Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I will not take much time from the Main Committee or from my colleague the member for Riverina, who was on the Standing Committee on Regional Australia with me, as were you Madam Deputy Speaker Livermore. It was an excellent group of colleagues from right across the political spectrum, who were intimately involved with the basin because it affects their communities. It was a very constructive and positive exercise, and there was a contribution from everyone. To have arrived at a consensus on what is nothing short of a very contentious environment for this report speaks volumes for the character and quality of the people on the committee. I am very honoured and privileged to have served with them. The chair, Tony Windsor, did a fantastic job; I was very pleased to be his deputy chair.

The report of which we are taking consideration, Of drought and flooding rainsan excellent title if I say so myself—is the result of the committee's inquiry into the impact of the guide to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan—I will come to it in a moment. What is really worth reiterating for the record is the importance of the Murray-Darling Basin to Australia. That will point towards why people were and are significantly affected by the earlier draft plan and why they reacted as they did in many ways. This reaction to the basin plan has contributed to lessons that have been learnt on the absolute importance of the intermix between communities, the product of those communities and the environment. It has contributed to the appreciation that one without the others has very serious consequences for this nation, not just for the happiness and wellbeing of communities, but also, very importantly, for the gross domestic product of this nation. For example, the gross value of agricultural production as determined between 2008 and 2009 was $42 billion, or two per cent of GDP—32 per cent of this contributed $14.6 billion to the basin economy itself. The gross regional product of the basin was approximately $59 billion, or about eight per cent of Australia's GDP.

The basin itself is home to some 2.1 million people, and a further 1.3 million people depend on its water supply. That is a significant proportion of Australia's population and, most significantly, of the productive capacity of the region in terms of its primary industry—of its growing, processing and further value adding. For instance, 90 per cent of Australia's cotton is grown in the area, 56 per cent of its grapes, 42 per cent of its nuts, and 32 per cent of the nation's dairy produce. The vast majority of the land use in the basin—84 per cent—is dedicated to agriculture yet the majority of the population live in urban centres. The basin covers something like one million square kilometres of south-east Australia and contains 23 river valleys. That gives you some idea of the extent of the geography, the importance of the economic impact and the significance of the social impact in the context of the inquiry. I have to say that the inquiry's essential terms of reference were to look at the triple bottom line in terms of the draft plan—that is, the environment, the society and its communities, and the economic impact.

Our travels were vast. I have to acknowledge the member for Riverina; I think he attended every meeting in every river valley. He did a fantastic job and it speaks volumes for his dedication and willingness to arrive at some form of solution. I congratulate him, as I congratulate you, Deputy Speaker Livermore, for the extensive contribution that you made.

We saw very disturbing pictures on the television of people burning books; I hate seeing the burning of books. It conjures up terrible things. But that expressed an absolute anger in communities who felt that they were not listened to. I do not need to tell you, colleagues, that one of the major criticisms that is directed at us—sometimes pretty unfairly—and at bureaucracies and agencies is that we go about processes and do not really listen actively and try to take on board what people are saying. Although what they are saying might not fit the current economic modelling and whatever, we need to listen to people who have an extensive anchorage in the community and who know about the issues that they are dealing with

Wherever we went in the basin we found that people wanted a basin plan. They wanted it to work. They wanted it to be comprehensive. They wanted certainty, both for their communities and for their environment. So, for instance, we had Matt Linnegar of the National Farmers Federation expressing a view—it is on page 441 of our report—'Do we need a basin plan as such? …Yes, we do, but not the one that was delivered in the guide.' I think that that was a common message that came from the communities where we went.

This inquiry did listen. Not everything in this report meets the absolute wishes of my government nor, indeed, I reckon, the wishes of some of the policy makers on the other side. But we did listen, and our recommendations were crafted on what we heard by listening—not just to people who may have disregarded the guide or did not want to know about it but to people who were intimately involved in their communities, knew their areas and knew the relationship between the river, their communities and what they produced there. This inquiry listened to those people and crafted the recommendations in the report based on what we regarded as the commonsense logic and rationale of the comments that were made to us. I do not think I am being unfair in summing it up as such.

It is great to have here the member for Makin, who was another significant contributor to this committee, particularly with his insights into South Australia. So I thank him very much for his commentary.

The report manifests what we heard and gives recommendations based on that. I know that we are going to have controversy over some of our recommendations in regard to governance but what we are really trying to achieve with our recommendations about governance is the ability to significantly monitor the data that is available so that it can be used in a way that it is relevant—it is not lost in bureaucracy and people can make decisions based on firm and confirmed data. One of the other major recommendations of this report is a re-engagement of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority with its stakeholders, and that includes not just the communities but also the state governments involved. One of the major criticisms received from the state governments was that in actual fact their contribution and their data were either interpreted in strange ways which they were not able to get an intelligible response to or ignored.

I am pleased to say that this report has received a positive response both from the communities we visited and also our own government. But also, and importantly, the Murray-Darling Authority itself has gone through a major restructuring, particularly under its chair, Craig Knowles. I note both with pleasure and interest that the authority, although it has extended its report—and I know that creates angst amongst communities, because they are still not sure of the certainty that they require—has had a much more consultative process and that the stakeholders themselves, particularly state governments, are having much more of an input in this. I congratulate everyone involved on the committee. I congratulate the authority for now taking on board many of the things recommended here and certainly the sentiment of this report. Thank you.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The comprehensive bipartisan report Of drought and flooding rains: inquiry into the impact of the Guide to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was welcomed, understandably so, by all those who want Australian farmers to continue to grow the food to feed, and fibre to clothe, our nation and its people. The key word in my opening sentence was 'bipartisan'. The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia comprises eight members of parliament; four supplementary members were added for the purposes of this inquiry. The inquiry committee comprised six Labor MPs, four Liberals, the Independent member for New England as chair and me, a National.

Given that the 253-page report was unanimously agreed to by committee members, it is now crucial, essential and obligatory that the federal government adopt the 21 recommendations contained therein. Anything less would be an insult to the bipartisan outcome of eight months of hard work by committee members, who drove and flew many thousands of kilometres, up hill and down dale, through four states to listen to people who shared their views on how to achieve healthy rivers while at the same time preserving regional communities. The people have spoken. People from all walks of life—irrigation farmers, business people, mayors, environmentalists, scientists, clergy—you name a profession and we heard from someone in that occupation. We heard heartfelt words from a brave little girl and we heard from those in the twilight of their lives—those who have seen more than the average numbers of droughts and flooding rains. We listened, and Hansard dutifully recorded, what they all had to say. The committee's dedicated secretariat then drilled down into all the detail provided and, with considerable input from members, came up with a draft document which was then, meeting after meeting, line by line, finetuned into this report. It was not easy to reach consensus. It took hours of robust debate, argument and sometimes nitpicking to reach agreement. But at the end it was agreed to. It was accepted by all committee members. Bipartisanship was achieved.

I mentioned earlier that the committee had a multiparty membership. Members came from electorates representing the eastern mainland states, with four from New South Wales, four from Victoria, one from Queensland; and the deputy chair hails from Tasmania. Significantly, the committee also included two MPs from South Australia—appropriately, one from each side of the political divide. Therefore, communities from the top of the basin to the Murray mouth were represented. Therefore, the views of all concerned were invited, listened to, heeded and reported. Therefore, the government now has a duty to accept the people's verdict, the regional Australia committee's findings and implement the recommendations. The government needs to do this forthwith—no deliberating, no delay, no stalling. Do it now. Put in place the 21 recommendations. This is too important to put off.

Chief among the recommendations is the immediate halt to the government's non-strategic, haphazard buybacks and the necessity to take a more targeted approach to water buybacks which prioritises the lowest possible impact. This government has generated so much uncertainty by continuing to buy water from desperate sellers rather than willing sellers.

Another important recommendation focuses on greater investment in on- and off-farm water savings projects. There was $5.8 billion set aside by the former coalition government in the 2007 Water Act for infrastructure projects, but up until now only $68 million of this has been spent which has actually delivered water—21 gigalitres—into the basin, whereas federal Labor has disgracefully and unjustly spent $1.5 billion on water buybacks. The Prime Minister talks of a patchwork economy. Non-strategic water buybacks lead to a patchwork irrigation community—the dreaded so-called Swiss cheese effect.

It is a true test of this government, which simply has to follow the advice so carefully and diligently constructed for it by a committee headed by an MP whose vote is integral to Labor retaining power. If federal Labor ignores the recommendations of the committee headed by the Independent member for New England then how could he possibly continue to support this minority government? He keeps the Prime Minister in the Lodge. She now needs to provide regional communities within the Murray-Darling Basin with certainty by agreeing to what is being called the Windsor report. If the Prime Minister fails to do so, she will be failing regional Australia. She will be failing everyone who testified at the 12 regional hearings. She will be failing all those who contributed the 643 submissions and 85 supplementary submissions, and she will be failing the man who shored up her tenuous and illegitimate hold on the top job after the hung parliament last year. I hope the Prime Minister realises this. The consequences of doing nothing will be dire. They will be dire for people in the Murray-Darling Basin and they ought to be dire for the Prime Minister if she lets down the member for New England, whose reputation is at stake with what happens to this report.

I commend the committee members for the effort and knowledge they contributed to bring about this report. It was not an easy task. I especially compliment the member for New England for his professionalism in leading the committee, particularly since he came into the role at a heated and difficult time.

Had it not been for the passion and pride shown by those who live and work in the Coleambally and Murrumbidgee irrigation areas in my electorate, the water debate would certainly, I have no doubt, have headed in a different direction. More than 7,000 locals turned up at the 14 October Murray-Darling Basin Authority public rally at Griffith's Yoogali Club. They shouted, they protested and they burned copies of the guide. They were angry, frustrated and demanded answers. They had every reason to feel the way they did. There had been no consultation by the government or the MDBA prior to the 8 October release of the original guide—a flawed document if ever there was one. Riverina people told the MDBA, then headed by Mike Taylor, who ran the meeting, that they were not going to sit back and watch an independent authority, the government or anyone else destroy their communities with an ill-conceived guide which returned too much water to the environment without proper scientific validation or justification. They were not going to let it happen then and they will not let it happen in the future either, let me assure you. If the government lets the opportunity of the Windsor report slip from its grasp, if the MDBA's again delayed draft does not measure up to what its new chairman, Craig Knowles, has promised and if this government legislates a final plan which in any way compromises Australia's ability to feed itself then the protest rally which will result at this place will make the Griffith MDBA rally look like a parish picnic in the park.

Be warned: people in regional Australia are fed up with being told what to do and how to live their lives by a Labor government beholden to the unrepresentative swill that is the Greens. The Greens stood for 150 lower house seats at the 21 August election and won just one. That does not give them a mandate to dictate to this parliament what should and should not happen in any water reform. The Greens hold nine out of 76 Senate seats. They do not, as their leader, Bob Brown, would like to have us all think, have control of this country. The coalition is often accused by those on the other side of trying to wreck everything. If ever a party had an agenda to do that, it is the Greens.

The first and most important job this nation has is to feed its people. You cannot do that by taking away the ability, requirement and right of farmers to grow food. You cannot do that by sending all the water down the river in volumes as demanded by the Greens and their loopy environmental friends, including the Wentworth group, such that regional towns would be permanently underwater and such that the flora and fauna in precious iconic sites would be drowned. People need to be reasonable, sensible, fair dinkum, pro-Australian.

The Australian Farm Institute says that every Griffith farmer feeds 150 Australians and 450 foreigners every year. How on earth will they be able to fulfil that role if they do not have the water to grow food? Within hours of the fiery Griffith meeting ending, the government had tasked the new regional Australia committee with conducting an inquiry into the impact of the guide to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. If the government does the right thing and accepts the Windsor report, then the people of the Riverina can rightly take much of the credit for saving this nation's water situation.

The Riverina is the food basket of this great nation. Next year my region will celebrate a centenary of irrigation. What a wonderful milestone—a hundred years of service to Australia; 10 decades of producing the world's finest food.

During the many hours of evidence heard by our committee, one of the most compelling statements came from Coleambally Irrigation Co-operative Chief Executive Officer, John Culleton. He quoted a local farmer who said:

I'm not here to survive; I came here 30 years ago to thrive.

Mr Culleton continued:

So all this talk about survival is to essentially say to us that the best we can look forward to is to struggle to survive, and that is an unacceptable prospect for the people of this region.

Indeed, it is. The Riverina's future, facing considerable uncertainty in recent months, may be saved by this parliamentary inquiry and the Windsor report, which has urged the federal government to put regional communities first in any decision about water management. The report received widespread support. This is what some of key players in my area had to say. Griffith Mayor, Councillor Mike Neville:

The report provides a triple bottom line approach. The Government now has to show it is serious about Australia's foodbowl—Australia's heart and lungs—and declare that growing food is a priority.

Leeton Mayor, Councillor Paul Maytom:

I am extremely happy with the outcome of the report. It is an excellent report and the committee has taken the commonsense approach taking on initiatives that the original guide did not.

I feel that the committee has given an excellent outcome and hopefully the minister and the MDBA look at the report seriously and this will give the people of the MIA a more prosperous future.

Murrumbidgee Irrigation Chairman, Gillian Kirkup:

The recommendations made by the committee demonstrate that they have heard our concerns and those of Basin communities.

The MI welcomes the committee's key recommendations.

We stand committed to working with the MDBA to develop a balanced plan that delivers good environmental outcomes without compromising regional Australia.

New South Wales Farmers Association President, Charles Armstrong:

We have welcomed the recommendations resulting from the House of Representatives' inquiry into the impacts of the Guide to the proposed MDBA plan.

A number of the 21 recommendations echo concerns outlined in the Association's submission.

The report is critical in the development of the Basin Plan. It's essential the MDBA carefully review the recommendations before releasing the Draft Plan.

Murray Irrigation General Manager, Anthony Couroupis:

The report contains sensible recommendations that would see better outcomes for community and regional economies without compromising reasonable ecological objectives.

It is clear the committee has listened and concluded that the concerns of communities expressed after the launch of the guide were significant and genuine.

Southern Irrigators' Chairman, Ted Hatty:

On face value, if the recommendations in the Windsor report are followed, there is a better chance to achieve a balanced outcome for irrigators, Basin communities and the environment.

National Irrigators Council Chief Executive Officer, Danny O'Brien:

Tony Windsor and his bipartisan committee have struck the right balance here.

They have clearly listened to communities; a far cry from what the MDBA went through last year and they've delivered a good set of recommendations.

New South Wales Irrigators' Council CEO, Andrew Gregson:

I welcome the report and I am pleased to see some of the ideas put forward by irrigators have been embraced.

It will certainly have a calming effect because people will see that the concerns that they've raised have been listened to. The real proof, however, comes when the draft basin plan is released, to see if the MDBA has listened, has had time to listen and has had time to incorporate what it is that the Windsor inquiry has said.

I will conclude with the remarks of the youngest person to give evidence. This was testimony from a schoolgirl who at the original Griffith rally sat near the front holding a sign which read: 'Keep my family on our farm.' She became, I believe, the face of the region's fight for a fair future. This is what Teneeka Andreazza courageously said at the regional Australia committee's 25 January hearing:

I am nine years old and I live on a farm with my family. I have lived on the farm my whole life and cannot imagine what we would do or where we would go if we had to move away, so please help us and do not let them take our water. Thank you.

Prime Minister, please heed Teneeka's heartfelt words.

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

I welcome the opportunity to briefly speak on the committee's report titled Of drought and flooding rains. I say from the outset that I agree with other members who have already spoken, that this was a bipartisan committee report. I believe that all members of the committee genuinely worked together in good spirit to try to find solutions which would be acceptable to people right across the Murray-Darling Basin area. In particular I acknowledge the work of the chairperson, the member for New England, and also the deputy chairperson, the member for Braddon, who spoke earlier today. Both of them played a leadership role in ensuring that the committee went about its work methodically and in a very measured way. I thank them for that leadership.

This was an important committee inquiry. It was important because, as everyone in this House would know and as people in most parts of Australia know, the management of the Murray-Darling Basin waters has become a critical issue for the future of this country. It is a matter that has caused grief for over 100 years, ever since 1915, I believe, when the first River Murray Waters Agreement was struck. There have been ongoing negotiations, discussions and disputes along the entire lengths of both the Murray River and the Darling River. It is a matter that, particularly in the period of the long drought we had beginning in the late 1990s through to 2006-07, caused a lot of grief to communities throughout the basin. I suspect it is because of the drought that we have come to the point that we are at today, where we are trying to find sustainable solutions for the ongoing management of the waters in the basin.

The committee's work was initiated by the guide that was put out by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. There has been a lot of criticism of the guide. This was the guide to a plan that would ultimately be presented to the government. Whilst the criticism may well be justified, I say from the outset that it is my view that the guide served an incredibly useful purpose. It triggered the most intensive scrutiny of the Murray-Darling Basin to date that I am aware of—scrutiny by government departments, right across federal, state and local government jurisdictions; scrutiny by irrigators, environmentalists and basin communities in each of the catchments throughout the basin. For the first time ever, the views of every interest sector were put on the table and, in doing so, flaws in previously held views and beliefs were exposed and far more accurate assessments resulted.

The guide also highlighted a lack of communication and coordination by all the sectors that had responsibility for river water management. Additionally, many previously held beliefs or assumptions were seriously challenged by credible analysts or people with lifelong hands-on experience and understanding of the basin. In essence, the guide exposed just how badly the basin waters had been managed until more recent years when the drought made the situation critical and good management of waters by government authorities and irrigators began to take place.

The reforms implemented during the drought will have lasting positive benefits that will serve the basin communities well into the future and, importantly, serve the communities well in the event of another long drought. What is also clear is that the river system no longer operates as a natural system. Lochs and weirs which were originally installed between 1922 and 1935 and the barrages built around 1914 have changed the nature of the Murray-Darling Basin river system. Since the lochs and barrages were installed, the system has been regulated to the point that an unnatural river system has been created. From the evidence presented, much of the science on which decisions were based has been questioned. Estimates made about evaporation losses, seepage and extractions are just that—estimates—and may be considerably underestimated or overestimated. The problem is that these estimates are then relied upon for other calculations that in turn magnify the possible errors. Indeed, the system is complex. The relationship between the 23 catchments is not clear—for example, reducing extractions from one catchment does not necessarily add an equal amount of water in another catchment area. What is indisputable, however, is that since the mid-sixties extraction rates have increased. Extractions have increased by 100 per cent since the early 1960s from around 6,000 gigalitres then to about 12,000 gigalitres today. In New South Wales, extractions have increased by 100 per cent from about 3,000 gigalitres around 1960 to 6,000 gigalitres today. In Victoria, extractions have also increased by about 100 per cent from about 2,000 gigalitres in the 1960s to around 4,000 gigalitres today. And Queensland, where there was little water extracted in 1960, today draws some 600 or 700 gigalitres. Interestingly, in South Australia licences were capped in 1969 and extractions have hardly changed since that time.

The volume and impact of diversions is also not well quantified or understood because since the 1960s the diversion of waters away from rivers into dams has impacted on inflows into the Murray-Darling system. Returning water to the system is critical to its sustainability. How that is achieved is dependent on who you speak to because there have been a number of proposals and options put on the table by communities right across the basin. Of course, the volume of water that needs to be returned depends on annual rainfall and, in turn, inflows. In high rainfall years current extraction rates are sustainable; in low rainfall years that is not the case. Complicating the issue is that inflows vary between catchment valleys, and nor do inflows in one valley necessarily flow on to the next, as I have said earlier. Therefore, extractions are best managed on a valley-by-valley basis.

The science around volumes of water that should be returned to the system is also not clear. Not surprisingly, we have had figures mooted of anywhere between 3,000 and 7,600 gigalitres of water that should be returned to the system. Figures are also based on average inflows. Again, not only do average inflows vary across the basin but, importantly, average inflows are of very little value or of very little use unless all the water is able to be stored. Since that is not possible, extraction rates will need to be closely monitored on a year-by-year basis across each of the catchments. The alternative is to impose ultraconservative extraction reductions and that would unnecessarily constrain productivity and cause hardship to basin communities. The use of adjustable allocations, as has been the case in recent years, is likely to be necessary into the future. The use of allocations could be used to further regulate the system on a year-by-year basis with relatively little impact on agricultural communities and food production.

For the basin to remain sustainable we must have a healthy river system. If the rivers die the basin communities will also die. Now that the reform process has begun, we must see it through and we must get it right. In fact, it is my view that Australians are counting on us to do that. We must commit to what is required and not fall into a false sense of security because of the recent rains. With a growing world population, any reduction in food production should also be of concern. The Murray-Darling Basin is not only Australia's food bowl but offers huge potential for growth. A growing world population will need to be fed and the Murray-Darling Basin presents Australia with substantial economic opportunities. We should not dismiss those opportunities. As a member of the committee I have seen examples, as we moved through communities, of that occurring today, where on-farm efficiency is producing greater volumes of produce by using lesser amounts of water. It is that kind of innovation that we should be supporting, encouraging and investing in.

One of the important issues relating to all of the committee's work was to try to come up with a proposal and recommendations that would be embraced firstly by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and then by the government. The committee worked through the inquiry in a very intense way. In fact, I am not aware that any committee has worked as intensely as this committee—certainly not in my time in this parliament. We did so because we set ourselves a deadline to try and report by the middle of this year. The authority has now extended its reporting time frame out by several months, and it will be interesting to see just what the authority reports to the government.

It was interesting, though, and relevant to the point I am making, that one of the very clear messages reflected in most of the communities we went to was that there was a sense of urgency about resolving a plan for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and that uncertainty within the basin communities as to what would be in the plan was contributing to insecurity within the plan. So it is my view that the sooner the authority reports, the sooner there is a plan on the table, the better it will be for communities throughout the basin because they will have certainty, and with that certainty they will be able to manage their future operations. I certainly do not want to see the good work of this committee—which to some extent you could say was rushed, but it was rushed for good reason—now left sitting for months on end whilst others report back to the government.

I want to briefly talk about the situation with respect to South Australia, because South Australia has some unique issues. I said earlier that South Australia capped its issuing of licences in the 1960s. Effectively no new licences have been issued since then, and the amount of water that has been extracted from the system has remained pretty stable. In addition there has been a huge amount of investment in irrigation systems in the Riverland of South Australia. South Australia did not cause the overuse, nor was it responsible for any mismanagement of the Murray-Darling Basin waters. South Australia will also draw on very little of the federal government's $12.9 billion water-funding allocation.

One of the issues that was clearly raised was the management of the Lower Lakes, and that was raised more by communities in the eastern states. I accept that the management of the Lower Lakes is a contentious issue. There is, again, a divergence of views about how they should best be managed. I do not accept, however, that the Lower Lakes are the cause of all the problems with respect to water allocations upstream. I do not accept the argument that the system could be managed simply by tearing down the barrages at the Lower Lakes or something similar. The reality is, as I said earlier, that the whole system is no longer a natural system, and since the installation of the locks between, I think, 1922 and 1935 the whole system has dramatically changed.

There was a submission, however, from Mr Ian Mott, which talked about connecting the southern lagoon of the Coorong directly to the sea. It is a submission that I believe has merit and ought to be looked at. I also believe that for South Australia the issue is not so much how much water is returned to the river system but rather how much water crosses the South Australian border and ultimately reaches the Murray mouth. That is the real question for South Australians. Quite frankly, I wait with interest to see what the authority recommends in that respect.

This is a matter that I have spoken about in this parliament on other occasions. I will continue to do so and I am sure I will speak on the matter again when the authority's report is presented. In the last few seconds left, I not only thank the members of the committee whom I worked with in the preparation of this report—the member for New England is in the chamber this morning, as are the member for Riverina, the member for Barker and the member for Braddon—for the cooperative way that we worked together but also particularly thank the staff who supported the committee in what we did, every step of the way, and who organised the inquiry for us.

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

First off, let me say that I totally agree with the member for Makin on a couple of issues. I think the submission by Ian Mott as an alternative way of fixing up the problems of the Coorong and the Murray mouth should be seriously looked at and assessed by this government. Anyone who has looked at that submission, and I have pointed out this submission to the chair of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, Craig Knowles, as well, will see that it does warrant as a possible cost effective way to fix up a lot of those problems. One has only to look at what has been done at West Lakes in the western suburbs of Adelaide to see that, on a smaller scale, it has worked quite well. I plead with the government: at least spend the money to make an assessment of whether this could work, because it creates big possibilities for fixing up some of those problems.

I also support the observation by member for Makin about how hard this committee worked. In my time, and I have been here twice as long as the member for Makin, I have never been involved with a committee—and I been involved with a lot—that has worked so hard on a report. We actually met in December, which is virtually unheard of for a committee. For obvious reasons it is a very busy time for members of parliament, with schools breaking up and different functions that you need to attend in that period. On top of that, having a 10-day tour of the basin in January is also unheard of in my experience. That all members of the committee were prepared to make time to be part of this committee's deliberations is an indication of how important they felt this inquiry to be. For example, in December we went up to look at the Menindee Lakes. Six months earlier they were dry, but when we were there we saw that they had filled up. An enormous change had been brought about not by government or communities but by Mother Nature—I think Mother Nature is a lot cleverer than any of us. To see the enormous change there and to speak with the people of Broken Hill, who rely on the lakes for their water supply and their irrigation, was an important start.

We started our tour in my electorate, at the bottom of the system. We went over the barrages at the Lower Lakes, which gave every member of the committee a hands-on approach to the effects the barrages have had and how important they are. Again, I agree with the member for Makin: ripping down those barrages is not the answer. It is one of the fallacies that have been put out that all would be fixed if we just let the sea into the lakes. I think it would actually destroy the lakes. The Lower Lakes have never been naturally saline except for very small periods in our time. Like most estuaries they are mostly freshwater but occasionally, during droughts, they become saline for perhaps weeks at a time—certainly not for centuries, years or months. It is very much a very minor thing.

I remember one Melbourne Cup day, I think it was in 2006, when the federal government had just set up a water bureaucracy. We suddenly found that there was a real concern with how the states were reacting to the drought. I remember the Premier of South Australia coming back, almost like Neville Chamberlain with 'peace in our time,' saying, 'We're going to build a weir at Wellington.' We have spent millions at the proposed site, but no weir has been built. They had to do up all the roads so they could eventually, perhaps, build a weir. I do not think the weir was ever going to be the right answer. Perhaps a lock of some sort might have been the answer, but certainly not the weir as proposed by the government. I am very thankful that Mother Nature, again, stepped in and stopped the pressure to build the weir at Wellington.

I represent all of the Murray River in South Australia, all of Lake Albert and half of Lake Alexandrina. In fact, the boundary of my electorate basically goes through the middle of Lake Alexandrina and through the Murray mouth, so I suppose you could say that one side of the Murray mouth is represented by the member for Mayo and the other side is represented by me, as the member for Barker. I remember in the last election campaign that the candidates were often asked by the media or by people what we thought the biggest issues were. I always replied that the three biggest issues were water, water and water. That is very much a South Australian thing. It is an iconic issue.

Having the honour of representing the Murray in South Australia is an iconic issue for me and will continue to be. Water supply is so important, not only for our communities but for our capital city Adelaide and for our industries that rely on the Murray. It is a very important part of our community, but the fact is that South Australia only takes six per cent of the allocations of the water that is diverted from the Murray-Darling Basin. I think Queensland takes about six per cent and the rest is basically taken by New South Wales and Victoria.

I have never taken the parochial view that you should only look after your own dung heap, because the Murray-Darling does not recognise electoral boundaries. It does not recognise states. So, if you are ever going to fix up this whole problem, you will have to take an overview of the whole basin and not just your own dung heap. It always concerned me that wherever you went in the basin there was always a view that you blamed everyone upstream and said, 'Blow those downstream!' Looking after your own dung heap is not the way to fix the Murray-Darling Basin; you have to look at the basin as a whole. That is why I have always believed that we need an independent Murray-Darling Basin authority, as John Howard proposed on Australia Day 2007. That did not come to pass because all the states bar Victoria would not sign up to referring their constitutional powers for seven or eight years to this national body. Unfortunately, we still have a bit of that problem but we should not ignore the wealth of knowledge that the state bureaucracies have when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin.

I also thank the secretariat, who I think did a great job. They worked as hard as us—probably harder in many ways. As a supplementary member for the purposes of this inquiry I was able to provide a voice for the constituents of Barker and also the whole Murray-Darling Basin. I think it is very interesting, if you look at our history, to see that the member for Braddon, the member for Farrer, and the member for New England and I were on a similar inquiry during 2003 and 2004. Not a lot changed except that I became even better informed as a result of being part of this committee, and I hope the other members did as well. We created a bit of controversy with that report, but the fact is that I think most of the recommendations that we made then were borne out. History often has a way of proving people right or wrong and I think in this situation we were pretty right. So, interestingly, we had the corporate knowledge of people who had previously been on an inquiry into water resources in Australia generally, because most of those seemed to be around the Murray-Darling Basin. I think it was important that we had that corporate knowledge and I think it was very useful to the committee that we did. In my electorate, water and the Murray-Darling is pretty big—I think that goes without saying. We have had some problems. On the one hand there are the irrigators that are struggling to keep their crops alive and the families and wider communities that are affected by the flow-on effects of, especially, the drought we have gone through. Some people have said it is the worst drought in our history. I think the records will show that the Federation drought from 1895 to 1903 was very similar in its effect. Of course, in those days we did not have the locks and we did not have the extraction from the Murray-Darling Basin that we have now. So I think the effects of the drought were exacerbated by what humans have done over the last 100 years. I am not saying we should get rid of the locks. Please do not get me wrong on that—because I think we have a pretty good regulated system that works pretty well—but we were found wanting when it came to the drought and it showed that we needed to take some serious action if we wanted to keep this a sustainable river system.

Part of this inquiry was purely to get out there and listen to all those people up and down the system. They wanted their opinion and the situation to be known and what decisions are made. I think people should realise our committee did not have the power to say, 'The Murray-Darling Basin Authority should take this action'; we were there to listen to how the guide to the plan would have affected the communities if it had been taken holus-bolus. I think we all agree that the PR that went out with that was not particularly good and it caused a lot of anger in the communities. So a large part of our job was to listen to those concerns and make some recommendations as a result. To be fair—I'm not blowing my own trumpet—I think the committee did a very good job. I think we helped the communities get their message across but also feel that they had been listened to and that we were prepared to make some pretty strong recommendations about the way ahead.

I certainly attended both public meetings in my electorate. In fact, I remember the member for Makin being at one of those meetings. Yes, there was a bit of heat. It was probably not as bad as we saw in Griffith, but there was a bit of heat. It was packed out. They had to use two rooms and try and set up a video and audio display so that people could show their concerns and needs.

It gave a voice to people. We made a list of recommendations to the government—21 in total—and it would be a real shame if the government did not take notice of these because they are as a result of the consultation with the communities and that is where it counts, I believe. Any member of parliament worth their salt would always recognise that you have got to listen to your community and take the respective actions that come from talking to those people.

I want to speak about a couple of those recommendations. The most important one, I believe, is recommendation No. 7—an immediate end to non-strategic buybacks. That had widespread support across the committee but I think also through the whole community. It needed to be listened to and I do hope that government take note of that.

As Mr Rel Heckendorf put it, for people to sell their water at the price the government is offering, they would be desperate sellers, not willing sellers. If you do not have a strategic buyback you also have the problem of the Swiss cheese effect. I think everyone on the committee understands that. There is another thing we should be looking at—this is my suggestion—that every community, every irrigator take a 10 per cent cut. The government say that they will not do it could do it compulsorily, but there could be a 10 per cent cut stretched out over 10 years, one per cent a year, and fully compensated. I think that would return 1,200 gigs to the river and be quite successful. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.