does not acknowledge that there is a drought on. In one of the comments he made in this speech he said: ‘Labor firmly believes the overallocation of water licences is a primary source of the water crisis.’ The primary source of the water crisis is that there is a drought on! I do not know whether you had noticed, but there is a drought on!

This is the kind of attitude which has brought the Murray to its knees. We had the member for Calare in parliament in September saying:

We had a plan that was going to be sustainable. … We were not going to make long-term decisions based on a six- or seven-year drought—and that is what it is. There have been droughts this long before and there will be droughts again.

The member for Calare said on ABC radio Central West in June this year that rain ‘is the only way we’re going to get out of the present dry situation for the rivers’. This is the kind of attitude which has brought the Murray to its knees. This is the kind of policy which has given us salinity, algal blooms, declining water birds, dying river red gums, and a Murray mouth which is on life support.

Mind you, the coalition is not above speaking with a forked tongue, saying different things to different constituencies. We had the member for Sturt saying on Adelaide radio in March that there should have been a billion dollars being spent on returning environmental flows in the Murray-Darling Basin. But as soon as we spend a dollar on it, the member for Calare attacks us.

Science is telling us quite clearly that climate change along with overallocations is putting significant stress on our rivers and the aquifers, and this is no more apparent than in the current condition of the Coorong and the Lower Lakes. Decades of regulation and overextraction of water from the river have reduced freshwater flows. This has been exacerbated by global warming, and as result the ecological character of these internationally significant wetlands is seriously threatened. All but one indicator of ecosystem health is negative and getting worse, including those of native plants, turtles, fish, frogs, birds and everything else that relies on the unique ecosystem for its feeding and breeding habitat.

The situation in the lakes will deteriorate further if prompt intervention is not undertaken, for without sufficient water allocation we will not have ecosystem recovery from the current adverse effects. This sort of change will take years or decades to recover from. Extensive ecological changes have already occurred that have prompted Dr Kerri Muller, an expert on the lakes and Coorong, to warn of an Aral Sea of the south eventuating if urgent remedial action is not taken.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has put forward a proposal identifying six properties that could be purchased by the Commonwealth, New South Wales or Queensland governments which are strategically important to the Darling and Murray rivers. These properties could provide at least 300 gigalitres in the short term to address the immediate crisis in the Lower Lakes and Coorong, and over 400 gigalitres could be recovered each year on average for the Darling and Murray rivers for years to come.

This targeted water purchase approach and release would be timely as there would be minimal losses incurred in moving the water through the river system now due to lower evaporation rates over winter and less seepage due to recent floods. Purchasing the full water entitlements from a property, or purchasing the whole property including its entitlements, will have double benefits by helping a seller exit the industry—or their business, if desired—and also enabling the removal of banks and channels that are funnelling water away from the rivers.

The unfolding ecological crisis in the Ramsar listed lower Murray lakes and Coorong needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency to avoid consigning these environmental treasures to the graveyard. The Australian government is buying water entitlements from willing sellers in the water market—and the member for Maranoa was objecting to this process, but that is what it is—in order that overallocation is addressed and so that rivers and wetlands will receive more water when it is available.

Unlike the coalition, the Labor government has its policy house in order, and this bill represents another step in addressing the policy challenge of securing a sustainable water supply in the face of a changing climate and the pressures of economic development. The Australian people want action to save the Murray-Darling Basin. The Commonwealth is responding with practical measures to relieve the stress on the rivers and confront, through cooperation with governments, industry and the community, the challenges of water scarcity and water security that will deliver a sustainable future.

The Murray-Darling Basin has suffered significantly after years of neglect and mismanagement, and as a result is under enormous strain that is adversely affecting communities, industries and the natural environment. This bill heralds an era of national leadership whereby cooperation and collaboration between Murray-Darling Basin governments is the order of the day, and where basin-wide water resource management and reforms to the governance arrangements of the river system will secure its long-term future.

It is absolutely critical that this problem is tackled with a real sense of urgency. We have had decades of neglect and inaction. We have had people pretending that the problem did not exist, that the River Murray was okay. We have had people saying it is someone else’s fault to fix and people in one state blaming people in other states and saying, ‘Everyone else needs to lift their game.’ The truth is we need cooperation, we need national leadership and we need to understand just what a priceless asset the Murray-Darling Basin is for this country—its agriculture, its industry and its environment. All of these things are of inestimable value to us as a nation and as a community and we need to put our shoulder to the wheel to save the Murray-Darling Basin. I commend the government on bringing this bill before the parliament.

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

It seems as if all the speakers from the government are singing from the same hymn sheet, because they have all repeated the fallacy that this bill, the Water Amendment Bill 2008, allows the government to create a Basin Plan. It needs to be pointed out that this is false, because you as a government have been able to formulate a Basin Plan since the legislation was formed on 3 March this year. So there has been nothing stopping the government from forming a Basin Plan. In fact, they have had seven months of inaction. I believe this is one of the great problems of this government—the inaction and the half-measures of the proposed Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

There is no doubt there is a need for a single authority with all the powers referred to that authority and no veto by the state governments. Unfortunately, we have no longer got that single authority. The state governments will still have the ability to veto actions of this authority, so it is not really much different from what we have now with the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.

The River Murray flows 500 kilometres or so through my electorate of Barker. I represent all of the Murray River in South Australia. I represent all of Lake Albert, I represent about half of Lake Alexandrina—because the border goes through the lake—and I represent all of the Coorong. This river supports agriculture, tourism, leisure, commercial fishing and irrigated produce which is consumed by both Australians and people overseas.

In speaking to the Water Amendment Bill 2008, I note that South Australia is mentioned 164 times in the bill and I think 12 times in the explanatory memorandum. It is indeed a critical bill for the state of South Australia and certainly for the electorate of Barker. I might add that I live within walking distance of the Murray River, so I do have a very important interest in the whole Murray River, not just because I represent it.

Whether you see the Murray-Darling Basin as Australia’s food basket or perhaps the nation’s agricultural heartland, the Murray-Darling Basin has long been a vital part of the agricultural landscape. But the river systems are in crisis, threatening the environmental health of the region and in turn those industries that rely on the flourishing river system. In recent years, one of the worst droughts in memory has compounded longstanding water availability issues, resulting in water inflows over the past two years at an all-time low—it was certainly lessening even before that—and now we have devastating environmental problems. Whether the severe drought over the Murray-Darling Basin is as bad as the Federation drought over 100 years ago is arguable. What is not arguable is that extraction from the Murray is much greater now and under present climatic conditions is not sustainable at previous rates of extraction. Hence we have the low allocations for irrigators. For example, in South Australia all the allocations are at 11 per cent which is simply not enough to keep many of the crops such as the orchards, the vines, the almond trees and so on alive.

The Murray in normal times is responsible for about 40 per cent of our food production. Hence we now have the problem of food security facing us. Of late, some commentators question the future of agriculture in the region. I am not one of them. I know that farmers and growers are an incredibly adaptable group of people whose ability to use less water is going up exponentially. However, there is a limit at which technology and improved infrastructure can no longer sustain food production in the face of lack of water flows. We could, of course, import food but that is not a desirable path for Australia to take in both economic terms and environmental terms.

Sadly, the water crisis has pitted state against state and irrigators against environmentalists. Irrigators will continue to come under pressure from environmental groups who will want the environment saved possibly at the expense of our food security, possibly at the expense of our wealth production and possibly at the expense of our job security and local communities.

It has taken much too long for the Rudd Labor government to take action. Their response to date in the meagre purchase of a few water licences does not necessarily guarantee water. They fail to understand that a licence only means an allocation when there is some water in storage. Although entitlement is expressed in megalitres, entitlement is not water; it is a share of the available water resource. So, if there is no water resource, buying up entitlement simply results in zero deliverable water to the holder of the entitlement.

Minister Wong’s department spent $50 million of taxpayers’ money on water buyback—$50 million for about 10 swimming pools of water. Most of what they have bought is general security water. As a result, no water was returned to the Murray-Darling and smart farmers have pocketed $50 million for air space in empty storage dams. So there is nothing for the environment at a cost to taxpayers of $50 million. In any case, the price offered for water was much too low. All they got was water from those irrigators who have no money left, no income due to low or no allocation and the bank banging on their door. These people now have lost a large part of their ability to earn an income as any future crops they grow will rely only on rainfall.

Water really cannot be used twice—that is, for irrigation and, secondly, for environmental flows. That might seem an obvious statement. Keeping water levels up certainly does have environmental benefits and we can see what happens when we have lower water levels as we have below Lock 1. Below Lock 1, we are seeing the effects of low river levels, where cracks appearing in the soils nearby are large enough for cows to break their legs in and make it downright dangerous to ride a motorbike on. Access to water for irrigation is extremely limited, let alone the cost of buying the water if you can get to it. Acid sulfate soils in the Lower Lakes due to exposure as a result of low levels has become a huge problem.

Concerningly, section 86(4) of this bill defines conveyance water as:

… water in the River Murray System required to deliver water to meet critical human water needs as far downstream as Wellington in South Australia.

I have lived in the area long enough to know that the Murray does not end at Wellington. There is a whole community of South Australians living downstream from there who are reliant on the river and the Lower Lakes for domestic water, stock and food production. Clearly they do not count when it comes to this bill. Their critical human needs are not factored in. We know that the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, waved the white flag in August of this year in relation to the Lower Lakes environmental flows, and now she has turned her back on the good people of the area.

The competing demands on the river between states, growers, environmentalists and residents call for a national response and not every man looking after himself at the expense of others. The pain must be shared and the approach must be for the whole river. There simply is not the water in government controlled storage areas to allow that replenishment to happen at levels we would all like so that we can irrigate at past levels.

I do not blame Australians upstream for South Australia’s woes. Pitting farmers against growers does not help us one bit. This does not mean that we should not argue for our fair share of the water available. Cooperation between states is critical to the success of any strategy to save the Murray-Darling Basin. I wholeheartedly believe that a whole-of-nation approach is essential. This bill certainly goes part way to doing that but it falls short in ensuring cooperation.

Schedule 1 of this bill relies in part on referrals of power from the referring states. This means it will be enacted and commence only after the referring states have passed legislation through their parliaments referring the necessary powers to the Commonwealth. That legislation has commenced. We are not seeing a start-up date until 2011. So we have a plan to have a plan in 2011.

I fear that the states will not willingly relinquish their control. We saw the concessions asked by, and given to, Victoria in approving the massive diversion of 110 billion litres, or 110 gigalitres, of water from the Murray-Darling Basin to Melbourne via a pipeline from the Goulburn River. The state of South Australia made a very similar mistake some years ago when they saved about 42 gigalitres, or 42 billion litres, from the Loxton rehabilitation scheme. What did they do? They onsold to the Barossa and the Clare the water that was saved from those infrastructure upgrades. It was good luck for those areas—and the Barossa is in my electorate—but the fact is that that water should never have been onsold. Savings for the river should remain as savings for the river; they should not be used by governments, as the state government did in South Australia and as the Victorian government is doing with its 110 gigalitre north-south pipeline.

This pipeline is not a very cheap way of delivering water. We are talking about $10,000 a megalitre to deliver the water to Melbourne. The present normal rate of a megalitre is about $2,400, so we are talking about four times the cost.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The amendment refers to the Coorong yet the member for Barker seems unduly fascinated by the Brumby project.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order. The member for Barker will continue.

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

Despite my pleading for the Rudd government to consider Riverland communities in South Australia, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett, gave the go-ahead to the Labor Party in Victoria for this pipeline at a cost of 110 billion litres that will never reach South Australia. Of course, that water would reach—if it could—the Coorong, Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. What will the other states demand and receive in return for signing on?

I believe we already had a workable long-term solution with John Howard’s $10 billion plan to upgrade our infrastructure and buy back water from overallocated areas. It was a balanced plan that would have guaranteed our food security with about the same amount of land under production—not necessarily in exactly the same places—with far more efficient irrigation and delivery to farms without all the losses from seepage and evaporation.

For the record, I think the $10 million was only the starting point. I worked with a few of my colleagues to get that plan up with the support of Malcolm Turnbull and ultimately the cabinet and John Howard. The bottom line was that, under that plan, food production would have remained stable but Australia would extract nearly 3,000 gigalitres—about four times what South Australia extracts each year—less each year.

I criticised the stymieing of that plan by Labor. I am, furthermore, disappointed at the time Labor has taken to bring this bill forward. It is very interesting that we did not hear much from state Premier Mike Rann criticising Victoria for stymieing the plan. He was very quick to sign up to the agreement with New South Wales, the ACT and Queensland but ‘We’re not really going to bash Victoria around the ears for not signing the plan’.

While governments can plan for the future so it cannot happen again, we nonetheless have to deal with the reality of the present conditions. We need to alleviate the problems they cause as best we can through government support programs but we cannot make it rain; therefore, I support this bill. I am pleased to note the bill includes the Menindee Lakes at all times and includes regulated reaches of the Goulburn, Campaspe, Loddon and Murrumbidgee river systems, which are part of the basin.

I have already mentioned my concerns for the people of the Lower Lakes. This bill seems to disregard their critical human water needs. They are facing the building of a weir at Wellington, which will offer no relief and is more about protecting Adelaide’s water supply. If citizens of the Lower Lakes are excluded from bills such as this one, they will certainly never win against a million voters.

On a per capita basis, Adelaide is a relatively large water user of the Murray. This must not be allowed to continue. We must plan to wean Adelaide off the Murray-Darling system. It is essential that Adelaide is not totally reliant on the Murray River system. I believe we can do that with things like recycling water. We can make sure that the run-off from the stormwater goes to the Adelaide Airport aquifer or the Port Adelaide aquifer and then we can recycle it. Unfortunately, in South Australia we have a Premier who refuses to look at recycling, even though it is used successfully all around the world. It has been said that each bit of water in London, for example, goes through seven kidneys before its final use. There is no reason why we cannot do that sort of thing in Australia and quite healthily.

Domestic water restrictions in Adelaide and elsewhere in South Australia were a very blunt but largely political instrument. Their imposition reflected a failure of the Rann state government to properly plan for future needs and a failure of the pricing system to supply critical needs at a reasonable rate and increasing cost for excessive wants. The only positive was the raising of awareness to conserve a finite resource.

When Tom Playford was the Premier of South Australia, as part of his long-term planning he bought three sites for future reservoirs. When Don Dunstan got into government he sold that land. That showed the lack of long-term thinking by the Dunstan Labor government. They refused to look at the long-term future. The Rann Labor government in South Australia is no better. It has done almost nothing in respect of investigating new and emerging innovative approaches and techniques for urban water schemes compatible with increasing demands, reducing supplies, increasing flood risks, needs for environmental protection, opportunities for greater efficiency through system decentralisation and competition to achieve a recycling volume of 110 gigalitres per annum.

I recently had constituents in my Riverland electorate office ask me when the Rudd government was going to divulge the real details of the buyback plan it announced last month for irrigators with fewer than 15 hectares. The trouble is that, with South Australian allocations on 11 per cent this year and some water already used or sold, it is unlikely to provide any substantial relief to the Lower Lakes in the short term. Nonetheless, Riverland communities need access to the money on offer now and the opportunity to adjust quickly. There is little or no market for their properties, and they wish to stay in their homes. Most would use grants to retire debt. Those that do retire from irrigation should be recognised for their willingness to be part of the solution but, unfortunately, they have no details as yet. Given the scale of the problem, these people deserve to be offered payments significantly above market value. Time is no longer on the side of the river or the community, but they are still waiting on detail from the minister.

I support the amendment moved by the member for Flinders, which was seconded by me, to include a $50 million rescue package for the Lower Lakes. This is $50 million spent to help people dependent on the Murray Lower Lakes, who I believe are entirely worthy of inclusion in this bill. It would assist them with water carting, turtle rescue and business compensation and would help farmers to make adjustments for the future. We have a Prime Minister in this place talking about an unimaginable place called the ‘Coorong Lakes’—which does not exist. It is ‘the Coorong’. They are not lakes. They are hypersaline, so they are not lakes. The best they could be called are ‘lagoons’. In the Prime Minister’s rush to say he has been there he talked about the ‘Coorong Lakes’ when there is no such place. There is the Coorong, there is the Lower Lakes—Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert—but there is no such thing as the ‘Coorong Lakes’. That shows his absolute ignorance about what is happening down there. He had a 10-minute visit to get a picture opportunity, and that is his whole experience with the Coorong and the Lower Lakes. He talked to a few people—whoopy-doo! He has not achieved anything for the people of the Lower Lakes. We believe that the money should be spent to help those people who, through no fault of their own, no longer have the ability to even have a shower with clean water. You imagine sending your kids off to school in that sort of situation. I support the bill.

Chris Trevor (Flynn, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Water Amendment Bill 2008. The purpose of this bill, of course, is to amend the Water Act 2007 to give effect to the Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform, the IGA, signed by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and first ministers of each of the basin states—New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory—at the 3 July 2008 meeting of the Council of Australian Governments. I take this opportunity to commend my government, the Rudd Labor government, on showing outstanding leadership on this issue.

The reform IGA has also resulted in the negotiation of a revised Murray-Darling Basin agreement which will come into effect at the same time as this bill commences. The bill will enable water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin to be managed in the national interest, optimising environmental, economic and social outcomes. This bill relies on the Commonwealth’s constitutional powers and the referral of powers to the Commonwealth by New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland to enact certain measures. These include the transfer of the current powers and functions of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, as set out in the former Murray-Darling Basin agreement to the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

The Water Amendment Bill 2008 will also strengthen the role of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission by extending the application of the water market rules and water charge rules to cover, respectively, all bodies that charge regulated water charges and all irrigation infrastructure operators and by providing for any state or territory to opt in such that the water market and water charge rules apply to water resources outside the Murray-Darling Basin. This will enable the Basin Plan to provide for critical human water needs.

How important the Murray-Darling Basin is to Australia for social, cultural, economic and environmental reasons is shown by the statistical profile which can be found at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. According to the ABS, the basin covers some 1.05 million square kilometres or 14 per cent of Australia’s land area. Australia’s three longest rivers, the Darling, the Murray and the Murrumbidgee are found in the Murray-Darling Basin. The 2005-06 ABS census found that 84 per cent of the land in the Murray-Darling Basin is owned by businesses engaged in agriculture. However, alarmingly, in 2005-06 temperatures recorded in the Murray-Darling Basin were up to two degrees Celsius hotter than average. Almost two-fifths of Australia’s farmers resided in the Murray-Darling Basin, totalling 61,033 farms in 2005-06. In 2005-06 this area contained some 65 per cent of Australia’s irrigated land.

The bill complements the Commonwealth government’s $12.9 billion Water for the Future plan announced by the Minister for Climate Change and Water on 29 April 2008. This $12.9 billion worth of funding under Water for the Future is not specially addressed in the bill. However, this funding supports governance and water resource management reforms and includes establishing the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, improving water information, sustainable rural water use and infrastructure programs, and purchasing water to improve the health of the rivers and wetlands in the Murray-Darling Basin.

I pay tribute to the Burnett Catchment Care Association in my electorate of Flynn who since 1995 have toiled to improve agriculture and catchment health across 33,000 square kilometres of the Burnett and associated river systems—the Kolan, Elliott, Isis and Gregory. These river systems border the Murray-Darling Basin catchment area to the north, in southern Queensland. I acknowledge the contribution of the chairman, Councillor Paul Lobegeier, and his committee for their purpose and passion. It would not be correct to say that the basin begins in Flynn, as it really begins across the length of the top and eastern borders, where a number of rivers spring and then drain down. However, you could say that the northernmost tip of the basin lies in the Flynn electorate, near the localities of Tambo and Chinchilla, the latter being in the member for Maranoa’s, Bruce Scott’s, electorate, which borders the electorate of Flynn.

The Burnett Catchment Care Association’s Better Burnett team, led by Dean Power, are achieving outstanding on-ground results. In this last financial year their support has covered over 42,000 hectares of grazing country improved by on-ground activities. This hard work not only benefits those grazing families involved but also improves biodiversity and water quality for the in-stream habitat of the Burnett as well as the vitally important receiving waters for the Great Barrier Reef lagoon—not to mention, of course, considerable farm-level improvement in partnership with leaders in the cane and horticultural industries. Better Burnett activities put real, local, on-ground progress to state and national recovery plans. Perhaps the most noteworthy work that the Burnett Catchment Care Association has diligently undertaken is the management since 1999 of aquatic weeds in their river systems.

In October 2008, Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change and Water, announced a $6.3 million dollar contribution out of our Water for the Future funds for the stormwater project that is being undertaken in conjunction with Salisbury City Council. This project will enable the delivery by 2012 of six billion litres of water, reducing the take on the River Murray by five billion litres and enabling the injection into the aquifers, which are used for storage of 1.3 billion litres worth of environmental contribution. This project just shows how communities can show leadership when it comes to water reuse, water recycling and water conservation.

Another initiative of the Rudd Labor government’s commitment to and leadership in helping manage Murray-Darling Basin water resources, which Senator the Hon. Penny Wong, Minister for Climate Change and Water, announced last week, is the provision of $6 million to the eWater Cooperative Research Centre for a new hydrological modelling tool to help manage the surface water and groundwater of the Murray-Darling Basin. This project will accelerate the development and trial of a new computer model, known as RiverManager, to help make water allocation and use over coming decades more sustainable. RiverManager will clearly be an important tool to assist the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to implement the proposed Basin Plan, including a new limit on water use. It will help the authority evaluate the costs, benefits and trade-offs of different water management options in the basin.

This bill will give effect to a key outcome of the reform IGA, bringing the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission together as a single entity, to be known as the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. This means the authority will have some additional functions, powers and duties conferred by the revised agreement and bill. These functions were previously undertaken by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. The authority will implement decisions made by a new ministerial council and the basin officials committee, both to be established by the revised agreement, relating to matters such as state water shares and natural resource management programs. The authority will also prepare a corporate plan annually for approval by the ministerial council in relation to these functions.

The new ministerial council will be established by the revised agreement and will have an advisory role in the preparation of the Basin Plan by the authority. The authority will provide the proposed Basin Plan back to the authority once for reappraisal if it disagrees about certain matters. When the Basin Plan is first made, the authority must also advise the council on the socioeconomic implications of any reductions in the sustainable diversion limits in the proposed Basin Plan.

The current act provides for a Basin Plan for the water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin. The bill expands the mandatory content of the Basin Plan to include arrangements for critical human water needs for those communities dependent on the waters of the River Murray system, excluding communities dependent on the waters of the Edward-Wakool system downstream of Stevens Weir, near Deniliquin in New South Wales. The Basin Plan will specify the volume of water required to meet critical human water needs in South Australia, New South Wales and Victoria, the conveyance of water in the River Murray system required to deliver critical human needs, the conditions under which special water-sharing arrangements are implemented and the process that will apply in times of low water availability.

The amendments provide for a uniform approach to regulation by extending the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s regulatory role within the Murray-Darling Basin. The water market rules and the water charge rules provided for in the act will apply to all water service providers that charge regulated water charges and their transactions, not just those entities and transactions within the scope of the Commonwealth’s constitutional powers. The water charge rules will be able to provide that the ACCC determines or approves all regulated water charges in the basin, other than charges relating to urban water supply activities beyond the point at which the water has been removed from a basin water resource.

The establishment of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority means that for the first time water planning in the basin will be undertaken by an independent, expert based body. The new authority will develop and oversee the implementation of the Basin Plan and will assume responsibility for the current tasks of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission and implement the decisions made by the new Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council and the Basin Officials Committee. Central to the Basin Plan will be sustainable diversion limits on water use in the basin to ensure the long-term future health and prosperity of the Murray-Darling Basin and to safeguard the water needs of the communities that rely on its water resources.

The Rudd Labor government is committed to restoring the health of our rivers by investing in more efficient water use and delivery, by locating new sources of water and by purchasing back water entitlements from willing sellers to return water to the environment, rivers, lakes and wetlands. The health of the Murray-Darling Basin is in decline and the environment which relies on water flowing through the basin’s rivers and tributaries is under enormous strain due to the overuse of water resources for irrigation and other uses. The situation is more than likely going to worsen as rainfall declines due to climate change. Without enough water the basin’s delicate system will continue to deteriorate, threatening many species of birds, fish, frogs and flora that need the Murray and Darling rivers to survive. Without proper management of the system the viability of agriculture, cities, towns and communities will also deteriorate. It is essential that immediate action is taken to address these problems.

Under Water for the Future, overallocation for consumptive uses and declining river health are urgent priorities and these are to be addressed immediately by the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program. The goal of Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin is to acquire water entitlements from willing sellers and use the water allocated to them for the environment. This will improve the health of the basin’s rivers, wetlands and floodplains. The Australian government’s initial $50 million water buyback in the 2007-08 financial year will secure entitlements to approximately 35 billion litres of water for the Murray-Darling Basin rivers.

Robert Freeman was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. Mr Freeman commenced in September this year and he will act as chief executive and chairman for three months or until amendments to the Water Act that separate the roles of chairperson and chief executive come into effect. The Murray-Darling Basin Commission will continue to operate as normal until transition to the new authority. The authority will then assume the current functions of the commission.

It is vitally important that government balances the needs of the Murray-Darling Basin for farmers, communities, water consumption and the health of the river system itself. I commend this bill to the House, and I commend the Rudd Labor government for its leadership on this issue.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Water Amendment Bill 2008. The Water Act 2007, which this bill seeks to amend, is landmark legislation in the history of this House. For the first time the Commonwealth has sought to have a national approach to the management of one of the most important watercourses and physical resources in Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin. Malcolm Turnbull in 2006 recognised the importance of improving water efficiency and security in the Murray-Darling Basin and, in conjunction with the then Prime Minister, on 25 January 2007 introduced the National Plan for Water Security. The Water Act 2007 was introduced by Malcolm Turnbull, the then Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, later that year. We now see a partial uptake of the Turnbull reforms. For 21 months in opposition and now in government Labor has opposed or delayed real reforms.

There are, however, many other unsung heroes of the water industry, many of whom live in Western Australia. In 1994 the Council of Australian Governments agreed that irrigation schemes should be under local management. As a result of this policy, New South Wales and Western Australia transferred the ownership of government owned irrigation schemes to local ownership. Harvey Water in my electorate of Forrest was converted from government to local ownership in 1996. Harvey Water is a two-tier cooperative mutual structure and has specialised membership rules covering the day-to-day operations, asset maintenance and renewals and management of long-term sinking funds. Harvey Water adopted the earliest formal water-trading rules in Australia. These rules became the blueprint for subsequent trading rules. The first trade of temporary water occurred in January 1997, 12 years before these proposed water market rules will come into existence.

Harvey Water has also engaged in water saving. Harvey Water has proposed a simple and sensible means by which the daily water supply for over 100,000 Western Australians can be permanently met by saving irrigation water that is lost in the delivery process between the dams and the farms. The proposal saves water they already have and reduces the need to develop new higher cost sources. The Harvey Pipe Project involves piping the irrigation area at a cost of over $70 million to lay about 200 kilometres of pipes starting from the Harvey and Logue Brook dams. Stage 1 of the Harvey Pipe Project involving the 60-kilometre piping of the Harvey South irrigation subdistrict was completed on time and on budget during 2005-06.

Harvey Water is an irrigation co-op owned by over 750 grower members between Waroona and Dardanup who produce food—dairy, beef, fruit and vegetables—and wine for urban dwellers. Their role and responsibility is to use water efficiently and to support their irrigators to be profitable so that they can continue in business. The irrigation industry supplied by Harvey Water produces food valued at over $100 million per year for Western Australians and for export. As urban people are affected by rising energy costs, so too are farmers. Since they cannot dictate the price at which they sell their products, unlike a lot of other businesses, any drop in the cost of production will help them survive.

The water saved and traded in the Integrated Water Supply System will meet the daily water needs of many people at a cost very competitive with other new sources. There is no doubt that there is always room for improvement in water use efficiency in food production by farmers, and this project specifically provides a great opportunity to achieve more water savings on-farm. The Harvey Piping Project will deliver water to farmers under energy cost free, gravity head pressure available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of the year. There will be enough free gravity pressure to also drive any known on-farm irrigation system, such as sprinklers or trickle systems, which are much more efficient at delivering water to plants than surface irrigation methods. If farmers do not have to operate pumps and engines to water their plants, this will be a major cost saving which will become more and more valuable in the years ahead. Not only will they be able to produce food more cheaply but also they will be able to save more water on-farm in doing so.

There will also be benefits to the environment, as there will be less water applied with sprinkler and trickle type systems, so the ground water level will not rise as much. Nor will there be as much water and nutrients moving off the paddocks into downstream waters potentially causing problems, because the majority of these will be applied directly to the plants and will be used by them. No power will be used to move the water, so there will be no greenhouse emissions during the operation of the system. In fact, since the water will be used to grow plants, the area will effectively become more like a carbon sink itself. The Harvey Pipe Project has received excellent recognition as being an innovative but simple means of saving water and providing multiple benefits across society. It certainly deserves the strong support it is getting nationally, at the state level and locally as well as the various awards that it has received.

Another locally owned irrigation scheme in Western Australia, the Ord Irrigation Cooperative, adopted the first land and water management plan in Australia. The Ord Land and Water Management Plan was put together by local irrigators and the Kununurra community. It was, and is still today, a voluntary arrangement. The Ord plan predated the compulsory New South Wales Land and Water Management Plans by over five years. Gascoyne Water Cooperative has the highest and most productive use of irrigation water in Australia. The locally owned irrigation schemes in Western Australia have reason to be proud of their track record, all with little or no government funds or assistance. Locally owned irrigation schemes, such as Murray Irrigation, Coleambally Irrigation and Western Murray Irrigation, have actively worked to improve efficiencies in the water market. To this end, MDB grower owned schemes, together with the locally owned schemes in other states, have established and funded an online water entitlement register known as the National Irrigation Corporations Water Entitlement Register or NICWER. In WA, NICWER is the only water entitlement register in existence. The register also provides online access to 30 per cent of the entitlement in the Murray-Darling Basin. This is a major self-funded initiative of locally owned schemes and is indicative of their strong commitment to improving water market efficiencies and providing a service to their members.

On the other hand, one of the greatest problems in the Murray-Darling Basin is the failure of basin state governments to process both volumetric and permanent water trades in a timely and efficient manner. Members of the House with an interest in the water industry would all receive the Waterexchange’s weekly Water Market Report. The Waterexchange processes approximately 70 to 80 per cent of the volumetric trades in the Murray-Darling Basin, and each week it provides a snapshot of prices, volumes and approval times. The Water Market Report shows the problems associated with the state government processing of trades in the system. Large local grower owned schemes can process approvals for internal and external volumetric trades within 24 to 48 hours. State authorities processing similar volumes of trades take between 21 and 54 days. New South Wales and South Australia are hampered by a lack of human and IT resources and, to some extent, by bureaucratic red tape. State Water in New South Wales and DLWBC in South Australia struggle with their workload and the problems associated with underfunding.

A different and greater problem has arisen since the commencement of the current season, with the Victorian government owned Goulburn-Murray Water. Goulburn-Murray Water is the largest irrigation scheme in Australia. Goulburn-Murray Water is currently refusing almost all interstate trades from the date that Prime Minister Rudd announced the intention to purchase water for South Australia. I understand that, to date, Goulburn-Murray Water’s tally of refused volumetric trades since the start of September may be approximately 400. Goulburn-Murray Water’s behaviour has led to the almost collapse of volumetric trade in the Murray-Darling Basin this season. New South Wales and South Australia are struggling to deal with the consequences of Goulburn-Murray Water’s actions.

If the aim is to have an efficient, well-run, water-trading market, the principles must be consistent and fair. It is unacceptable that there is one rule for locally owned irrigation schemes and another for government owned schemes. Government owned schemes should not be above the law and should be accountable for their actions. I would like to address four key issues in this bill: the constitution of the Basin Officials Committee, priority for critical human needs and for conveyance water, the application of the water market rules and the water charge rules, and the impact of the transformation arrangements.

One of the greatest problems in the Murray-Darling Basin is the continued exclusion of the locally owned irrigation schemes from the Murray-Darling Basin decision-making process. New South Wales and South Australian locally owned and controlled irrigation schemes account for approximately 50 to 60 per cent of water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin. To date, all senior managers have been excluded from the perversely named Water CEOs Group. The refusal to include local irrigation scheme input is even more absurd when you consider that Murray Irrigation Ltd is the second-largest irrigation scheme in Australia. This situation needs to be urgently reviewed so that balanced input can be made to the decision-making process.

I welcome the clear prioritising of water for critical human needs, although I note this needs to be more clearly defined. I have recently returned from a fact-finding tour to the Clyde River in Tasmania. The Tasmanian government has, for the last two seasons, turned off the water to the town of Bothwell and the surrounding areas immediately after Christmas. These actions by the Tasmanian government were undertaken based on a flawed water management plan. The impact of the plan was that it was unlikely that water would be denied for critical human needs on a regular basis. The Tasmanian government, after some weeks, turned to the federal government to approve the release of water for the town under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. In 2007, Minister Turnbull approved the release. In 2008, Minister Garrett refused, leaving the town’s people without water. It is therefore with relief that, in the Murray-Darling Basin, at least priority is given to water for human critical needs.

The government must ensure that the water market rules will only commence when state government authorities and corporations are bound by the water market rules and the water charge rules. The current situation is that the rules are only imposed upon locally owned irrigation schemes. This has created distortions in the market and damaged local irrigation communities. It has encouraged the behaviour of Goulburn-Murray Water and allows that behaviour to go unchecked. The rules should not commence until they apply consistently to everyone. Otherwise, the market will continue to suffer.

Locally owned irrigation schemes in the Murray-Darling Basin have accepted that water entitlements will be transferred to and from their communities, and the members have amended their scheme rules to facilitate trading. However, what was not considered is that there can be no justification for the transformation of water entitlements that continue to be used within the irrigation schemes. Internal transformation, as it is called, involves moving grower owned water entitlements within locally owned irrigation schemes to the state register. The consequences of this policy have not been thought through, and the consequences will be profound.

An irrigator who transformed to the New South Wales state register would be connected to irrigation corporation infrastructure but would not be on the corporation’s billing or metering system and would no longer be subject to the corporation’s land and water management plans. There would also be issues with the management of drainage. Drainage infrastructure is, under normal circumstances, owned by the irrigation corporation. On transformation, the irrigators would no longer have a right to access the drainage infrastructure and, more importantly, if they did they would not be bound by the irrigation corporation’s requirements to comply with environmental obligations.

In general, State Water, unlike the irrigation corporations, does not have remote computerised meter-reading equipment. In simple terms, in New South Wales, State Water and the Department of Water and Energy would potentially need to change the electronic water meters to manual meters and then send their meter-reading people into the irrigation district, which would be 20 to 30 kilometres away. The meter reader would need to read perhaps just a handful of meters, and DWE would be required to give approvals for transfers with no knowledge of the potential infrastructure or environmental impacts of those decisions. There is no obligation under the New South Wales Water Act on State Water or DWE to accept irrigators who have transformed their entitlements, as the cost would in many cases be prohibitive. These irrigators would no longer be on the irrigation corporation register, yet potentially they would be without state register services. New South Wales does not have the resources at this point to service its existing customer base. In some cases growers did not get a bill for three years due to problems with the state meter-reading and billing system.

The irrigation corporation members originally transformed their entitlements from state entitlements to the bulk licence as part of an incorporation of the corporations. Why would they transform them back again? Pioneer Valley Water Board irrigators in Queensland have voluntarily leased their individual entitlements to Pioneer Valley Water Co-operative as the first stage of getting them off the Queensland state register. If an irrigator were dissatisfied with the state government approval process and the state register, possibly because of the long delays in the trading approval process, would they be allowed to transfer onto another register and approval process? They had done this in the first instance when the corporation was established, and this would seem fair, and the policy would then be consistent and unbiased.

The Water Amendment Bill 2008 is a major step forward in the management of the Murray-Darling Basin. However, the government must seek to be inclusive of those 50 to 60 per cent of Murray-Darling Basin irrigators that are not members of government owned schemes. For too long policy makers have sought to exclude them from the decision-making process and taken the opportunity to disadvantage grower owned schemes in the marketplace. The government needs to use this opportunity to ensure that all irrigators are treated fairly and consistently. On that basis, I support the amendments and recommendations proposed by the shadow minister.

Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the Water Amendment Bill 2008. The bill is to amend the Water Act 2007 and give effect to the intergovernmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform, signed by the Prime Minister and the first ministers of each of the basin states—New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland—and of the Australian Capital Territory on 3 July 2008 at a meeting of the Council of Australian Governments. In particular, this bill enables the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to be brought together as a single entity known as the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. This will ensure that the Basin Plan process can address the provision of water for critical human needs. The bill also strengthens the role of the ACCC.

Costings for the measures under the Water for the Future program were agreed by the Commonwealth government in April 2008, to an overall amount of $12.9 billion over 10 years. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority will retain the fees and charges, if any, that it collects for cost recovery purposes. Further, the bill sets out additional responsibilities of the Commonwealth in relation to the reductions in water availability. These costs, when they are determined, will be mitigated by the Water for the Future program. Total funding for Water for the Future for the four years from 2008-09 to 2011-12 is $6.5 billion.

The Water Amendment Bill 2008 implements the intergovernmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform, which was signed by the Prime Minister and the first ministers on 3 July 2008, as I have already said. The bill relies on the Commonwealth’s constitutional powers and a referral of powers to the Commonwealth by New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia to enact certain measures. Let us have a look at some of these measures in a little bit more detail. Firstly, there is the transfer of the current powers and functions of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, as set out in the former Murray-Darling Basin Agreement, to the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority. There is the strengthening of the role of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission by extending the application of the water market rules and the water charges rules. Finally, there is the enabling of the Basin Plan to provide for critical human water needs.

The intergovernmental agreement and the bill were prepared by a working group of Commonwealth and basin state officials. Stakeholders were extensively consulted on the development of the agreement, including during two briefing sessions held in each of the basin states. Further consultation with key national stakeholders was held prior to the finalisation of the agreement. Stakeholders were not specifically consulted on the development of the bill, as the bill simply implements the policies and reforms agreed through the agreement.

The bill addresses the long-term management of the basin’s water resources and the approaches and mechanisms required to ensure that it is sustainably managed in the future. It will take time for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to develop and consult on the Basin Plan and for governments, irrigators and communities to adapt to the limits established in the plan. The Basin Plan will be the first of its kind, covering the basin as a whole and addressing its water resources in a single integrated fashion. The plan will commence in early 2011. The Basin Plan will be based on the best available science, taking into account anticipated climate change impacts on water availability and the watering requirements of the basin’s environmental assets. The plan will also need to consider socioeconomic impacts.

This bill goes to the heart of what is one of the most important basic needs that we have as a civilisation—that is, water. Water is a critical need and must be managed effectively, efficiently and sustainably. On the New South Wales Central Coast, where my electorate of Dobell is, we came quite close to experiencing a major water crisis, the worst in modern history in our region. At one stage our dams were nearly down to 10 per cent in their water supply. Thankfully, due to above-average rainfall recently and the community becoming far more water wise and water conservative, the situation has greatly improved. While it has improved, though, the levels are still only a little over 31 per cent, and the health of the Central Coast and its water supply is still in a great deal of danger. There are over 300,000 people who rely on the water supply on the Central Coast, and when your levels get close to 10 per cent you are very close to running out of water. Thousands of householders have taken offers from local councils, the state government and the federal government for rebates which allow them to fit a rainwater tank at little cost, or in some cases even no cost at all. Just because the drought on the Central Coast has eased somewhat, that does not mean we have forgotten how bad the conditions became not all that long ago, nor can we be complacent when our water supply is only 31 per cent. This is obviously a serious and critical situation.

The Rudd government, in the lead-up to the 2007 election, committed $80 million towards a major pipeline to drought-proof the Central Coast region for the future. This money will be used to cover the cost of what is known as the ‘missing link’ pipeline, joining the Central Coast’s major storage dam, Mangrove Creek Dam, which is not in a catchment area, to a smaller dam, the Mardi Dam near Wyong, which is in the catchment area and which, being smaller and in the catchment area, fills to overflowing. During times of rainfall and when the creeks and rivers are flowing, the pipeline will pump the extra water from the smaller dam to the larger structure, which will be used more for what it was originally intended for—longer term storage of water.

Water resources and how we must manage these resources sustainably and effectively are always very much in the minds of the good people of the Central Coast. They have learnt to be naturally conservative, and even when restrictions have been eased consumers still refrain from watering their gardens or washing the family car despite it now being legal to do so. So when it comes to the subject of sustainable management of water resources in the important region of the Murray-Darling Basin, the people of the Central Coast have no trouble relating to the issues and challenges facing their fellow Australians in that region. They have no trouble in having sympathy and understanding the extent of the problems, because we had a small taste of that on the Central Coast. Luckily for us on the Central Coast, with the Rudd government’s commitments the Central Coast water supply is close to being drought-proofed.

These challenges in terms of how we deal with sustainable water management are problems that are being faced by the Rudd government broadly. Our plan, Water for the Future, is the first ever nationwide plan that addresses both rural and urban water. It is a 10-year, $12.9 billion plan to secure the water supply for all Australians.

The plan is to address four key priority areas: taking action on climate change, using water wisely, securing water supplies and supporting healthy rivers. The plan includes $3.1 billion to purchase water in the Murray-Darling Basin to improve river health; $5.8 billion for irrigation infrastructure projects and to help basin communities make an early adjustment to a new cap; and a $1.5 billion investment in improving water security for our cities and towns, made up of a $1 billion Urban Water and Desalination Plan, a $250 million National Water Security Plan for Towns and Cities and a $250 million National Rainwater and Greywater Initiative.

While we have a definite plan to secure the nation’s water supply and management, we find that the opposition are again hopelessly divided on water. They demonstrate a complete lack of understanding and a complete lack of responsibility when it comes to making the hard choices needed to deal with the challenges in the Murray-Darling Basin. They failed in relation the Central Coast. My predecessor—and perhaps this is one of the reasons why he is no longer in this place—chose to try and be political with the water supply of the Central Coast, famously one day saying that he would sink the missing link. This missing link was something that the Labor Party committed to, to make sure that our area was drought-proofed. The situation in the Murray-Darling Basin means that there are no easy options, only hard decisions. The opposition need to stop playing the same political games that got the River Murray and the Lower Lakes into the mess that they are in at the moment.

Those on that side of the House spent 12 years in government doing nothing, and they are so cynical as to walk both banks of the stream when it comes to the River Murray. When they did discover the River Murray it was in the shadow of an election. Suddenly they realised that people actually care about the environment and care about what is happening to the river systems in Australia. In a desperate attempt at the last minute—at one minute to midnight—well after the damage had been done and after that tired old government had been here for 11½ years, they tried to cobble together an agreement.

When downstream in South Australia, the opposition give one message; when they are upstream, they give another. Upstream, in Victoria, they tell their constituents that the Lower Lakes cannot be saved and that the government should stop purchasing water entitlements. Then, in South Australia, they say that the government should purchase more water and that the Lower Lakes can be saved. They cannot continue to walk both sides of the stream. They reason they do that is that they do not believe that climate change is an issue. On climate change they are hopelessly divided, and that has been the problem and why in their 11½ years in government they were unable to deal with these important issues along with other issues relating to the environment.

The task of the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority will be a very ambitious one, given the time frame for the plan to be completed and the level of consultation required before the plan can be submitted for approval by the Commonwealth minister. As specified under the current Water Act 2007, existing state water resource plans will be respected until their expiry, providing certainty and time for irrigators and communities to adapt to the new arrangements. Once these have expired, the Basin Plan will be binding on the state water resource plans that follow.

Let me remind the House that this government does not support compulsory acquisition of water entitlements. We are committed to the purchase of water entitlements from willing sellers, through the market, at market prices. This is the most fair and equitable way of obtaining more water for the environment. Any move away from this market based approach towards compulsory acquisition of entitlements would be wrong. Such a move would also completely undermine the existing, hard-won level of cooperation in the implementation of water reforms and environmental water recovery processes that currently exist across governments, irrigators and local communities. It was this co-operation that led to the intergovernmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform.

Purchasing water entitlements from willing sellers allows irrigators to make their own business decisions. Irrigators can choose to sell part or all of their entitlements, allowing them to either leave the industry or reinvest the proceeds into their businesses. It is their choice as to the quantity of water entitlements needed to sustain their business. There is a further strong argument against compulsory acquisition: such a move would not provide any immediate significant additional water for the environment, given that there is so little water currently held in the Murray-Darling Basin storages. State shares of the water in the River Murray system are protected under the revised Murray-Darling Basin Agreement. Under that revised agreement, state shares can only be amended with the unanimous agreement of the ministerial council.

This bill defines critical human water needs as the need for a minimum amount of water, which can only reasonably be provided from basin water resources, required to meet: core human consumption requirements in urban and rural areas and those non-human consumption requirements that a failure to meet would cause prohibitively high social, economic or national security costs.

In order to provide greater transparency and certainty for communities reliant on water from the River Murray system in times of drought, the bill establishes a three-tiered system for sharing water. Tier 1 refers to periods of normal water availability, where the normal state water-sharing arrangements apply. Tier 2 refers to periods of low water availability. In this situation, the Basin Plan will provide arrangements to ensure that there is sufficient water available to meet critical human needs. Tier 3 refers to periods of extreme and unprecedented circumstances in which there is an extreme risk of failure in the ability to supply water for critical human needs. In this situation, the ministerial council will determine the sharing of the available water and contingency measures. Under these new arrangements, the Basin Plan will be required to establish trigger points at which water-sharing arrangements will move from one tier to another. States will continue to be responsible for determining the allocation of water for critical human needs within their state.

The bill also affects the operation of the ACCC. The Water Act 2007 establishes a role for the ACCC within the basin, advising on the development and enforcement of the water market and water charge rules. The Water Amendment Bill provides for a more uniform approach to regulation by extending the ACCC’s regulatory role by enabling the water market rules and the water charge rules to apply to all water service providers that charge regulated water charges and their transactions, not just those entities and transactions within the scope of the Commonwealth’s constitutional powers. The bill also enables the ACCC to determine or approve all regulated water charges in the basin, other than charges relating to urban water. It also enables the expansion of the ACCC’s regulatory role across the Murray-Darling Basin states as well as outside of the Murray-Darling Basin if an individual jurisdiction opts to be included.

Through the intergovernmental agreement, the Commonwealth agreed to take on and bring forward to an earlier date some basin state responsibilities for reductions in available water. This was agreed under the National Water Initiative. As part of the 2004 National Water Initiative governments agreed to a framework for sharing risks relating to reductions in water allocations. Under this framework governments are responsible for reductions attributable to changes in the government’s policy and, from 1 January 2015, responsible for reductions resulting from improvements in knowledge which is to be shared, with entitlement holders responsible for the first three per cent of the reduction and the Commonwealth and state governments jointly responsible for reductions exceeding three per cent of the relevant diversion limit. In the intergovernmental agreement the Commonwealth agreed to take responsibility for a basin state’s portion of responsibility for reductions in the long-term average sustainable diversion limit resulting from improvements in knowledge where the basin state enacts legislation adopting the National Water Initiative risk-sharing framework as modified by the agreement. The Commonwealth also agreed that it would commence this responsibility from the date on which the relevant transitional or interim water resource plan ceases to have effect. These changes are implemented in the Water Amendment Bill.

These changes will not affect the responsibilities of entitlement holders set out under the National Water Initiative relating to seasonal or long-term changes in climate or periodic natural events such as bushfires and drought, or the first three per cent of a reduction resulting from new knowledge. However, they will bring forward the rights of the entitlement holders in respect of new knowledge where the entitlement holder is in an area subject to an interim or transitional plan that ends before the beginning of 2015. Basin states will continue to be responsible for reductions attributable to changes in a state’s own government policies. The practice for referral legislation is that each of the four basin state parliaments must have passed referral legislation and this legislation must have received royal assent and have commenced before the Commonwealth passes the Water Amendment Bill.

The Water Amendment Bill 2008 is a balance of the competing interests of each of the parties to the agreement, and any amendment of the bill may lead to the agreement failing. The government considers that the intergovernmental agreement and the bill will give the government the capacity to meet its major objectives while leaving the day-to-day management of irrigation entitlements with the states. Amending the bill would have the effect of either potentially impacting on the validity of the referral or potentially jeopardising the referral altogether as the basin states may withdraw their reference.

On 23 September this year, the South Australian government introduced referral legislation into the House of Assembly. The second reading debate is scheduled for 14 October, with consideration by the Legislative Council on 28 October. On 23 September the New South Wales government introduced referral legislation into the Legislative Assembly. On 24 September the legislation was passed by the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. The New South Wales legislation received royal assent on 25 September 2008. The Queensland and Victorian parliaments introduced referring legislation on 7 October. We understand that consideration of these bills will take place over the next few weeks. The Queensland parliament is scheduled to consider the bill in the sitting week commencing 10 November and it is expected that the Victorian Legislative Council will also consider the bill in the next few weeks.

This is an important piece of legislation. It is legislation that demonstrates this government’s commitment to the Murray-Darling Basin, but it goes broader than that. This is legislation that shows the commitment of this government to making sure that we continue to work to make our river systems healthy. It is a commitment by the government to show that environmental issues are front and centre of what the government do, that they are given proper priority and that we are taking practical steps to make sure that these issues are addressed. This is important legislation that should be passed unamended and I commend it to the House.

Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise this evening to speak in this debate, if not to follow the member for Dobell who makes these breathtaking, all-embracing statements about how the current opposition when in government did nothing for 12 years. I thoroughly refute that for the nonsense it is. I will not go into detail on his speech because I think it was primarily sycophantic. So I rise to speak on the Water Amendment Bill 2008.

The Murray-Darling Basin is suffering a severe and extended drought. The five years to January 2007 were the driest on record in the basin. Basin inflows in 2006 were 40 per cent of the previous record low. The CSIRO has estimated that by 2020 average annual inflows could decline by about 15 per cent more. In 2007 the coalition, under John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull, developed a $10 billion National Plan for Water Security. While focusing on the Murray-Darling Basin, this $10 billion plan allowed for nationwide investment in Australia’s irrigation infrastructure and a nationwide program to improve on-farm irrigation technology, and in November 2007 the coalition made an election promise of $50 million to promote development in Northern Australia, including development of the Ord irrigation area.

Drought is not the only problem facing the Murray-Darling Basin, but it has underscored the problem of making the best use of our national water resources. Water in the basin is overallocated. The rainfall is highly variable. We cannot predict when it will rain, of course, and it may take many years, even decades, for the Murray-Darling Basin to have a secure water supply. The Murray-Darling Basin accounts for most, but by no means all, of the irrigated agricultural production in Australia. Northern Australia, in particular the Ord River irrigation area around Kununurra in Western Australia, can contribute to a solution to the Murray-Darling crisis.

The Ord irrigation area has a consistent water supply, arable soil, a favourable climate and enormous potential for expansion. Lake Argyle has a full capacity of 10,765 gigalitres, about 21 times the volume of Sydney Harbour, and a rainfall average of more than 800 millimetres a year, well above the 430 millimetres average for the area of the Murray-Darling Basin. Lake Argyle’s flood storage capacity in 2001 was 19,000 gigalitres. Today, at the height of the northern dry season, Lake Argyle has 9,102 gigalitres remaining in it. By contrast on 31 August, at the end of winter, there were 5,840 gigalitres, about 11 times the volume of Sydney Harbour, available in the larger storages of the entire Murray-Darling Basin.

There are about 1.5 million hectares of irrigated agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin. There are 15,000 hectares of irrigation in the Ord. At present the Ord has more than 50 per cent more water than the Murray-Darling but just one per cent of the irrigated area. Expansion of the Ord River scheme offers vast potential to increase the area of irrigated agriculture in Australia, boosting the supply of food, fibre and timber products for the Australian and export markets and as a side benefit providing economic and social benefits to the east Kimberley region.

Lake Argyle is the source for a hydropower scheme with a 30-megawatt capacity supplying power to an estimated 40,000 homes annually as well as the Argyle Diamond Mine. Ord irrigation uses water released for this hydropower scheme. At present the hydro releases exceed irrigation and environmental requirements by about two gigalitres per day. I will say that again in case anyone has missed the significance of that statement. The present hydro releases exceed irrigation and environmental requirements by about two gigalitres per day. That is going straight out to sea. It is about the same as the daily water requirement for Sydney and Perth combined.

I draw your attention to the looming world food crisis. The world population is growing but crop yields are affected by drought, rising energy costs, alternative land use and other issues which have generated an increasing demand for food. Prices for basic foods are escalating around the world. In April the President of the World Bank warned that 33 nations are at risk of social unrest due to rising food prices. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations says that world cereal stocks will be at their lowest this year since 1982. Corn, rice and wheat are among some of the staples reaching record prices. This growing food crisis is aggravated by a trend of increasing land use for biofuels such as corn.

Expansion of agriculture in the Ord can help to meet the food crisis both in Australia and internationally. The Ord offers flexibility because its arable land and consistent water supply mean farmers can grow a large range of food, fibre and timber crops. These favourable conditions mean farmers are able to adapt and change crops annually in response to national and world markets. For example, last year sugar cane accounted for 31 per cent of all crops grown in the Ord River irrigation area; this year there is none. This flexibility provides market insulation for farmers contributing to the economic security of the wider community.

The Ord River irrigation area is suitable to grow many crops which are currently in high demand worldwide, including established crops such as maize and rice as well as new crops such as chia. Many in the House will not be aware of this product but it was known as the favourite energy source and health food of the Aztecs—a little while ago. The Ord can grow crops that are in demand because cropping land elsewhere has been given over to biofuels. It can also grow biofuel crops freeing up land elsewhere for food crops. The Ord offers an excellent opportunity to pursue the potential of GM technology with crops such as cotton as well as rice and other grains. Research and field trials show very good results for GM cotton. The transfer of part of current Australian cotton production to the Ord would free up water for further south in the Murray-Darling Basin.

GM cotton trials carried out by the cooperative research centre at Kununurra have produced high yields with low insecticide applications and comparatively low water use. GM cotton crops in Kununurra trials have achieved yields above the Australian average and more than twice the world average bales per hectare. According to trial data from Kununurra, GM cotton uses less water than other crops such as citrus, maize, mango, and leucaena pasture. Based on trial results, the hypothetical gross margins of growing GM cotton at Kununurra have been estimated at up to five times the margins offered by other crops. Other new research can benefit the Ord. Recent research into cold treatment protocols for Japan may open up citrus exports from the Ord to Asia.

The Ord agricultural industry has the knowledge, skills, experience, and resources in place for successful expansion. It has a guaranteed water supply and crop flexibility, which assures high yields and provides market insulation. The water storage of Lake Argyle offers enormous opportunity for agricultural expansion. The Ord at present is experiencing a land squeeze, with an increasing area being given over to forestry and less to food and fibre crops. The Ord is also suffering because it cannot develop economies of scale. The sugar cane industry was destroyed last year when the mill owner gave up waiting for the Ord expansion to go ahead and pulled out. Growers of other crops say they need to be able to expand or they will lose market share as the markets develop.

Chia, the new crop for the Ord, is one crop with the potential of a growing international market. However, growers say if they cannot expand to meet this growing market they will lose out to other countries. This is an exciting new export crop with huge potential for Australia that we do not want to lose.

Kununurra is a town that has grown up around the development of the Ord and now has around 6,000 people, with about 7,300 in the overall region. Expansion of Ord scheme will drive regional development. It will expand the productive capacity of the region. Agricultural expansion will drive the regional economy and regional development. It will attract new residents and families and create wealth for new families. They will be able to start small and develop with cash crops, develop their own land and gradually build up the farms and involve the whole family in value-adding.

Stage 2 of the Ord overcomes problems of the past associated with the lack of economy of scale—for example, with sugar cane. Jobs in construction and the expansion of agriculture would create up to 700 permanent jobs and increase the value of annual production almost immediately to $227 million. In 2006-07 the dollar value of production was about $48 million from agriculture, and $39 million was expected from timber.

Expansion of the Ord scheme will drive the development of Kununurra, including the development of the Kununurra airport, which needs to be extended to provide for economic airfreight into South-East Asia and to south-eastern Australia for consumption. There is also a necessity for the expansion of the port of Wyndham, which will in turn attract more trade. As the region grows on the back of this development, it will attract more people to the region, putting more kids into the Kununurra District High School. We need that economy of scale. We need to get past that critical mass.

When the Ord River scheme was developed 40 years ago, it was co-funded by the Western Australian and federal governments. It was recognised at the time by the late Sir Charles Court as being a great opportunity, and during those 40 years it has suffered a great deal. It has suffered drawbacks primarily through petulance and a lack of knowledge of how to grow products in the Ord River area. That lack of experience is now gone. The research is there. The future is looking great. If only the federal government had the confidence to put some funds into it.

The Ord expansion is a priority for the new Western Australian government and is being championed by WA Minister for Regional Development Brendon Grylls in no small way. He has committed $200 million of funding over four years. Mr Grylls says this funding for the Ord is not negotiable. He has made the Ord expansion a priority for the new WA government. It is certainly time that the Rudd government saw the opportunities in the Ord, not just for the immediate region but for all Australians. The federal government has had an opportunity to share this vision and contribute to the expansion of the Ord and the many benefits that will follow.

The Murray-Darling strategy developed by the Howard government could have assisted with advancing the prosperity of Australia with Ord stage 2. My question is: will this amendment bill that we debate this evening do the same? Will the Rudd government open their eyes and recognise what is in fact a great future for all Australians to be found in the development of the Ord River area? My question is: will this bill provide hope for residents of the Kununurra region that they will see some of the money that was originally put aside in the product that was developed by Mr Turnbull and Mr Howard when we were in government? Will this strategy that has been developed now provide the same opportunities to give some hope and some heart to the current population of Kununurra? Will it provide assistance for those who are in high land price areas in parts of the Murray-Darling Basin to go to the East Kimberley region of Western Australia and take up and develop land to make a future for themselves, their families and all of Australia?

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the Water Amendment Bill 2008, which amends the Water Act 2007 and gives effect to the intergovernmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform, which was signed by the Prime Minister and the first ministers of each of the basin states—that is, the states of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland—and the Australian Capital Territory on 3 July at a meeting of the Council of Australian Governments. In particular, the bill brings the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission together as a single institution, to be known as the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. It establishes a Commonwealth-state water management partnership. It strengthens the role of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in regulating the water market and water-charging rules within the basin and provides arrangements for critical human water needs.

We face two of the most significant and challenging events that we have faced in decades and, for some of us, possibly that we will face in our lifetimes. I am referring to the great challenge of climate change and the collapse of the financial markets across the world, both with consequences far beyond what is immediately apparent—both, however, with many common characteristics. The collapse of the financial markets and the collapse of the environment that we had become so dependent on are both largely caused by human greed. We are living beyond our means financially and beyond what the current environment can sustain, pushed along by an out-of-control capitalist economy.

Governments around the world have effectively handed over control of the economy and control of the environment to the global multinationals, leaving the democratically elected governments with the responsibility of managing the social consequences and the economic catastrophes such as those we are presently experiencing. What is equally the case is that, in respect of both the environment and the financial markets, those consequences were both predictable and foreseen by many, yet governments for too long ignored the warnings and sidestepped their responsibilities because they placed short-term political survival ahead of good governance.

The mismanagement of the River Murray draws together the consequences of government inaction, human greed and climate change. Thousands of native trees, horticultural trees and large areas of wetlands are now dead. One has only to look at the Lower Lakes in South Australia to see the devastating effects it has had down there—and might I say I certainly welcome the Rudd government’s commitment of $326 million for the Lower Lakes.

The river’s productive capability has plummeted, threatening both Australia’s export capacity and food security. Hundreds of small businesses along the Murray are struggling to survive, with many already having closed their doors, and farmers are being forced off the land, leaving the work they know and understand. Family breakdowns and even suicide are occurring far too often among rural communities and certainly in communities along the Murray.

Let me address the issues of government inaction, greed and climate change separately. I will begin with climate change. Climate change has caused a noticeable change in rainfall patterns across Australia, with the Murray-Darling Basin catchment area experiencing a marked decline in rainfall in recent years. In particular, in the last two years for which figures are available, inflows have been about 50 per cent of the previous lowest on record. Winter inflows this year were about 670 gigalitres or the fifth lowest winter inflows on record. I quote an article written by Asa Wahlquist in the Australian on 11 October relating to the drought we are experiencing:

The long drought affecting southern Australia is officially the worst on record.

Bureau of Meteorology head of climate analysis David Jones said the 12-year drought that was devastating southwest Western Australian, southeast South Australia, Victoria and northern Tasmania was ‘ very severe and without historical precedent’.

…            …            …

Inflows into the Murray system have been critically low, with new records continuing to be set. Inflows in the two years to the end of August were just half the previous record low, set in 1943 to 1945. Storages in the Murray-Darling are now at 28 per cent.

The next part of the quote is very interesting because it is so significant:

The Australian Alps, in north-eastern Victoria and southern NSW, have recorded their lowest three-year rainfall on record. This area is critical to the Murray River. It covers less than 1.5 per cent of the catchment, but on average provides 39 per cent of the water flowing down the Murray River.

These figures do not simply reflect normal cycles in weather patterns but, based on available scientific evidence, are more likely to reflect what we can expect in future. The quantities of water captured and stored in the Murray-Darling Basin in recent decades and which we have come to rely on will simply not be there in the future if present rainfall forecasts are correct.

Let me turn to the impact of overdevelopment and the demise of the Murray-Darling system. In recent decades we have seen the expansion by tens of thousands of acres of the agricultural area under irrigation in the Murray-Darling Basin. The expansion was essentially driven by wealthy capitalists and cashed-up managed investment funds schemes that invested in cotton, rice and huge vineyard plantations. Their interest was driven by profits or tax minimisation with little regard to the environment or the economic impact on smaller landowners. To compound the matter further, they set up their own water catchment schemes, interfering with the water inflows into the Murray-Darling system and depriving farmers further down the river of the water they have come to depend on to survive.

In 2005-06, 7,720 gigalitres of water was used in the Murray-Darling Basin for agricultural purposes. Of that, 36 per cent went to rice or cotton. Figures for the following year show that, in respect of cotton and rice, there has been a notable decrease in water allocated. In fact, for cotton production the water allocation has almost halved and with respect to rice it has gone down from 1,250 gigalitres in the year 2005-06 to 239 gigalitres in the year 2006-07. I did not have figures for the last year but I expect that decline would have continued in those two years. Those figures are interesting because the large investors created an oversupply of produce which, in turn, brought down prices and made it even more difficult for struggling small landowners to survive. In the end, those wealthy landowners became victims of their own greed, with properties like Toorale being placed on the market and questions being asked about the future of Cubbie Station.

I now turn to the action, negligence and incompetence of governments in recent decades. When it comes to inaction, negligence and incompetence and the Murray-Darling Basin, the Howard government stands condemned. In respect of the Murray River, I want to quote something said in this House in 1981 by the then member for Hawker, Ralph Jacobi:

What is done to one part of the river clearly affects conditions elsewhere, yet this elementary fact has been ignored by State and local authorities for more than 100 years. The rapid decline of the river in its lower reaches after 80 years of federation is testimony to the failure to understand the interactions of the river on a basin-wide basis.

He also said:

Much has been said about salinity, silting, pollution and other river problems, but it is extraordinary and scandalous that so little research into the cause, nature and effects of these problems is undertaken. After 100 years of thoughtless exploitation, the viability of the River Murray system as a resource is in jeopardy. Honourable members will recall that recently it even ceased flowing to the sea. If present trends continue, it is only a matter of years—or even less if there is prolonged drought—before this river and its tributaries, which supply most of South Australia and many thousands of people in New South Wales and Victoria with domestic water, become not merely unpleasant, but quite undrinkable, and practically useless for irrigation.

That speech was made over 26 years ago and 26 years later you could reproduce those words because they are as true today as they were then. What is more damning is that nothing was done in the interim. In more recent years, when the water issues of the Murray-Darling Basin were becoming critical, the Howard government blamed the state governments. It was a typical tactic of the Howard government to shift the blame on to the states. The reality, however, is that the former federal government, the Howard government, had an equal responsibility in the management of the Murray, but the Howard government did not act because the Liberal and National Party members could not agree among themselves on responsible management strategy for the Murray and it was easy politics to blame the states. If we look at the comments of members on the opposite side from across Australia, we keep getting conflicting views about what is a sensible strategy to manage the Murray. Other speakers have made reference to that, and I certainly will not go on about it right here and now.

When the Murray became an election issue in the lead-up to the 2007 election, the Howard government found its new-found responsibility and quickly hatched a $10 billion election plan without even running it past Treasury. Like the global financial crisis, securing Australia’s water supplies transcends party politics and transcends state politics. Water is not a luxury and it is not an option; it is essential to life, to our food production, to our economy and to the environment.

Over recent months I have spoken to farmers along the Murray in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales. My last conversation was only on Saturday night. I have been down to the Lower Lakes in South Australia and attended a rally there. I have listened to the pleas of literally hundreds of people who have raised their individual concerns about water security with me.

The $12.9 billion water plan put forward by the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, is a sensible long-term management plan for Australia’s water supplies and particularly for the Murray-Darling system. Securing the water needs of the Murray-Darling Basin and maintaining the productive capacity are dependent on essentially two things: firstly, reducing the amount of water being extracted—and we can do that by improving the efficiency of irrigation methods, bearing in mind that at the moment 1,500 gigalitres a year are lost through evaporation—and reducing the area under plantation; and, secondly, increasing the inflows into the Murray, which could be done by reducing the amount of water that is diverted from the Murray and prevented from reaching the Murray. Diverting water from other catchments into the Murray could also be considered. Lastly, we could always hope for more rain. Sadly, the available scientific data tells us that additional rainfall is unlikely and the situation may even worsen. That is the option we have no control over. However, we do have control over all the other options.

I want to discuss some of those matters and begin by addressing the question of reducing the amount of water being extracted. The most effective method of achieving that objective is to install more efficient water distribution and irrigation systems. Open channel irrigation systems are totally inefficient and waste precious water. Of course, installing new pipelines and farm irrigation systems will not happen overnight, so buying back water allocations from willing sellers needs to occur as an interim measure. In the long term, however, we should endeavour to maintain as much of the Murray-Darling Basin food bowl as possible because of the basin’s food security and economic value.

We should also aim to reduce the reliance of urban communities and cities on the Murray. Desalination, water harvesting, damming and wetland projects in urban water run-off areas should all be considered. If you need a good example of what is possible in that regard, you only have to look at what has been achieved in the city of Salisbury over the past 30 years. Through the establishment of both dams and some 50 wetlands located throughout the city, Salisbury Council has developed a system capable of harvesting and reusing most of the rainwater that falls within the catchment area. Water that is not immediately required is stored in underground aquifers and extracted when required later on. This is often referred to as ‘stormwater harvesting’. The name itself is a misnomer because in times of heavy downpours much of that water does escape. That is the time when you cannot catch it all. The system in Salisbury currently enables that community to harvest, clean, store and reuse billions of litres of water each year.

I welcome Minister Penny Wong’s announcement only last week of an additional $6.5 million towards the Waterproofing Northern Adelaide project, which includes work in the cities of Tea Tree Gully, Salisbury and Playford. A joint entity has been established between those three cities to manage the water-harvesting work that is currently taking place.

The wetlands in Salisbury were complemented with an $8 million dam at Cobbler Creek and a series of smaller dams so that stormwater could be held back at times of heavy downpours and then gradually released into the wetlands. Fortunately, most of their annual rainfall comes down in the form of steady rain and the system is able to collect it.

Of course, evaporation and soakage losses in the shallow wetlands are quite considerable. That is why it is misleading to suggest that all of the water that runs through a catchment area—whether in Salisbury or elsewhere—could be reused through these systems. It may be collected, but it will never all be available for reuse. It is wrong to say that places like Adelaide could source all of their additional water requirements through constructing wetlands. As someone who has been associated with the city of Salisbury wetlands from their inception some 30 years ago, I find it amusing when I hear commentary from the new-found self-proclaimed experts, including some politicians, who have emerged in the past year when it comes to the topic of wetlands.

Assisting farmers to move off the land should be a measure of last resort. Our priority should be to assist them to remain on their farms and to remain viable. The Murray-Darling Basin accounts for about 40 per cent of Australia’s agricultural production and agricultural industry. The farming communities in the Murray-Darling Basin not only contribute to our export income but sustain millions of dollars of economic activity in each of the towns along the Murray. Many of these towns will simply die if more farmers leave the land. Where will those people go? They will go into the cities and coastal towns, which are already bursting at the seams and in need of billions of dollars of infrastructure and with housing at unaffordable prices. It is not in the long-term national interest to abandon billions of dollars of agricultural infrastructure and country towns, nor is it in our interest to become dependent on imported food products, even if they are cheaper, when we have no control over how those products are grown and for how long we will continue to be supplied. That is why any assessment of diverting waters from other catchment areas should never be dismissed.

One objection I hear to water diversion schemes is the environmental impact to the coastline where the water is currently discharging into. I ask those people: what about the environmental damage to the Murray-Darling Basin if it dies, as we are seeing with the Lower Lakes? Furthermore, those who raise the environmental objections are generally the same people who advocate water-harvesting and reuse schemes. Urban water-harvesting schemes also prevent water from discharging into the coastline but with the net result being a healthier coastline because the highly polluted waters no longer enter those coastal waters.

I also have real concerns with the water-trading arrangements that have resulted in recent years. Smaller farmers who have no cash reserves and possibly have a mortgage to pay off simply cannot afford to pay for additional water to get them through while the water restrictions are in place. The risk of crop failure or a fall in market prices for their commodity makes borrowing additional money to grow their crop far too risky. I believe that all water buying and reallocation should be controlled by the new water authority and not simply left to market forces.

Debate interrupted.