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

I rise this evening to talk about the controversial Guide to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which was released by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority last month. The release of this guide is a slap in the face to the many farmers and communities who so often feel that they are not adequately supported, or consulted, on this issue by their state and federal Labor governments. Even the chair of the MDBA admits the guide is lacking and that the socioeconomic impacts the plan would have on the basin communities need more investigation. They have even admitted that their predicted economic impact on the communities of $1.1 billion and job losses of up to 800 are grossly underestimated.

This Labor government, which during the election campaign said they would accept the report in its entirety, have performed some impressive acrobatic tricks to avoid any accountability for this report. A socioeconomic analysis and a parliamentary inquiry into the plan have both been put up as white flags. Recently in my electorate there were three community information sessions—one in Dalby, one in Goondiwindi and the other in St George. I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Dalby and Goondiwindi sessions. I must give credit to those employees of the MDBA who are in the heat of a very intense battle and are sometimes wrongly vilified. But people are obviously quite angry and very concerned, and this was certainly apparent when I attended the Dalby and Goondiwindi meetings. More than 1,200 people attended those three meetings—farmers, families, small businesses, bankers and agricultural suppliers. My state LNP members were there, and Nationals from over the border. The people obvious by their not attending these meetings were state and federal Labor members of parliament.

The Murray-Darling Basin is home to over two million people. It produces 40 per cent of the nation’s food—the food that we so often take for granted. The basin is an important socioeconomic face of our nation. The coalition in government started the process of important reform for the Murray-Darling Basin. We put aside $10 billion and drew up a 10-point plan, which Labor seems to have lost. Our plan was based not on buybacks and shutting down irrigator communities but on providing the support necessary to ensure basin communities are able to produce more food with less water. During the election campaign we released a policy that called for a full socioeconomic study of the impacts of basin reform, outlined a plan to get water saving infrastructure back on track proposed more funding for community adjustment and established a fund to identify and kick-start new projects for sustainable water use.

For Australia to get really serious about re-engineering the basin, we need to start thinking of the basin not as one system but as two completely separate river systems—the Murray River system, which is south of Menindee Lakes, and the Darling River system, which runs through NSW north of Menindee Lakes. The reason that we should begin to separate how we treat these two systems is because the ecosystems which contribute to these two rivers are completely different. The Darling River, which begins and ends in NSW but is fed by tributaries in Queensland, particularly in my electorate of Maranoa receives its water from irregular but intense water flows, from flooding and tropical weather storms. The Murray River gets much of its water from regular winter rainfall patterns, including melting snow, and flow events continue for longer. In fact, there are many varied ecosystems within each river system. For example, the average annual rainfall at the headwater of the Warrego River is 28 inches but around Cunnamulla it is around 15 inches—yet we are still talking about the same river system. This shows just how difficult it is to assign on overarching plan to an entire basin which spreads across one-seventh of Australia’s land mass.

What this plan, if implemented, would mean for the future of the basin is well understood at a community level. What happens in the Queensland area of the basin is a world away from what happens in Victoria. The Murray does not flow back to Queensland—water does not run up hill. Therefore, to enable the proposed Basin Plan to be more relevant to the communities in the northern regions of the basin and within my electorate of Maranoa, I believe that each system requires its own plan tailored to address the challenges experienced in these two ecologically and hydrologically different regions. (Time expired)