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

My question is to the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. Will the minister update the House on the progress of the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and how this will help build a brighter and more sustainable future for the basin?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Makin for the question. He has been a very strong advocate for the Murray River in particular and for the Murray-Darling Basin. This government is very proud to have been a government that finally developed a plan for the Murray-Darling Basin. I remember at a community cabinet about five years ago the Prime Minister referring to the Murray as having been over-allocated to death. And yet we have a situation now where that same Murray-Darling Basin is being restored to health. I am very pleased as well that the question comes from the member for Makin who played a significant role in the Windsor committee. The Windsor committee was critical in making sure that we could get the support of this parliament on this issue.

It is also the case that there are two further pieces of information that I am very pleased to report to the House. Members will be aware that the final environmental outcomes we wanted to achieve were those commensurate with 3,200 gigalitres of water. I am pleased to report we have now passed the halfway mark on held water, with 1,638 gigalitres now held and able to be used to restore a system to health; where irrigation is done to help the environment not simply as a cost to the environment. It is also the case that we have had to make sure that we get the states working on the implementation part of the strategy. There are major projects set to happen up and down the basin as part of the implementation to make sure that we can maximise the environmental outcomes in some ways to find ways of bridging the gap through methods other than buyback as well.

I reported previously to the House that Victoria and the ACT and, obviously, our government have signed up to the intergovernmental agreement. I am pleased to advise the House that shortly before question time I received a phone call from the Premier of South Australia to say that South Australia is now also ready to sign on to the intergovernmental agreement. That means projects such as those at Chowilla to make sure that new regulators are put in place can happen, so that when irrigation and events for the environment happen there the water is held on the floodplain for a longer period, restoring a broken system to health, turning the corner on what had been a century of degradation. This is one of the proud reforms of this parliament and of this government, something that has been worked on for a long time. This is something which the member for Makin and the other South Australian members in particular, on this side and those across the parliament who worked on the Windsor committee, are able to say is an occasion where we have achieved something that had eluded our nation for a century.