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

The Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012 is an incredibly important bill. This is not the first time that I have raised in this House the importance of the Murray-Darling Basin. Indeed, I have spoken on numerous occasions about how important it is that we restore this river system to health. Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, you would understand that our state, South Australia, relies on this system for its drinking water; but, not only that, it is the lifeblood of our nation. As I have said before, if we do not act now to restore this river to health it will be not only the environment that loses; if the river dies, the agriculture along it will die. This is what is sometimes lost in this debate. We can have a debate about agriculture versus the environment, but the truth of the matter is that, if we do not restore this river, there will be nothing. An unhealthy river is no good to irrigators and it is no good to the environment. So it is very important.

I have been taking a very active interest in this. Indeed, on behalf of my constituents I have put in my own submission to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority consultations, I have moved private member's motions in this House and I have also spoken numerous times on this very, very important issue. If we do not do something, so many of the important wetlands and floodplains will die. The mouth of the river needs to be kept open. We need to ensure salinity does not continue to have a destructive impact in the basin, getting worse and worse as you go up the system.

In South Australia we have seen the impact that salinity has had not just on the environment—although it has had a devastating impact on the environment in the Lower Lakes region—but also on farming, ensuring that none of the water, because of the salinity, is able to be used at all for irrigation. It is not of a quality that is great enough. That is why I put in a submission to the Murray-Darling authority actually commenting on the level of water which they had planned to return to the Murray, which was the 2,750 gigalitres. I did say in my submission that I believed that was an inadequate amount to restore the basin to health and that we needed to make sure we were returning enough water to restore the basin to health.

We have heard those on the other side today—in fact, in question time, the member for Murray in her personal explanation said this—say that they do not believe any more water should be returned to the basin, which I think is a very concerning statement from those on the other side. I do not know whether that is flagging the intention of the whole coalition. I know that that would be—I assume—very disturbing for the constituents of South Australia that I represent. But certainly it would be concerning for members on the other side of the House that are from South Australia. The message is loud and clear: we need to do something and the time is now. No longer can we put this in the too-hard basket.

That is why I was very pleased that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities did make an important announcement on Friday just last week, meeting my call for an increased amount of water to be returned to the basin. I was very pleased that the Prime Minister and the minister for water did announce that it would be the government's commitment, in addition to the 2,750 gigalitres returned through the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, to return an extra 450 gigalitres of water to achieve greater environmental outcomes to the basin through water recovery projects that minimise the impact on communities.

This important injection of water will have great results. It is important to note that this is additional environmental water and—as the Prime Minister and the minister for water did mention in question time today—water which will be returned by infrastructure investment. Importantly, it will be returned through an investment of $1.77 billion over 10 years from 2014 to relax key operating constraints that will allow for this additional environmental water to be obtained. This is an important point to note: through investing in infrastructure, we can deliver more water back into the system to ensure that there is water delivering key environmental outcomes, which include ensuring we keep the mouth of the Murray-Darling system open down at the low end, down at the bottom end. I very much welcomed this announcement on Friday. Indeed, I know it is something that the South Australian members on this side of the House, and indeed members from South Australia on the other side of the House, believe in very strongly.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order, Deputy Speaker Georganas, and it is relevance. This is not the bill that we have in front of us for debating. It is an announcement made on Friday about the total plan. It is not the bill in front of us to be debated.

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

The member will resume her seat. The member for Kingston is in order. She is talking about water. It is a water bill and the River Murray has an impact on water.

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

This is talking about the sustainable diversion limits and the power of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to move their sustainable diversion limits within a range. One would think that sustainable diversion limits, which are all about ensuring water is returned to the basin, are really critical. I am not surprised that the member for Murray is trying to interrupt me explaining to the House how important this announcement is for South Australia, because of course she announced, just before in this House, that she was not for returning any water to the Murray-Darling system.

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

I remind the member to refer to people by their seats.

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

Sorry, the member for Murray did indicate that she was not for any water—

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, on a further point of order, I do think we do have to stick with the facts here. Again, it is not appropriate to actually misrepresent facts. I did not say what the member is claiming.

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

The member will resume her seat. She will have an opportunity to correct any facts that she would like corrected.

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

Sorry, maybe I misunderstood, but I heard the member for Murray saying that no more water should be taken off any irrigators anymore. So it is disappointing, but the people of South Australia know which party is on their side when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin. They know who is on their side and who will stand up to the other states to ensure there is a national approach to this important water resource. I thought it was important to bring to the attention of the House this important development to making sure that the Murray-Darling Basin is healthy.

Indeed, the bill before us today is also a development and an improvement, something in which many of the basin states have agreed upon. We do have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the way we manage the Murray-Darling system. The bill before the House today, the Water Amendment (Long-Term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill amends the Water Act 2007 to provide the Murray-Darling Basin Authority with the ability to adjust the long-term average sustainable diversion limits set by the Murray-Darling Basin plan in accordance with the provision of the Basin Plan without invoking the formal Basin Plan amendment process. This bill will provide for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, in consultation with the Commonwealth and relevant states, to be able to make adjustments to the sustainable diversion limits in accordance with the provision of the plan to enable more efficient use of environmental water, enabling more water to be available for consumptive use without impacting on the environment, and to enable more water to be recovered for the environment, enabling enhanced environmental outcomes without impacting on rural and regional economies beyond what is envisaged in the Basin Plan.

This will also assist to bridge the gap between the current diversion limits and those allowed under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to ensure that irrigator entitlements will be cut or compulsorily acquired as a result of the Basin Plan.

The key elements are as follows. There is a threshold of plus or minus five per cent of the sustainable diversion limits for water resources as a whole, with formal amendment required to adjust beyond that five per cent threshold. Any adjustments must not reduce the environmental outcomes achieved by the Basin Plan or worsen the socioeconomic impacts. Conversely, the adjusted sustainable diversion limits must continue to reflect the environmentally sustainable level of take, preserving the fundamental requirements of the act. The mechanism under which this will occur is outlined.

I think this is a very sensible amendment. Indeed, I believe it was suggested by states and territories as part of the consultation process. It allows for a simplified adjustment mechanism to be included in the Basin Plan which is easy to understand, and will aid confidence and transparency for all stakeholders. It will improve certainty surrounding decisions to adjust the sustainable diversion limits, enabling states to plan using the adjusted sustainable diversion limits, and provide business improved confidence to invest. So it is a sensible amendment. It builds on our determination, since being elected, to get this plan done. It was the determination of those on the other side at one point, or maybe it was just the determination of the then Minister for Environment and Water Resources, the member for Wentworth. It was his determination to get this done. This is about a national plan to address this issue, and the bill really builds on that.

I look forward, as we continue to reform the Murray-Darling Basin, to seeing what those on the other side will do when this bill comes to a vote. Soon there will be nowhere to hide for the opposition. They will no longer be able to go to communities upstream and tell them one thing and go to communities downstream and tell them another. This has been going on for a number of years. We have seen the Leader of the Opposition duck and weave when questions are asked. He had his then minister for water upstream telling communities one thing and his parliamentary secretary downstream telling communities another thing. When this water reform bill comes to this parliament the opposition will have nowhere to hide. They will have to draw a line in the sand and indicate whether they support water reform or whether they want to continue to let the Murray-Darling Basin die.

We need to ensure that we are acting appropriately, with the national interest in mind, and that is what I believe we are doing here today. I believe this bill is a step towards true water reform and something which will allow us to manage the Murray-Darling Basin as a whole. I commend the bill to the House.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are here to debate a bill which amends the Water Act 2007, the Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012. As I said a minute ago in my interjections, we are not here to discuss the very unfortunate statements made by the Prime Minister last Friday, not unexpectedly in South Australia. It was not very edifying to hear the Prime Minister during question time repeatedly refer to her announcements on Friday as being all about South Australia and South Australians. The Murray-Darling Basin provides water for 3.4 million people, from Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria and, finally, South Australia. I realise South Australia diverts the Murray River water across deserts and so on to places like Port Augusta and Whyalla. I understand their failure to look at their own capital city needs. Of course Adelaide is also outside the Murray-Darling Basin. Given all that, it was disturbing and astonishing to hear so much South Australian-centric rhetoric in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin. We all know we must work to a win-win scenario—in other words, to something that works from the top of the basin to the bottom, for the communities, the economy and obviously the environment.

This sustainable diversion limit bill, in principle, is indeed what the coalition said must happen. But we are opposing the bill as it was originally proposed by the minister, on the basis that it completely denies the minister of the day any say in what the diversion limit adjustment might be—up or down by five per cent. What it says in the Prime Minister's bill is that whatever the Murray-Darling Basin Authority of the day says goes. They can just do a tick and flick, it can be noted by parliament, and that is the end of that. That is an extraordinary proposition, given that we already have a discredited Murray-Darling Basin Authority whose lack of capacity to properly consult, whose avoidance of proper engagement with the states and agencies like the catchment management authority, are already legendary. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority had to sack its first CEO. They have installed someone different to try and do better. To say that this authority will have the final word on what the sustainable diversion limit adjustment will be, without recourse to the democratically elected government of the day, is breathtaking.

I have to say that my concern about this matter is not just hypothetical; my electorate depends for its wellbeing on water security. That water comes out of some of the major tributaries to the Murray, particularly the Goulburn River, and also the Murray River. So for us to sit back and say, 'That's okay; the Murray-Darling Basin Authority can decide whether there will be an adjustment up or down of five per cent of the diversion limit because they're so fantastic'—I am sorry—that does not wash.

We have, through our shadow minister, foreshadowed an amendment to this bill which will have the executive reinstated as the final word on what this adjustment should be. That is as it must be. I understand the government is very seriously now considering the error of its ways in its first draft of the bill. But we are also concerned that this bill has been brought forward in a way that is greatly disturbing to those of us who depend on both the environmental sustainability of the basin and access to the water of the basin. They are one and the same thing, in fact. This bill was rushed into parliament in our last sitting. There was no warning. It was rushed off to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia. At a meeting of that committee, which I attended as a supplementary member, the chair, Mr Tony Windsor, said: 'We don't need to consult on this bill; the job's right. We'll have one meeting. We'll not call for submissions. We'll hear no evidence.' I put on the record that I felt we had to take evidence—that we had to at least put out an invitation for submissions to the inquiry. 'No,' we were told; 'it will be a quick tick and flick.' We had one 26-minute meeting on this bill. During that meeting, the majority on the committee, who of course were not coalition members, said: 'We will simply flick this on and say it's okay. We will completely reverse what we said in our previous reports on the Murray-Darling Basin, where we argued that you must have government oversight of an adjustable sustainable diversion limit.' So the committee went back on what we had said previously, and that was the end of that—one 26-minute meeting.

There was a dissenting report written by the member for Wannon, the member for Riverina and me, where we said: 'No, we cannot agree to this bill being allowed in its current form.' Why else did we reject it? We said, for example, that the whole business of a sustainable diversion limit has to be within the context of the total Murray-Darling Basin Plan. When this bill was introduced, it was just one small bit of the total picture. We had no idea what the final sustainable diversion limit might be. It was quite extraordinary. We were quite concerned too that, while the adjustment mechanism can be implemented under the current act and you must take into account the social and economic consequences of the adjustment, we have lost any sense of that in this government's bill. Also, under the current act an amendment to the Basin Plan is subject to a disallowance of the parliament. This bill would remove this provision in the instance of the adjustment mechanism operation. So, as I said before, the elected representatives would not have the capacity to review the critical element of the Basin Plan—quite an extraordinary business. We cannot imagine what the rush of blood was to the head of the minister who put such a bill into the House. There are still no protections in this bill for an adjustment weakening economic or social outcomes. In proposed section 23A(3) it states clearly that any adjustments must reflect an environmentally sustainable level of take. So why doesn't the bill provide the same references to protection for economic and social outcomes? We want to know.

Over the weekend, we had the Prime Minister's announcement of the amazing potential growth in our neighbourhood, in Asia, and the fantastic prospects for increasing food production and exports to the middle classes of India, Indonesia and China. We gloried in the prospects of a future where Australia would not just be a mine or a gravel pit for China but might in fact export highly value-added food products. At the same time, we have this government determined to remove the water security that underpins food manufacturing in eastern Australia. It is quite an extraordinary situation. You cannot, on the one hand, say that we have enormous potential to grow and manufacture more food and grow wealthy through the process and, on the other hand, say, 'By the way, besides reducing the actual volume of water available to irrigators, we'll make it so uncertain from one year to the next what availability there is that the older farmers will find their sons and daughters simply walking away from the industry.' We have a crisis of confidence right now in agriculture, across Australia but particularly in the basin. That crisis of confidence is being played out every day. The drought debt that accumulated over the seven years when it did not rain has become so pressing that farmers are giving up and saying: 'We have in theory this great future but, when we look at the various bills and policies of this government, we can see they're not serious about us fulfilling that potential.'

Besides this water problem in the Murray-Darling Basin, where the government refuse to take a triple bottom-line approach, we have a slashing of the research and development funds for irrigated agriculture in particular but agriculture in general. We have a complete crisis in training and education related to agribusiness, natural resource management and farming in particular. We have the quarantine and biosecurity services being slashed and burned so that we are very, very concerned about every decision made to weaken our phytosanitary special measures—and the potato issue right now is an example of how it seems that Biosecurity Australia is just giving up. We have a terrible dilemma right now where things like the food innovation grants, which were key to be able to develop new products and compete, are all gone. Of course, the biggest problem of all for agribusiness is the incredible hike in prices for energy—for electricity in particular and also for things like refrigerant gases. When you have irrigation, you have energy costs. When you have food manufacturing, you have energy costs. Sadly, this government does not seem to understand that, if you are touting the glories of a future in food manufacturing for Asian markets, it just does not ring true if you are tying the producers' hands behind their backs.

If the Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012 can be amended, as our shadow minister stated in his opening speech, if we can have that amendment carried into law, if the government agrees with it or indeed if they amend the bill themselves—instead of the current situation, have the minister or the government of the day reinstated as the arbiter of what the sustainable diversion adjustment is—we can be more confident about where this bill is going.

Let us not pretend that this is not a very significant issue for the people of the Basin. Up or down five per cent in volume of water—the 700 or so gigalitres that could be involved—is, in fact, the entire South Australian water quota. The business of adjusting the water volume up is all we seem to be hearing about. No one is talking about potentially adjusting the sustainable diversion limit down, which I find rather ironic and deeply troubling.

I am very disturbed that when the Prime Minister and the minister for environment announced the plan, as they did in South Australia, on Friday, they failed to rule out further buying of water from irrigators' entitlements. The minister stated that additional water that might be found, or would need to be found, if there is another 450 gigalitres to go to the environment would primarily come from investment with on-farm irrigation works.

I am on the record for saying that on-farm irrigation works are essential for water savings. I was verballed at question time and I put my protest, as a personal explanation, to the speaker immediately after question time. I am on the record for saying that any water for the environment should come from environmental works and measures or from on-farm water use efficiency measures, not from dipping into the water entitlements of farmers—particularly the high-security water entitlements that you find in northern Victoria. They are the sorts of water entitlements that sit in dams like Eildon. Unfortunately, we have more environmental water sitting there than irrigator water, and that is a serious problem of space.

For Victorian irrigators in the Goulburn-Murray system, many cannot access the federal government's on-farm water use efficiency grants, because they are in the Food Bowl Modernisation Program. Until they have had that program completed on their properties, or the planning for that measure completed for their properties, they cannot put their hands up and apply for an on-farm water use efficiency grant. So it was not extraordinarily good news, when all we have been talking about is on-farm water use efficiency, primarily—I stress that word 'primarily'—with no reference to putting a stop to reaching into the irrigators' market via deep pocketed governments or to environmental works and measures being an integral part to the future of the Basin.

The coalition is concerned about this bill because it takes the government completely out of the driver's seat and puts the business into the hands of a deeply flawed authority, an authority that has been discredited over many years now on so many fronts. We hope the amendment will pass because that could give us a better outcome, but this whole business is still a very concerning proposal.

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

I speak in support of the Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012 because it is good management practice by the government. It is good management practice because it enables the authority to get on with managing the waters of the Basin in a much more efficient and effective way when it comes to making minor adjustments to the plan.

Interestingly, the objective of this bill is the matter that formed part of the recommendations of the Standing Committee on Regional Australia. In July of this year it reported to the House on certain matters relating to the proposed Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Recommendation 3 of that report states:

The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government develop a mechanism to adjust sustainable diversion limits automatically in response to efficiencies gained by environmental works and measures.

The fact that the committee, which had inquired into the Murray-Darling Basin for some time and then reconvened in order to consider further matters, has put this recommendation to the government should in itself be adequate to convince members across the chamber that the recommendation to have this mechanism in place should be supported.

Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012 amends the Water Act 2007 to allow the long-term average sustainable diversion limit set by the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to be adjusted by plus or minus five per cent of the sustainable diversion limit for Basin water resources as a whole, without invoking the formal Basin Plan amendment process. The bill sets out how the mechanism is intended to operate and introduces transparency in the process, requiring any use of the mechanism to be reported formally and publicly to the parliament. The explanatory memorandum states:

Under the Water Act, the Basin Plan itself is a disallowable instrument. The current version of the Basin Plan includes an adjustment mechanism in accordance with the current Act. As the legislation currently stands Parliament would not be notified of any adjustments, as well as these adjustments not being disallowable. This Bill improves transparency while maintaining the position that amendments would not be disallowable.

The sustainable diversion limits that will be set must reflect an environmentally sustainable level of water being taken from the river system.

The issue of managing the waters of the Murray River and the Murray-Darling Basin more broadly date back over one hundred years. In fact, when the states came together to form the federation the issue had already been one that had caused disputes and grievances amongst the states. Finally, in about 1914 we got an agreement together by, I think, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. That agreement served for some time, albeit there were always ongoing and continuous disputes.

I can well recall many of those disputes, particularly in the sixties, where the waters of the Murray became a major issue of confrontation between South Australia and the eastern states. It seems that after all those years, almost 100 years, of bickering over this issue we are finally at a point where we might be able to reach an agreement that will ensure the long-term sustainability of the Murray-Darling Basin communities, sustainability of the important environmental assets throughout the basin and sustainability of food production within our nation. I acknowledge that the basin produces on average about 45 per cent of the nation's irrigated agricultural production.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you would well know as a member of the standing committee I referred to earlier, the last two years or so have been fascinating in the sense that we have had the Murray-Darling Basin Authority carry out its own inquiry, while simultaneously we have had a parliamentary committee doing similar work. I think it would be fair to say that nobody in this chamber would disagree with the level of concern that exists right throughout the basin and across each state with respect to the poor management practices of the past when it came to the basin waters. It is my view that what the basin communities would like to see is, finally, some sense of security as to where we go into the future.

The authority originally came up with a proposal to restore about 2,750 gigalitres of water to the basin. On Friday the Prime Minister announced that the government would support the return of 3,200 gigalitres to the basin. I believe that 3,200 gigalitres paves the way for a sensible agreement between each of the parties to the Basin Plan—those parties now being Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. I believe that 3,200 gigalitres does that because, firstly, it is possible to restore 3,200 gigalitres to the basin and, secondly, by doing so we achieve most of the key environmental targets that we are aiming for as a nation.

For South Australia, being at the end of the system and being very much dependent on water use by the upstream states, the 3,200 gigalitres is a welcome commitment by the government. For South Australia it means that there will be more water in the Lower Lakes—I understand on average about 15 per cent more water—and that in turn will reduce the likelihood of the acid sulphate soil problems that we had a few years ago. It will ensure that salinity levels in the Lower Lakes and in the northern lagoon of the Coorong will be much, much lower and, in fact, at very acceptable levels. It will ensure that on average two million tonnes of salt is flushed out to sea annually. In the past most of that salt stayed, basically, within the South Australian end of the system. It will ensure that for most of the time the Murray Mouth remains open and, if that occurs, it will enable the salt to be flushed out. Importantly, for the whole of the basin, the iconic wetlands will receive sufficient water to ensure that they remain sustainable. In fact I understand that, of the 18 environmental watering requirements throughout the basin, 17 of them should be met by returning 3,200 gigalitres to the basin. The 3,200-gigalitre figure not only has been assessed by the South Australian government and by the authority but it has been peer reviewed by the Goyder Institute, an institute of expert scientific people. That is why I feel confident that the figure is one that could bring us together in an agreement that we have been looking for for over 100 years.

It is important that we have an agreement in place. The agreement is also dependent on fine-tuning aspects of the Basin Plan such as the amendments that are being proposed within this specific legislation. Since the announcement on Friday I am not surprised that some sectors, including the states of New South Wales and Victoria, have been flagging their concerns about returning 3,200 gigalitres of water to the system. I have similarly heard criticisms from farming organisations and environmental groups that the 3,200-gigalitre figure is not appropriate. The farming groups are saying that it is too much yet the environmental groups on the other hand are saying that it is still not enough. I think the fact that both of them are not agreeing with each other probably indicates that the figure is about right, and I suspect that it is.

The reality is that the 3,200-gigalitre figure is achievable because, as the minister pointed out today in question time, about 1,500 gigalitres of water has already been secured by the Commonwealth. That means we are almost halfway there with respect to the amount of water that we need to secure. Securing the rest through engineering and environmental works, I believe, is possible and the timeframe for us to do that has been extended out to the year 2024. Some, again, would criticise that as well. Given that we have had a couple of good years of inflows into the system and given that there is now substantial water in the system, I believe we now have a welcome relief which enables us to implement the changes over a longer period of time rather than rush through any changes. That is exactly what the government proposes to do with respect to managing the waters into the future.

The interesting question from here on in will be: how will members opposite respond to the announcement the government made that we intend to return 3,200 gigalitres to the system. To date we have seen divisions in the coalition ranging from divisions between the Queensland members and the New South Wales members, divisions between the New South Wales members and their Victorian counterparts, and then divisions between all of the eastern state coalition members and those in South Australia. When the issue has arisen in public debates, and in this place in the past, it depends on which member you are talking to as to what kind of response you get.

As coalition members have moved round the country, it has been absolutely clear that their response as to how they would manage the Murray-Darling Basin depends on which audience they are speaking to. It will be interesting, now that a firm proposition that is achievable has been put on the table, to see whether they get behind the government and, once and for all, implement a workable plan or whether they do not. It will be even more interesting to see where the South Australian members of the Liberal Party stand with respect to the announcements made by the Prime Minister and the environment minister on Friday because they know full well the devastating impact that the last drought had on South Australia, particularly on the Riverland area and on the Lower Lakes. As someone who visited all of those areas and saw for myself at the peak of the drought the devastation that had been caused to both the Lower Lakes themselves and to communities, I am well aware that the last thing anybody wants from outside of government is to see a re-occurrence of that.

The communities right throughout the basin have every right to say, 'We went through this once. You know what might occur. What are you doing to ensure that it does not happen again?' We, I believe, have an obligation and a responsibility to take the steps required to ensure that it does not happen again. We can do that by implementing a sound plan. This particular amendment enables a plan to be implemented that can be adjusted in a minor way when the need arises. The reality is that sustainable diversion limits are as much dependent on inflows into the system as they are on extractions. Whilst we can deal with average inflows, which help for the purpose of long-term planning, the reality is that as short-term measures those inflows and those extractions do change and need to be adjusted to suit. In particular, they need to be adjusted if investments are made in engineering works that reduce the amount of water that is otherwise required. I believe that can be done and should be done and the government has quite properly invested or set aside $1.7 billion—from memory—towards doing exactly that over the coming decade. When we do that then I believe the authority ought to, independently of this parliament, have the right to make those fine adjustments as need be.

I heard the shadow minister's proposal for making changes to this legislation to the effect that he believes that the minister and the government of the day should be the ones who make the final decisions in respect to any adjustments to the plan. I am sure the minister will take that on-board and I am sure the minister is going to consider that. Quite frankly, my view is that the critical issue is that there ought to be a mechanism in place to enable those minor adjustments to be made. That is what this legislation does. I commend the bill to the House.

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

The Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012 amends the Water Act 2007 such that a sustainable diversion limit can be adjusted, give-or-take five per cent, without any formal notification to the community or to the parliament. Let us just think about that five per cent. It does not sound a lot but it could amount to the entire water used by the state of South Australia in any given year. This adjustment could or would be done by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority under certain provisos: reference to the Basin Officials Committee—yet able to override that committee's consideration or recommendations either way—without the necessity of amending the Basin Plan as part of the Water Act; and by notifying the relevant minister who would then adopt the MDBA's adjustment and table it before parliament as a non-disallowable instrument.

I am strongly opposed to the inquiry conclusions of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia following the private meeting held in Parliament House on 4 October. The members for Murray and Wannon co-signed a dissenting report which was submitted the following day. We are extremely concerned with the cursory attention paid by the inquiry to a request which was denied a proper consultation and input from relevant stakeholders in the preparation of the report. Indeed, during a 30-minute teleconference on 24 September of the committee to discuss the matter there was more discussion as to who had the temerity to ask that the Regional Australia Committee look into this matter as there was of the details of the matter itself. I pushed for the committee to examine this issue and I do not mind admitting as much, as I did on that very day. I am only sorry we paid such scant attention to it before issuing, signed off by the chair, the member for New England, an advisory report with just one recommendation: that the committee recommends that the House of Representatives pass the Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012. The members for Wannon and Murray and I signed a dissenting report because we were not in agreement with the recommendation.

The contents, consultation and adjustment processes for the future Murray-Darling Basin Plan are of critical importance to the 3.4 million people living in the basin for its economic—and hence social—wellbeing and environmental sustainability. More than that, it is of critical importance to the 22 million-plus Australians who rely on the Murray-Darling Basin for food and, indeed, to all of those people within the Pacific Rim—and we only heard yesterday how important Asia is to our national interest. I was disappointed that more focus was not placed on agriculture and on the unique ability that Australia has to feed people into the future. There are going to be some hungry hordes into the future. The population projections to 2050 and beyond are well in excess of what we are capable of feeding given our reluctance—or this government's reluctance—to provide water to our farmers, who are the best in the world, to grow food.

As stated in the report of the first inquiry by the regional Australia committee into the impact of the guide to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, released in May 2011, the release of the proposed Murray-Darling Basin Plan sent shockwaves through regional communities. Unfortunately, the way that the MDBA went about developing and communicating this document and the scale of the reductions that it proposed invoked a high degree of anger and bewilderment in basin communities. Those basin communities, particularly the one at Griffith last Friday, were again bewildered and incensed at the latest developments in this water debate.

In the second report released by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia, the committee stated that it made recommendations in a number of areas where it believes that information needs to be provided before the plan is put before parliament to give members, senators and the community a level of certainty regarding both the planning process and the science necessary prior to the plans finalisation. There are two important words in that sentence, 'certainty' and 'science'. 'Certainty' is the word that has been uttered the most. It was heard by the member for Makin and you, Deputy Speaker Mitchell, as you went with the regional Australia committee through the Riverina and other areas, such as the areas in South Australia. People want certainty. Certainty underpins business, investment and confidence. But that certainty has been dragged away from the business community of Griffith. The business chamber president there, Paul Pierotti, is absolutely aghast at the latest developments.

The other word that I mentioned in that sentence was 'science'. There has not been a lot of credible science used by the MDBA to a lot of their deliberations in relation to the guide and to the draft. There are many people who are struggling with the science that has been put forward. We all know that some of the things that the Wentworth Group of Scientists have put forward just do not stack up; they do not stand up as credible.

While we support the concept of a sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism that takes into account environmental works and measures and other savings, this bill does not identify the processes or safeguards and sits in the vacuum created by the fact that there is still no information on a final SDL. How can you put something like this before the parliament when we still do not know what the final SDL will be? It is beyond belief. It is quite inexplicable why this small, inadequate and disembodied element was rushed into parliament in this way.

We have heard many speakers talk about the big announcement last Friday at Goolwa. I will seek leave to table a document, Deputy Speaker Mitchell. I know that the person who released this documents holds this Labor government in power, so I am certain that the member opposite at the table will not mind if I table this. This is a media release put out by none other than Tony Windsor, the member for New England. The press release states that the Murray-Darling plan can be a win-win. He says, 'The parliament recently passed an amendment to the 2007 Water Act that enables the automatic adjustment of sustainable diversion limits of up to plus or minus five per cent of total sustainable diversion limits, 10,000 gigalitres.' He has announced it, and yet we are talking about that very piece of legislation. The cart has really been put before the horse there. I seek to table that media release. It is just not correct. I seek leave to table that document.

Leave granted.

I thank the member opposite. Here we have the chair of the regional Australia committee saying that what we are talking about now—what I am talking against and what the government is speaking for—has already been decided upon when we all know that that is not correct.

The following details some of the specific concerns that I and the members for Wannon, Farrer and Murray have in relation to this very important matter. The bill states that the MDBA can suggest adjustments to the SDL in a range of plus or minus five per cent. At this stage, as I said, we do not know what the final figure will be, so it is unclear what volume the five per cent will relate. Taking the current size of the environmental water holding, a five per cent increase could represent a volume equivalent to all of the water allocated to South Australia.

I do not know how much environmental water this nation needs. Obviously, we need a lot in times of drought. But at the moment Burrinjuck dam is at 91 per cent capacity and Blowering dam is at 90.1 per cent capacity. I do not know how much more environmental water that we need. But if we put any more environmental water into some of our dams the people downstream are going to be very worried, given the fact that earlier this year, in February and March, we saw devastating floods. Let me tell you, the last two floods that we have had in the Riverina caused widespread damage. A lot of the damage came about because of the huge amount of rain that we had, obviously. But we also had, dare I say, environmental flows. We had dams that were at capacity releasing their water downstream and that exacerbated the problems caused by the storms.

There has been a lack of effective consultation and transparency throughout this whole process. If it is so important, why was there such haste to have this amendment agreed to and why such a reluctance to even have it considered by the regional Australia committee in the first place? I remain critical that the bill received only a cursory glance at a single meeting that lasted just 27 minutes. As stated, no evidence was called for and no stakeholders were consulted.

I know that people would have liked to have given evidence. If they could not have come to Canberra, they would have at least liked to make submissions. Why didn't we take submissions from people such as the national irrigators and Tom Chesson? Why didn't we take submissions from the New South Wales irrigators and that fine advocate for sensible water reform, Andrew Gregson? Why couldn't we have taken submissions from the Murrumbidgee Valley Stakeholders Group, which has a new spokesman in John Dal Broi, the recently elected Mayor of Griffith? Why couldn't we, indeed, have taken evidence from, of all organisations, the Wentworth Group of Scientists or maybe some greenie group that might have also liked to have some say on this very important piece of legislation? But no, we had to have a meeting in Canberra lasting just 27 minutes at which no debate was allowed, no submissions were received and no evidence was given. Shame on them for that process.

The regional Australia committee chair maintains that the amendment was in fact one of the four recommendations that the committee in its previous report. In fact, recommendation 3 does not make any mention of an adjustment percentage or of MDBA involvement. Nor did we recommend that parliamentary scrutiny of an adjustment SDL be denied.

It is said that the bill is needed to implement the adjustment mechanism. Such an implication is not, however, correct. The act contains a mechanism for amendment of the basin plan, under subdivision F, sections 45-49. This mechanism requires formal consultation, including with stakeholders—that would be a first for the government—and is subject to the review of the minister and to the disallowance of parliament. The adjustment mechanism can, in fact, be implemented under the current act. So, why all the fuss?

The removal of the ability of stakeholders to have input into the adjustable mechanism is totally unacceptable.

The minister's role and parliamentary scrutiny should not be usurped by the MDBA and that is what this bill allows. We heard the member for Murray quite correctly point out that the MDBA has been clouded and flawed by some of its decision-making processes and lack of consultation in this whole process—and the member for Murray is correct. Pursuant to the act, as it stands, the minister can direct the authority and can choose whether or not to take the basin plan to the parliament. This bill would remove this capacity and require the minister to simply notify parliament of an MDBA action.

Under the current act, an amendment to the basin plan is subject to the disallowance of parliament. The bill would remove this provision in the instance of the adjustment mechanism operation—that is, the elected representatives would not have the capacity to review the critical element of the basin plan. Why should we agree to this? We are the people—the representatives of the communities—put here to make decisions, not the MDBA. The MDBA are not representative of Australia, they are not representative of the irrigators and they certainly are not representative of the Murray-Darling Basin communities, which rely on good policy from this parliament so that they are able to continue to grow the food and sustain the communities. These communities have had every obstacles put in front of them to fail. So many people from multicultural backgrounds were sent there to the dry arid plains and so many soldier settlers were sent there when recovering from the ghastly effects of world wars, yet despite all that and despite poor policy from this place they have survived, they have thrived. Why should any government and so-called independent authority take that ability away from them? It is an absolute disgrace and, as the member for Riverina, I will not stand to see my communities devastated. I am sure the shadow minister at the table, Ms Ley, the hard-working member for Farrer, also will not stand by and watch her communities of Deniliquin, Finley and Berrigan be ridden over by any poor policy from this government or the MDBA. It is just not right for the people who are entrusted with the very important job of growing food to feed this nation and to feed Asia, as the Prime Minister quite correctly points out.

On 3 May the Prime Minister talked about strengthening irrigation. I would love to see the Prime Minister actually put in policies to implement that idea, because I have not seen anything, since that landmark—supposedly—speech the Prime Minister gave on 3 May, to indicate that she is in any way going to strengthen and support irrigation.

Finally, this amendment does not need the support of this parliament. It will certainly not get my support. It needs to be discarded because it is flawed policy.

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

I rise to support the Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012. I do so because all of us can remember the drought not that far back, whether it was 2004, 2005, 2006 or 2007, that devastated this country. It was not the first and it will not be the last, so I think it is extremely important to our nation to put measures in place that ensure the sustainability of our river. Bills such as this look at sustainability and the adjustments that can be made during the different periods of drought and during the good times, when there is plenty of water and you can actually release five per cent more if you want to. This is very important.

The devastating drought, the last one we had here, moved and touched all of us, whether it was in communities, in rural areas or in the cities, where there were water restrictions. In fact, if the drought had not broken, there was talk that in South Australia we would be running out of water within a few months, I think it was. Thank God there was some rain. Also, there was the insurance of building a desal plant that would have saved us from that terrible situation.

We are in the driest continent in the world, and South Australia, where I come from, is the driest state in the driest continent. For us these bills are extremely important, and water is extremely important, because we are at the bottom end of the river. I have spent a lot of time down at Goolwa, where the River Murray mouth is. My wife is from that area and for many years we have been visiting the lovely town of Goolwa in South Australia. It was heartbreaking a few years ago to go down there and look at the lake and see the jetties sitting on sand because the water had receded. There were dead from many species, with fish dying everywhere. Birdlife was leaving the Coorong. And people were basically leaving entire towns, because there was no industry for them—no tourism and a whole range of other small businesses.

The water has returned because we have had some good rains. One thing we cannot do is control the weather. We do not know when the next drought or the next floods are going to come. This bill gives us the long-term ability to adjust certain parts of the river for the particular time we are going through.

I would like to comment on some of the statements made here in debating this bill. The Murray-Darling Basin and its lack of health have been big issues here in this House for a number of years, certainly during my time here in parliament.

As I said, we all remember those worsening years—the years when we saw devastation across the country. And certainly we saw our river system dying very quickly. The then Howard government acted to do something about it, to save the river system, in 2007. We on this side of the House, once taking over in government, continued to do so and to establish a regime under which both the river and the communities that rely on the river could be sustained.

Whilst I spoke about Goolwa at the other end, there are also communities along the river that need to grow our food, not just for Australia but, as we heard, for export. This is about getting a good balancing act, something that is sustainable for the river and that at the same time ensures that our communities along the river are looked after. This is something we have grappled with. We have grappled with the science as it has been presented to us. Each of us has had a look at what is the best outcome for all concerned, including the river communities upriver and in South Australia at the river mouth.

I could not have been more pleased when recently the minister for water, the honourable Tony Burke, released the modelling on the impact of returning 3,200 gigalitres of water, with key constraints removed, to the river. Previous suggested volumes of environmental water being returned to the system were seen by the scientists as meeting only 12 of the 18 key indicators of a healthy river system and environment. That is only approximately two-thirds. So I do not think anyone can realistically or credibly state that 65 per cent is a particularly good outcome. And I do not think anyone could say that a proportion of two out of three ain't bad. Modelling undertaken by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission showed us that with 3,200 gigalitres of water being returned to the river, with key constraints removed, we can actually meet 17 out of the 18 key environmental targets, which is a good result. This is an outcome that each and every one of us should be supporting. In the future, we will experience different weather patterns, different circumstances, different climate conditions. That is why this bill is so important: it will enable adjustment during those different weather patterns.

We have had the drought in the last decade. We are going to experience climate change, with increasing weather fluctuations, in the future. That has not been refuted by any credible authority at this point. We are going to be living in a changing climate with changing rainfall patterns and changing flows into the south-east of Australia in particular—into South Australia—and we are going to need the flexibility that this adjustment will give us with most elements of our lives, including how we will live, how we will work, how and what we will farm and how we will manage the health of the natural environment.

It will also increasingly be up to us to manage the impact of climate change. It will be increasingly up to us to manage the health of the Murray-Darling Basin, its rivers and its wetlands. All of us know that the opposition, of course, have already stated that they will oppose this and most of these bills that we bring to this place to improve the health of the Murray and the Murray mouth. We cannot play politics with this river. This river sustains Australia, and for the first time we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get it right—to get the balance right, to get the science right and to ensure that we never, ever go through what we went through a few years ago.

This bill has certain criteria placed on it. For example, adjustments are limited to no more than five per cent of the sustainable diversion limit. In other words, you can go up five per cent or down five per cent during different periods, depending on whether we are having a drought, whether we are having lots of rain or whether there are floods et cetera; you would be able to adjust it. Any adjustments must not reduce the environmental outcomes that have been achieved by the Basin Plan or worsen the socioeconomic impact—which is very important; it is at the heart of the communities along the river. Adjustments to the sustainable diversion limit will be made in accordance with those criteria and a process specified in the Basin Plan.

The authority is required to prepare a notice to the minister detailing the proposed changes to the sustainable diversion limit, the history of adjustments and the individual changes. The authority must also prepare and present to the minister an amendment to the Basin Plan to reflect those adjustments that are proposed in the notice. And, of course, the minister must adopt those amendments in writing and table both the notice and the amendment here in the parliament.

This bill involves far-reaching reform so that the Murray-Darling Basin is managed as a single, connected system. We have to start looking at the river as one system across Australia. We cannot look at it as we have done for nearly 200 years now, with different states managing it differently over the borders, and differently compared with what was happening down south and up north. We have to look at it as a whole. As I said, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ensure that we get this right. It is so important, especially in my home state of South Australia, which, as I said earlier, is one of the driest states in the country. I was so pleased the other day—and so were the majority of South Australians, I have to say—when the Prime Minister made the announcement, together with Premier Weatherill in South Australia and Tony Burke, about the extra 3,200 gigalitres flowing through the river, which will ensure that we at the bottom end will get a sustainable river. It is so important, and it was welcomed very much by everyone involved. The current version of the Basin Plan does not include the removal of system constraints, for example, to limit the use of environmental water and take into account social and economic impacts. We heard that the authority has proposed the reduction in those diversions.

These bills are very important to not just individual communities in different electorates but the sustainability of all of Australia. We have heard about the communities along the river, and they are very important. We need to act to ensure that we can sustain those communities. We need to act to ensure that we have an environmentally free-flowing river, because if we do not, and if we do not act on these issues, then there will be no communities, because if there is no water it will not be long before we cannot grow anything, and we came very close to that in the last few years. We saw how precariously close we came to killing off that river. We were just lucky that we had plenty of rain and that got the flows going. But we can no longer take it for granted. For 200 years we have been just taking water out, and we need to be doing all we can. This bill reflects this government's concern to ensure that we do get it right and we get a sustainable river—that we get the environmental flows that are required to ensure that we continue to have a vibrant, living river so we can feed our communities and feed Asia as well, which is a great opportunity for Australia. I commend these amendments and bills to the House.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare and Early Childhood Learning) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012. Previous speakers have talked about the adjustment mechanism which would be agreed by the basin states and the Commonwealth enshrined by this bill that would allow for environmental works to gain credit towards meeting environmental targets and may allow for additional water to be recovered from the environment. As the shadow minister said at the beginning of this debate, we will be moving amendments because we do not want the flexible targets which would result, in terms of the sustainable diversion limit, to be controlled by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. It is not that we condemn the authority as such, although I have been very harsh at times in my criticism of the authority. It is the principle that is at stake—the principle that it should be the parliament, through its executive and its members on both sides of this place and in the Senate, that determines something as important as policy relating to water diversions and that we do not hive off our decision-making responsibility to an independent authority.

I just want to talk about the context of the debate, because it is very topical at the moment given that the minister has said that he will have the final Murray-Darling Basin plan in the parliament by the end of the year. There are only one and four-fifths sitting weeks left, so I do hope that we will see the plan by the end of this calendar year.

This bill does not concern the plan itself and it is important to make that distinction, although there is, of course, a close relationship between the diversion limits that may result from this piece of legislation and the final plan. It is very much the cart before the horse, however. Wouldn't it be good if we actually had the plan in the parliament at this point in time so that we could make the decisions that we need to make—to see the final piece of legislation that the minister has been talking about brought to the parliament and not to have these diversions: this bill, which then led to some modelling that I think has placed some quite unrealistic expectations on the basin communities that I represent, and the announcement by the Prime Minister at the end of last week flagging the possibility of 3,200 gigalitres of environmental flows in the river system.

But I will just step back, because there is a need to give this some context. I will talk about agriculture in Australia generally because—as I represent 30 per cent of the state of New South Wales, an enormous part of the southern Murray-Darling Basin in my electorate of Farrer, and most of the water users in the New South Wales Murray and Darling river systems and the Menindee Lakes, and since obviously there are implications for water for Broken Hill—I do feel that my constituents are very much at the centre of this, and I feel my responsibility to them very strongly.

We have had a debate about foreign ownership of Australian agriculture. While I am not getting into that debate, my response is: it is a pity that we have to have a debate about foreign ownership of Australian agriculture because we do not have the confidence in Australia for Australians to invest in Australian agriculture. Those outside this country can see that we do have a very good story to tell. It is just that this government has not led a legislative agenda, or a discussion or debate or any policy at all, that gives farmers confidence in their future or gives agribusiness confidence in the future of Australian agribusiness and all of the associated industries that Australia has such a long and proud history of doing so well in. We should have confidence reflected in Australia, and we do not.

Just before I get to the debate on sustainable diversion limits and environmental flows and the socioeconomic effects et cetera, it is topical to look at Australia in the Asian Century. The Prime Minister made a strong statement on Friday and, representing farmers, I hunted through it for the detail about agriculture. Yes, it was mentioned in the Prime Minister's press release—in one line, towards the end:

Explosion in demand for high-quality agricultural products will mean opportunities for our farmers and regional Australia.

So then I turned to the fact sheets. The 22nd of the 26 fact sheets is titled 'Meeting the growing demand for food', and it says:

Australian food producers and processors will be recognised globally as innovative and reliable producers of more and higher-quality food and agricultural products, services and technology to Asia.

…   …   …

Most of the projected increase in food demand will come from Asia. Driven by the need to feed a larger, more urban and richer population, the real value of global food demand in 2050 is projected to be more than 70 per cent higher than in 2007.

The increase in Asia's food demand is likely to outpace the growth in its production over coming decades.

Quite right, Prime Minister, but what is your government doing about this? What confidence and what heart and what hope are you giving to the people in Australia who are actually equipped to do this task?

Look at the Murray-Darling Basin, the subject of discussion. It is a million square kilometres—and I mentioned that I represent a large part of the southern area of the basin. It is 14 per cent of the total area of Australia. It generates 39 per cent of the national income derived from agriculture, so nearly 40 per cent of our total national income in agriculture comes from the basin.

It produces 53 per cent of Australian cereals grown for grain, 95 per cent of oranges and 54 per cent of apples. It supports 28 per cent of the nation's cattle herd, 45 per cent of sheep and 62 per cent of pigs.

If you took the nation's food bowl, which is the Murray-Darling Basin, out of Australia's production in terms of its economy and its contribution to the national balance sheet it would be devastating. I am not scaremongering here today and I am not suggesting that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is going to do that. There is goodwill from every perspective. But we just have to be very careful that we understand exactly what is at stake and exactly what is being proposed. Because, without casting aspersions on the more than 85 per cent of Australians who live a long way away from rural Australia, sometimes I hear statements about the Murray-Darling Basin and its future that do not make any sense and that show, I think, a lack of understanding and how people view it in very simplistic terms: if you add more water, you get a better outcome. It is not surprising that much of the modelling that we have recently seen come to light has that assumption built into it. If you create a model that has an assumption that if you add more water you get a better outcome, then obviously if you add more water you get a better outcome. It is much more complicated than that.

Environmental flows are, I think, one out of 23 indicators of catchment health. I have talked to not just farmers but also those who manage our catchments and those who work in our regional universities and who do a great job teaching in our universities all the way along the basin and I do not believe that I am coming to this matter just from an irrigator-centric point of view at all. Recent modelling that referred to removing system constraints immediately raised an alarm in my mind. What does 'system constraints' really mean? It has been described in statements made by the government as 'roads, low-lying land, bridges et cetera'. It has not been described as 'weir pools' and, I think, that in itself is interesting. If you are talking about genuinely returning the river to its natural state, you would recognise that it is small pulses of water down the system, absent of the presence of weir pools, that wet and dry the banks and that provide the vital life systems and ecological systems on which rivers rely. We do not have that. I am not suggesting we do remove the weirs, but I am suggesting that those who talk about the advantages of a natural flow look at what we actually have, which is a regulated river.

As I like to say, what we want is a healthy working river. We do not want to return it to the way it was before white settlement, before the dams, weir pools, locks and barrages were put in. We do not want that. So we have to have a balance between what we are doing with the river to service its population and grow food and the very important environmental health of the river.

We have a Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, who has an allocation of, I think, about 1,500 gigalitres. You would think, if you were listening to the debate at the moment, that all of that is out there and then some, so there is a demand for more environmental water. In fact, that is not the case. The Environmental Water Holder is using, I think, about 60 per cent of the allocation. Some of that has been undertaken in trials. Some of those trials have not been very successful. I am told there was a big flow down the Murrumbidgee in May and June, which was not particularly successful and which did not achieve an environmental outcome. It created some minor flooding and the benefit was negligible. But it was partly necessary in order to move some water through the system. So if the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder cannot use the water it has got, my question is: how will it use 2,750 gigalitres, which is the notional figure in the plan? How would it, for example, use 3,200 gigalitres, which might be a flexible target somewhere down the track? The answer is: unless you have a well-designed plan in existence, why would you seek to create that allocation? Why would you remove that productive water from the system and put it in storages, possibly change the water rules that say that the water has to continue down the system at certain times and say that you actually want to keep it in the storages, if you do not actually have a plan?

If you are talking about environmental health, why wouldn't you frame it in terms of the health to vertebrates, birds and fish in the system? Why is it always talked about in terms of volume of flow? I went looking for the science that tells me that and I cannot find it. So I invite anyone listening to this broadcast to send it to me.

As I said, I represent a significant number of farmers who have their lives on the line with the legislation concerning the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. I feel very upset and distressed, as they do, about some of the statements and suggestions that have been made by the government. Nobody minds giving up water if they see it as a win-win. Everybody who lives in the basin understands and loves the River Murray. They visit it regularly. They camp, fish with their kids and poke about there on weekends. They understand the life of this very important river system. They take it very personally when people suggest that they are just sitting there with a big pipe, sucking out water, trying to make money. Nothing could be further from the truth; it is an insult.

With respect to the flows that we are talking about here, 40,000 megalitres a day would be the flow required between Lake Hume and Yarrawonga. I just want to give this example because, for this plan to take effect and for us to have the basin plan near where it seems the government wants it, a lot of work would have to be done in easements. 'Easement'—that sounds easy. But it took 15 years to negotiate the easements between Lake Hume and Yarrawonga because the river was required to run at a higher level. It took 15 years to work through all of the third-party impacts that that would create.

It is bizarre that the government says, 'We'll just sort out these easements, we'll toss a bit of money at it and do away with them.' I do not understand how in the real world that can actually happen. Third-party impacts are real, substantial and uncosted. The Koondrook Perricoota flood enhancement scheme in my electorate came about from the Living Murray process. It has been around for almost as long as I have—almost 10 years. It cost $67 million to build this very complicated system that diverts water through the forest.

By the way, because of the third-party impacts, there is a dirty great channel to send the water back into the Murray so it does not flood people's homes and farms—$67 million. Now, if this latest iteration of the Basin Plan actually happens, that entire project will be drowned out. The member for New England visited it with me, and he understands the issues. It would simply put a layer of water on top of that, and we would never see any of the infrastructure underneath because the river would be running at a much higher level.

So I say, on behalf of my constituents, that we will participate in the discussions in good faith. We have lost a lot. We have been hurt a lot. We have had our way of life threatened. We have come through a drought that had us on our knees. We have listened to nonsense coming out the mouths of government members who do not understand. We do not see any direction from Prime Minister Gillard that gives us hope that we have a future in our agricultural industries. We are still here and our children are still here, but we do not find that very many of them want to take on the family farm anymore, and that is a tragedy. I will stay on the case; it is the most important one for me and for the electorate of Farrer.

Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before speaking to the Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012, I wanted to mention that I hear the divisions starting to open up again today. I often wonder what John Howard would think of his original proposal, a $10 billion water plan, and the original legislation, the Water Act 2007, that put all this together and laid out the format to be used by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and others to deal with these issues. Some members seem to be hedging their bets a bit, speaking against the bill for their constituents, but most probably voting for it at the end of the process, I think—because all of us would like to see some sort of plan for the future. But parochialism, whether it be state based or electorate based, reigns supreme; and, regrettably, I think both sides of politics have been engaged in that for some time.

The announcement the other day by the Prime Minister of the 456 gigalitres was unfortunate in the way it was done. It was seen as a win-lose, which is it is not, and I will go to some of the numbers in a moment. I can understand why the Prime Minister would want to do that, but I think that, in terms of the integrity of the debate and trying to arrive at a real conclusion, a real plan to address this issue, it is an opportunity missed. Obviously, the coalition speakers today are playing their parochial politics, and then you have the shadow minister still running around out there, saying this is all about 3,200 gigalitres returning to the system. I think, if anybody took the time to actually look at the numbers, they would see that is not the case. I might spend a little bit of time on that.

The water amendment bill before us today is essentially the recommendation that the Standing Committee on Regional Australia, which I chair, made in its report on the bill. The coalition members of the committee put in a dissenting report on the last piece of the inquiry. We have had three inquiries into this. There was one very significant inquiry, in which the member for Farrer was a very good participant, producing the document I hold. We had another, mini-inquiry into related matters which came up with four recommendations, and recommendation 3 is worth reading out, I think, because it directly relates to the bill:

The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government develop a mechanism to adjust sustainable diversion limits automatically in response to efficiencies gained by environmental works and measures.

Essentially, that is what the bill before the House today does. That was unanimously supported by the committee members—National, Labor, Liberal and Independent. There was quite a lot of work done on that recommendation, amongst other recommendations made in the second inquiry.

When the bill was introduced into the parliament, it was referred back to the committee—and there has been criticism from some of those parochial members here today, saying that the committee had some sort of secret meeting on this. It was our own recommendation that there be an automatic adjustment. It has been backed by the states. It has been backed by the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council. It has been backed by almost everybody within the system who understands the system. And it was backed by the integrity of the original inquiry, in the sense that the communities were saying they wanted the capacity, valley by valley, to make recommendations and make adjustments where they see fit. If, for every gigalitre of water that had to be adjusted, a proposal had to come before the parliament and be debated in both houses, it would be an absolute farce, with the sort of nonsense we have heard today and at other times on this particular issue.

So the members of the committee who put in a dissenting report are dissenting from their own recommendation. I cannot think of a reason why they would do that, because they heard the evidence from the people we spoke to during the inquiry that there needed to be some sort of automatic adjustment, within limits—plus or minus five per cent of the SDLs—so that we did not have to have a political debate for every megalitre of water that could be saved through environmental works and measures.

Now, let us go to the heart of that. What did the basin communities actually want at the start of this process? What did the regional Australia committee go out and talk to people about? What are the government and the authority doing about some of these things? Let us go to some of those issues. I think the committee should take some degree of credit, despite those who spoke against their own recommendations today, who should have a good look at some of the things that have occurred as a result of their recommendations. There was a recommendation to the authority and the government saying that people within the community were opposed to the Swiss cheese effect, where irrigation entitlements were being purchased under the government's buyback policy. The government agreed, in an earlier report back to the parliament, that non-strategic buyback would cease. I believe that will be part of the plan; if it is not, I will have great difficulty voting for it. It is what the community said: 'We don't want non-strategic buyback; we don't want Swiss cheese.'

When the government took that out, on the recommendation of an earlier report of our committee, most of the phone calls I received were from people saying, 'You have taken away our right to sell to the government; we want to be able to sell to the government.' Very few people rang up and congratulated us, even though that is what the communities—and the coalition members—had been saying. They had been telling us: 'Buyback is not the way to go. Environmental works and measures, investment in infrastructure and strategic investment in on-farm efficiencies are the way to go.' This piece of legislation deals with a number of those things.

As the committee travelled around, what did the communities tell us they wanted? They did want environmental works and measures. One of the things they kept saying was, 'Why do the farmers have to accept most of the give in this?' In fact, that is not true, but it is still being peddled out there. No-one forces anyone to do anything here. There is a water market. If people want to sell their water, they can. They have been able to do that for quite some time. They can sell it out of their community, downstream, or sell it within their community. That has been available for quite some time.

But some within the communities were saying, 'Why should it be the farmers who have to bear the brunt?' They were demanding, 'Why shouldn't the environment bear some of the brunt?' I agree with them. If you can efficiently—and we made certain recommendations along those lines—deliver environmental water to environmental icon sites for less than the original draft indicated, why would you not have a good hard look at that? That is what our recommendation embraces. It takes on board what the communities were saying. We do not want the farmers to bear the brunt of this. We want the environment to be efficient too where it can be and as it should be.

This bill today is about what people in the basin asked for—and I live in the basin, I farm in the basin and I have relatives who irrigate in the basin. I am probably one of the few people in this debate who actually lives and farms in the basin itself. So I have some idea about agriculture and all the vagaries of it. I farm on a flood plain, so I have some understanding of what water means to a flood plain's longevity et cetera.

What else did the communities we spoke to ask for? Rather than buyback, they wanted on-farm efficiencies—investment in infrastructure on-farm to get efficiencies. For instance, if a hundred megalitres of water was your entitlement and you were able, through investment in infrastructure or through other on-farm efficiencies, to obtain the same outcome with 70 megalitres of water, 30 per cent could be returned to the system. That is what people were asking for—for those on-farm efficiencies to be funded by the taxpayer.

The other thing they wanted—and we have discussed this here today—was for the Environmental Water Holder, who is going to hold all this environmental water, to be able to trade back into the productive market. Hopefully that will be part of the plan. I think, objectively, that it is something we should all lobby for. When there is a surplus of environmental water, there should be the capacity to temporarily trade some of that water back into the productive system. That is what the farmers and others were asking for.

They also asked for a rules review. That is going to happen—a review of the way the river is run and of various other monitoring systems. Another thing they wanted was for taxation issues to be addressed—the treatment of investment in irrigation efficiencies et cetera. That has been done, to the credit of the government. The parliament has actually passed some legislation on that. They also asked for strategic buybacks to be considered where possible. We heard the member for Riverina rambling on a moment ago, playing to his crowd. He has been the one proposing an area on the Murrumbidgee from which a vast number of gigalitres of water may be able to be returned to the system. He has been advocating that. If he does not believe that, as his ramblings today seem to indicate—'Any work or measure or efficiency or buyback in a strategic sense is nonsense and should be opposed'—perhaps he should go out and say that to his constituents.

I will briefly address the issue of the announcement the other day about the 450 gigalitres. I know there are a lot of people on both sides interested in the politics. Regrettably, I think I can see a South Australia versus the rest dimension developing. But I suggest that people should take the time to examine the real numbers in the documents out there. The target number at the moment is 2,750 gigalitres. This legislation allows for a five per cent increase or decrease in the total sustainable diversion limit, which is 10,000 gigalitres. So five per cent of that is 500 gigalitres—and that is where the 450 announced the other day fits in.

I will run through some numbers and hopefully people can understand. Most people can't—probably because it is me doing the explaining. You start with 2,750 gigalitres, which is the number everybody seems to have in their head. There are suggestions by the basin states—which I think will end up in the plan—that, through environmental works and measures and more efficient delivery of environmental water than was proposed in the original guide, you can save 650 gigalitres of water. That reduces the 2,750 back to 2,100. As of today, there have been something like 1,300 gigalitres returned to the system through strategic and non-strategic buybacks. If you deduct the 1,300 from the 2,100 you have after the environmental works and measures—which this bill deals with—it comes out at 800 gigalitres. Anybody listening to the debate today would think that 3,200 gigalitres of water is to be stolen—taken away from someone out there.

Let's go to the other side of the equation. You have 2,750 as the goal. The Prime Minister announced the other day that 450 gigalitres of water is going to be returned to the system. How is that going to get returned to the system? It is not going to be returned to the system for a long time, if ever. It is going to be funded via some sort of credit card arrangement, if ever. It is also a voluntary system. There would be some sort of government fund to support investments in on-farm efficiencies.

If farmers do not want to be part of an on-farm efficiency program, they do not have to participate; there is nothing mandatory about the government's system. So a scenario could develop where the 450 gigalitres and up, which was designed placate the South Australians, in fact turned out to be nonsense. If no farmer takes the government's system on board, it is nonsense, and that would mean that the real figures would be the original figures I was talking about: the 27 gigalitres less the 650 gigalitres and environmental works and measures—which is a more efficient way of delivering water to the environment in certain circumstances, such as the icon sites—less the 1,300 gigalitres that has already been obtained. That would leave 800 gigalitres to be obtained over the next eight years. If you add a few things, such as the Nami Caira proposal, which could be 100 gigalitres, and the Menindee proposal, which could be 100 to 200 gigalitres, it is not hard to get to a position of balance. But the suggestion that the 3,200 gigalitres is going to come out of the system is a nonsense. The efficiencies on both sides of the equation rework the numbers internally.

Plenty of people out there will argue the case, but I would like to see them analyse the numbers and be critical while looking at the numbers, not the rhetoric. (Time expired)

Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose the Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012. I will cut to the chase here and be blunt—this bill is nothing more than an outsourcing of ministerial and parliamentary responsibility to bureaucrats in Canberra. If passed, the bill would effectively allow the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to adjust the amount of water being taken out of the basin by up to 700 gigalitres either up or down, and it could be done without approval by the minister, the cabinet or the parliament. Consider this for a moment. Should the bill pass, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority could adjust the sustainable diversion limit from the current target of 2,750 gigalitres to 3,450 gigalitres without any parliamentary or ministerial oversight. To put that into perspective: 700 gigalitres is more water than South Australia currently extracts, and to allow such a massive and potentially devastating adjustment to occur without any parliamentary or ministerial oversight would be completely irresponsible.

The Murray-Darling Basin is contentious policy, and I think that all of us in this place can acknowledge that—especially those of us who represent basin electorates. Indeed, in my electorate of Indi, which is the largest single contributor of water to the entire basin with about 40 person of total inflows generated in north-east Victoria alone, I appreciate how critical policy on the Murray-Darling Basin is and how critical it is to ensure that ministers are responsible for decisions and that they do not hide behind the bureaucracy. As elected representatives we have a responsibility to make sure that we do get policy on the basin right, because, if we do not, it will have an enormous and potentially devastating impact on irrigation and farming communities throughout the entire Murray-Darling Basin. We are the ones who should bear the ultimate responsibility for the basin plan, not unelected public servants in Canberra, as well-qualified and well-meaning as they are. We are elected to make decisions and to take responsibility for important policy which affects the nation, and there is arguably no more important policy affecting our long-term sustainability in agriculture, population and industry than water policy. This bill is an abrogation of basic responsibility, and the minister should be ashamed to be hiding behind the bureaucracy in this way through this bill. I am not suggesting that the MDBA is not qualified to make recommendations and provide advice to the minister and the parliament; but providing advice is a long way from making a final decision that would impact the lives of thousands of people across the country.

The MDBA will be given the right to bypass not just the minister but also the parliament, because under this bill the MDBA's adjustments would not be disallowable. This would mean that elected members would not even be given the opportunity to vote on adjustments. In the Westminster system under which we operate, there is an great emphasis placed on ministerial responsibility. Although over the last five years we have seen an extraordinary and unprecedented erosion of the application of the principle of ministerial responsibility, I think that we should nonetheless aspire to ensure that the principle of ministerial responsibility does remain a very real and very active part of our parliamentary system. Governments should not be able to make decisions which impact people's lives without having to face those people and without having to answer for their decisions. This bill flies in the face of that fundamental principle—the principle of ministerial responsibility—of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy.

The bill comes in the wake of the Prime Minister's announcement last week of an additional 450 gigalitres of environmental water to be returned to the basin, apparently through an additional $1.7 billion worth of investment in water savings infrastructure. On the face of it, this sounds like reasonably positive news. But it is important that some points be noted. This announcement does need to be examined, the facts do need to be looked at and questions need to be asked. Is it not curious that, during Senate estimates just a couple of weeks ago, the departmental officials made it quite clear that you would need between one-and-a-half and two times as much investment in infrastructure to achieve the sorts of cuts which have been announced? Many in the basin are asking the question: does the minister plan on announcing a whole new round of water buybacks to achieve that increased target? If you look carefully at the announcement you see that the door seems to have been left open for additional buybacks but that, in typical form, the government has not provided any detail.

Of course, questions are being asked. What are the considerations for land users upstream? My electorate sits at the mouth of the Hume weir at the top of the Murray River. What will the ramifications be for prime land around the upper reaches of the Murray? Can they expect to be flooded year round? A constituent of mine in the upper Murray recently brought to my attention that she has been paying around $14,000 a year for a grazing licence that she could not even use because the land has been flooded for the last two years. Can farmers and graziers in my electorate and other electorates expect more of this as a result of these announcements? These are valid questions to which reasonable people would like some answers.

This government has fumbled and fiddled with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan for almost five years now and in doing so—I can tell you—has crushed confidence in the agricultural sector. Now it is trying to pass a bill that will allow it to hide behind the basin authority and avoid scrutiny at every turn. This bill should be opposed, and the minister should have the courage to face up to people whose very livelihoods are in his hands.

Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak also on the bill before the House, the Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012, in relation to Murray-Darling Basin reform. I agree in part with what the member for Indi has just contributed in the debate—that is, the point the member for Indi made that reform in this area is complicated, very difficult and extremely contentious. It varies from irrigation district to irrigation district, not so much state by state, as some would like to simplistically argue. This is not a New South Wales versus South Australia or a Victoria versus New South Wales or a New South Wales and Victoria and South Australia versus Queensland issue; it is an issue which relates to district. Ultimately, if you understand at all how the Murray-Darling Basin works, only parts of it are connected with others in a serious way, and therefore those downstream of other irrigation districts always think that they are worse off because of those other irrigation districts, and usually the irrigation district upstream thinks that it should not have to reform at all—and that is very much the case when it comes to this debate.

It is important, I think, that we understand some history and put aside, as much as possible, some of the politics for which this issue has been used for so long now, including today in question time. Water and water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin were an issue which was a Federation debate. The South Australian contingent at the Federation debates argued that the management of water resources should be a matter for the Constitution handled by the federal parliament. They lost to the Victorians and New South Welshmen, who argued that it would be all okay if the states managed it. Following at least two royal commissions into the Murray-Darling Basin in the early part of last century and the establishment of barrages in the Lower Lakes in my electorate, this issue continued to get worse and worse as more and more irrigated land and irrigation settlements were built in the Murray-Darling Basin. Of course, a lot of that irrigation land and those irrigation settlements occurred post World War I and World War II, including that of my own family, who were on an irrigated soldier settlement property out of Red Cliffs, in Victoria in the Sunraysia district, following World War I.

In those times when governments were expanding and increasing the amount of irrigated product, in part because of the logistic connections of the river itself, with riverboat trade and then rail, we obviously did not think through the consequences of not managing how much water would or would not be taken out in good and bad years. As time went on, our understanding of the system got better and better and we understood increasingly that separate irrigation districts were struggling through separate environmental challenges, although it has to be said that there was, sadly, in the late seventies and early eighties—even though some of this understanding had begun to be realised—a spike in the irrigation licences that were issued by state governments. But no state government—not the government of my state of South Australia, not the Victorian government, not the New South Wales government and not the Queensland government—can say that they have clean hands when it comes to their management regime. They do not. This system has never been managed all that well, despite what some people would have you believe.

This issue has challenged us for 120 years. The Murray-Darling Basin is a vital part of our country. It grows much food and fibre in all of the states. It is not just somewhere that we grow food and fibre in New South Wales or Victoria; much of South Australia's agricultural product is produced in the Murray-Darling Basin in the Riverland and around my parts of the country. The member for Barker argues this point also. People too often allege that people in South Australia are interested only in reform to the Murray-Darling Basin because of so-called greenie interest, as I heard earlier in the debate. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am very happy to take members down to meet dairy farmers, wine producers and beef cattle farm operators, and they can tell you what it was like for six years without any water allocation at all—to have a licence with no value to it at all when you could not access the water. Not everyone in this debate is all that honest about the motives that necessarily drive why people are interested in this reform.

It is absolutely necessary reform. In 2004, John Howard as Prime Minister saw the need for it to be reformed. That is why he, being the first Prime Minister to seriously address the Murray-Darling Basin—the first Prime Minister, frankly, to be seriously interested in the issues relating to it—took the first step and introduced the Living Murray initiative, which brought back some gigalitres of water to the system between 2004 and 2006. Of course, in that period there was also an enormous drought. For the first time, the system went into the drought under stress, and therefore the stress was exaggerated enormously by a very sustained and difficult drought.

In mid-2006—and the member for Wentworth has recalled this story to me on numerous occasions—in a very frank meeting with the then South Australian Premier, our water minister made the important point that within months South Australia could be without water. Adelaide could be without water. The Murray had stopped flowing. It was a series of cut-up dams. That does not just affect South Australians; it affects people in Mildura, Deniliquin—you name it. When a system stops running, that is not healthy. Of course, it was in the worst of the drought, but the problem was the policy had made it harder for the system to adapt to that drought. If people do not recognise that, they are truly putting a blindfold on to the issues.

So in 2007, recognising just how serious this was, John Howard and the member for Wentworth, as the minister for the environment and water, made a groundbreaking announcement on Australia Day. It was criticised by some for its reach, for its takeover of what was traditionally a state managed system, but it was absolutely necessary. This system had proven the Federation incapable of managing itself, largely because irrigator districts could not come to an arrangement which ensured that the management of the system was done properly. So the national water plan was announced, a $10 billion 10-point plan which was to ensure that water was recovered, to ensure that a national independent authority was put in place to make decisions outside the realm of politics.

Unfortunately, politics have failed this debate for too long and it remains the case. It is sad that 5½ years on from that initial plan we are still here debating this in this place without yet seeing a finalised plan. The minister for the environment continues to fail to deliver upon it. It was January 2007 when John Howard first announced this. It was during the parliamentary sittings in 2007 that the member for Wentworth, as the minister for the environment, delivered this reform and since that time the Labor Party in government have failed to deliver on it.

It also has to be said, contrary to the grandstanding of the minister today and of the Prime Minister last Friday, that it was the Labor Party—Premier Steve Bracks and Premier John Brumby—who stood in the way of a national agreement in 2007 that would have hastened this reform. In the middle of the drought, when it was absolutely vital and essential, they stopped it for very blatant political reasons. They did not want to give John Howard a victory in the lead-up to the 2007 election. That is the reason that they stood in the way of it being agreed to in that year. Now we have the minister for the environment and the Prime Minister grandstanding to South Australians, saying that somehow they are the great saviours, even though it was never Labor's idea to have a national takeover of this system, to have a national independent authority. When it was proposed by John Howard and the then minister for the environment, Malcolm Turnbull, they opposed it every step of the way. They used John Brumby and Steve Bracks to oppose it every step of the way.

People should remember the history on this. It is this side of the House that has been committed to reform for a very long time, because we know that, to ensure that we can continue to be the food bowl of Australia, we need to have a sustainable and managed system that does not enter droughts in a distressed state. We need enough water to ensure that the environmental assets that Australians hold dear remain healthy and that communities are sustainable. That has been our position for a long time. We say the best way to deliver that is to have an independent authority.

I agree with the member for Indi in that the minister should not be giving over all his ability and authority in this respect, as this bill proposes. That is why we have foreshadowed an amendment, and I understand the minister is considering that amendment. I think it would be a wise move if the minister accepted that amendment to ensure that what are not unreasonable proposals in this bill are agreed to.

I am still absolutely and utterly committed to reform of the Murray-Darling Basin. I was when I ran for parliament in September 2008. I grew up on the Murray-Darling Basin. I spent many of my school holidays swimming in the Murray River. I spent many of my school projects testing salinity in the Murray-Darling Basin. I understand and I have for a very long time that this system needs to be fixed. We have understood for a very long time that this system needs to be fixed. It was the coalition who first proposed that this system be fixed by a truly national independent authority making the decisions outside of politics, taking the ongoing battles between irrigator districts away and making decisions in the best interests of the nation. We remain committed to that process.

I will quote from the coalition's election policy from before the last election. The third point of the 10 point plan is:

3.   Proceed with the implementation of the Basin Plan without delay

The Labor Party has taken too long to implement what was a sound plan in January 2007. It opposed it in 2007 for political reasons and since it was elected to government it has taken too long to implement the necessary reforms. We should not still be debating this bill today. We should be implementing the plan to get the management of this system right. I make this very clear in the parliament tonight: I remain and will remain committed to reform of the Murray-Darling Basin. This is the commitment that we as a coalition made at the last election:

The Coalition wants proper consultation on the draft Basin Plan, according to the principles outlined in The Water Act 2007. We want full and transparent discussion of its consequences. We want to bring the communities of the basin with us on the journey of reform.

We will implement a plan.

It is important and necessary that we do so, because if we do not we will go back to the old ways of managing this system, which have failed our country, which have failed irrigator districts along the system and which have failed my communities utterly and absolutely over the years—just as the politics of this issue continues to fail us today. We need to remove as much as we possibly can of the ongoing, insidious battle between different states, different irrigation districts and different vested interests and come to a conclusion finally that this system is far too important for us to continue to argue over in order to score base political points.

I thought it was shameful for the Prime Minister and the Minister for the Environment to try to play base politics last week after failing the system for the last five years, but that sums up where this Prime Minister and her credibility are at. It is now time for us to put in place this reform. I urge the minister to come to a conclusion on the Basin Plan. I urge him to table it in this parliament and to get it in place so that we can take the steps necessary to have a finalised Basin Plan and a finalised national authority managing this system and so that we do not again have to have this debate, which is occurring for no purpose other than base political purposes.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on the Water Amendment (Long-term Average Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment) Bill 2012. This bill seeks to amend the Water Act to allow for an adjustment mechanism, as agreed by the basin states and the Commonwealth. I come into this place as a member who represents 24 per cent of the Murray-Darling Basin. I represent the communities in the rivers, from the border rivers—the Macintyre, Barwon and Darling—right down to the Lachlan. I dare say that what we decide in this place about the management of the Murray-Darling Basin will affect my constituents as much, if not more, than anyone else.

We have heard a lot of speeches in this place about the Murray-Darling Basin and the plan, and unfortunately many of them—maybe with the best of intentions and great ideals—are based on emotion and not a lot of understanding of fact. The fact of the matter is that all the rivers in my electorate are ephemeral streams. That means that traditionally they flood and then they go dry. It was only the advent of the post-war dams—the last one was completed, I think, in the 1980s—that has given us some degree of ability to manage that water. All but two of the rivers in my electorate are terminal streams. That means that they do not flow through to the Darling River. They are the Gwydir, the Macquarie and the Lachlan Rivers, and they all flow into wetlands. The Lachlan River flowed through this year for the first time in 100 years, but the Gwydir and Macquarie flow through much less frequently than that—it probably happens every five or seven years for the Gwydir and, for the Macquarie, every three or four years.

The idea is not correct that the Murray-Darling Basin is an interconnected piece of plumbing where you put water in one end and it ultimately comes out the other. As we battle our way through to finding a solution—and I do agree with the other speakers that we are in need of a solution that we can agree on—I am concerned that the actions which are proposed actually deliver what they are supposed to. There has to be an understanding that water removed from the system in one of the northern rivers in my electorate will not necessarily make it through the system. Indeed, I think the figures are that, for one megalitre to reach the Murray River from Bourke, 17 megalitres would have to be purchased. That is a huge amount of loss. This bill basically gives the basin authority the ability to adjust the sustainable limit by five per cent—that is, roughly 700 gigs. The proposal is that the minister must take note of the authority's recommendation and that that must come into effect.

My concern is that we do not know what the makeup of the authority will be into the future—whether we will end up with people with set agendas one way or the other—and that maybe their decision will not be acceptable throughout the river. Another thing is that the Prime Minister made an announcement last week about an extra 450 gigs to be added into the system through works and measures, and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority have been negotiating and working with communities and stakeholders for a couple of years now and got to a point where 2,850 gigs would be seen as acceptable; but already that decision of the authority has not been adhered to. So the idea that the authority can be all-powerful is probably false. I understand that amendments have been discussed which would give some authority back to the minister and provide an instrument that may allow this parliament to have some input—and ultimately that may be the way to go.

The other thing that concerns me is that a lot of the communities, irrigators and farmers in my electorate have got reform fatigue. This is not something that has been going on for just a couple of years; the Namoi Valley and the Macquarie Valley have been undertaking reforms now for 20 years. I have seen four individual plans for the lower Macquarie Valley. There are a couple of things that are concerning my constituents. On several occasions they have gone through negotiations—they have actually handed back water—and all parties have reached a position on a sustainable level of extraction. They wore a lot of personal pain, with no compensation at that particular time, and then they find that there is another round and another round.

Ultimately my concern with the process we are going through now is: if we sign up and get to a plan that is acceptable for the whole length of the river, what is to stop another group from saying in three or four years time that they want more water? We have got to the point where we are in a Dutch auction: politicians can show their credentials as caring for the environment or caring for certain sections of the river by declaring a certain amount of water extraction as being suitable for the environment. But does anyone know what that means? Does anyone know what 1200, 2,800 or 3,200 gigs looks like? At the moment, 1,300 or 1,500 gigs is already out of the system—it has already been purchased and is sitting around in dams now and being used—and, frankly, no-one quite knows what to do with it. Back in June and July we saw environmental flows going down to the Gwydir wetlands, which were already full and saturated to capacity. That water was spilling out and flooding thousands of hectares of cash crops—in particular, wheat and chickpeas. Does anyone know that the Macquarie River at Warren is at only about one-quarter or one-third of the capacity of that same river at Dubbo and that there is a real constraint on delivering water through to the marshes because, at a certain level, the river spills out across private property and farmland?

The states have been asked by the Commonwealth to come up with an environmental watering plan, but at this stage we have not seen one. While I think there is a desire to get this process cleaned up so that we can move on, that should not be an excuse not to do it properly. It should not be an excuse to come to a decision because 'Oh God, we've had enough of this debate and we need to move on'. That should not be enough of an excuse to come up with a plan if we do not know all the facts and figures. If you go to the bank to borrow dollars to do something in your business, you have to put in a budget to explain where those dollars are going to be used, what income they will generate, what your costs are—a full budget of how you are going to use that money. And water is no different. If an environmental asset or an irrigation farm, or whatever, wants to purchase a certain amount of water, we actually need to know what the budget for that water is—how much of it is going to the environment and how much of it is going to be used to transport that water down to that asset. And we have not got a clear environmental watering plan at this stage.

There are lots of things we can look at in this process. This plan was conceived in the middle of the worst drought in over 100 years. What I have said constantly over the last couple of years is that, with 10 years of drought and then two years of floods, we have seen that man is not the major player in the Murray-Darling Basin; man is a bit player in the Murray-Darling Basin. In the floods, witnessing them as I did, the floodwater went where it has gone for the last 1,000 years—and all the man-made infrastructure had very little impact. Likewise in the drought, when the rain stopped, all the dams in my electorate stopped running. While some people might have a concept of the river being low and there being not much water about, I can tell you that the lower Lachlan was completely dry. The farmers in my electorate had zero allocation for several years during that time. So we understand that nature is still the major player.

My ultimate concern, without casting aspersions either way as to where we will end up, is that we will end up with a plan that will have a marginal effect on the environment but a major effect on the communities. A couple of years ago, at the end of the drought, we saw that the environment of the river is far more robust than the economic environment of the towns that live upon it. While the river bounced back to full health very quickly, the communities along those rivers are still struggling to catch up—and some of them may never get back to the position they were in before the drought.

I do believe that we need to come up with a plan that is acceptable, but we do need to stick to the facts. We do not need to pander to different groups to give them something they think they want but that they do not understand the consequences of. We need to have a plan that is based on the facts. We need to have a plan that understands the complexity of this system. And so that is where we need to go. But, on the bill in front of us, I think if we are going to have this mechanism for five per cent adjustment up and down, at least the Australian parliament need to have some input into that final decision, and we do not need to leave it in the hands of an unelected group of semibureaucrats.

Debate adjourned.

Leave granted for second reading debate to resume at a later hour this day.