Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I rise to update the House on the government's policy priorities in regard to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Water reform in our nation has progressed over many years. I speak on this matter today as one of the many members from both sides of the House who have been given the responsibility of managing this nationally important issue. I acknowledge the work done by former Prime Minister John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull as the minister for water and their courage to continue on the path of bold reforms in the water sector building on the COAG reforms of the mid-1990s and the National Water Initiative and the Living Murray program of the early 2000s.

In a continent such as ours, with such variable climatic conditions, managing water resources sensibly, equitably and sustainably is the most important aspect of the Commonwealth's role in leading the nation's water reform agenda. The making of the Basin Plan in 2012 by the then minister for water Tony Burke, with bipartisan support from the coalition, represented the culmination of 20 years of substantial water reform. Under Prime Minister Abbott each state has now signed up to the intergovernmental agreement for implementing water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin, a historic achievement that all members of this parliament and state parliaments can be equally proud of. This plan is the epitome of bipartisanship and recognition of the dire situation highlighted by the millennium drought. It shows what can be achieved through federal and state collaboration, negotiation and cooperation.

I have only been in this portfolio a short time but I immediately commenced travelling throughout the regions of the Murray-Darling Basin listening to and observing the concerns of all sectors of the community. I have travelled the length of the Murray River. I have visited parts of the Goulburn and Murrumbidgee rivers. I have travelled to the Menindee Lakes to see the dire situation with their water shortage, with water now only remaining in Copi Hollow. I look forward to continuing my travels down the Darling River with the members for Parkes and Maranoa after Easter. No matter where I go, it is clear to me that there are two key issues facing communities in the basin. The first is the policy fatigue that has set in after more than 20 years of water reform. The second is the sense of urgency for certainty regarding the implementation of the Basin Plan.

The communities of the Murray-Darling Basin understand the need for the reforms that have gone ahead, but they, rightly, want assurances that the implementation of these water reforms will achieve a win-win-win that delivers good outcomes for the environment, for the farmers and irrigators and for the communities and businesses in the plan. I want to make it abundantly clear that the coalition government is committed to delivering the Basin Plan in full, on time. The coalition is completing the water reforms that we started. It is what we pledged and it is what we are delivering. However, we recognise the concerns and challenges that the plans create for some communities, and we must and we will find a way to deliver the best possible outcome for basin communities and the environment. It is our responsibility to ensure the long-term environmental and business sustainability for our communities to prosper. The coalition is cognisant of the need for certainty for all businesses, to enable them to invest in the future of their community and industry. This is true from the north of the basin to the south, as it is from the east of the basin to the west.

We are listening to the environmentalists, to the townspeople, to the farmers, to the irrigators, to the businesses, to the tourism operators, to industry and to fishermen alike. Every person and every group in the basin matters and they must all be considered. This is why we are aiming to implement the Basin Plan to achieve a win-win-win outcome and provide a level of certainty that has been missing. That is why we are now moving to legislate the 1,500-gigalitre cap on water buybacks in the basin, to place a ceiling on the amount of water recovery that can be achieved through water purchase, in line with the coalition's Water Recovery Strategy released in June 2014. To date, 1,162 gigalitres have been recovered through water purchase, 607 gigalitres recovered through investment in infrastructure programs and a further 182 gigalitres through other state recovery actions. That is 1,951 gigalitres, 70 per cent of the water recovery required under the plan. There is still more to be done, but it needs to be done with the least detrimental impact on all sectors of the community. For the remaining water recovery efforts, we have prioritised the remainder of the Basin Plan funding for investment in infrastructure, particularly through more efficient on- and off-farm irrigation systems and environmental works and measures to achieve the outcomes of the Basin Plan to the full extent.

People often talk about the Snowy Hydro scheme as the biggest infrastructure project that rural Australia has ever seen. While the project is an impressive hydrological engineering feat, let me tell you that the $820 million that government spent over 25 years pales in comparison to the $13 billion that will be spent implementing the Basin Plan reforms. From now to 30 June 2019, the Australian government will spend $2 million per day investing in infrastructure right across the basin, investing in the future of sustainable farming and irrigated agriculture and investing in our environmental sustainability as well as community sustainability, all with a level of certainty. That is $2 million per day invested in regional communities. We will do this working in partnership with our state counterparts, who are key and critical to delivering the Murray-Darling Basin reforms.

Throughout my travel with local members, I have seen the positives of this investment by the Commonwealth government. With Sharman Stone, the member for Murray, I visited the dairy farm of Nick and Nicole Ryan, who have upgraded their farm with laser levelling and automated pressure pipe-and-riser irrigation technology. Irrigating paddocks through automation reduces watering time, delivers water to the soil more efficiently and effectively, reducing the volume of water required to maintain healthy pastures and reducing salinity impacts. These infrastructure works increase farm productivity and reduce the labour demands of farming, all while delivering water savings for our environment.

I also visited Deniliquin with Sussan Ley, the member for Farrer, where I saw infrastructure investment in new remote-controlled regulators and metering and met with the Wragge family, a father-and-son rice-growing team. Again, they are benefiting from the on-farm laser levelling, which is reducing the amount of water needed but also increasing crop yield. Innovation is the Australian way, and this rice farmer is looking for further means to increase his yield per hectare. He is doing it by putting freshwater eels into the flooded paddocks, which is achieving a dual benefit of eel production from market and improving the environmental footprint, through bug control, as the eels feed on the insects, reducing pesticides and input costs.

I encountered similar stories of efficiency and effectiveness in the electorate of Tony Pasin, the member for Barker, visiting grape and citrus growers who are achieving similar feats of increased efficiency and productivity. While in Renmark, I also visited the Chowilla regulator, which is an impressive example of the type of work being done to achieve better environmental outcomes through effective control and delivery of water and, just like irrigators, achieve a more efficient use of water. This project is part of the $1 billion for the Living Murray works for environmental icon sites in the Murray. The regulator will allow for regular inundation of up to 50 per cent of the 17,750 hectares of wetlands. I also saw the fish ladders and gates in action, which now span the entire length of the Murray River, restricting the passage of non-native carp, which destroy our river system, whilst providing safe passage for our native species—an engineering feat in itself. Similarly, I saw the works at Koondrook-Perricoota Forest on the New South Wales side of the Murray, which covers 32,000 hectares of flood plain and is home to significant bird, fish and native flora populations, including iconic river red gum and black box colonies. Over $100 million invested through the Living Murray Initiative is finally delivering water to the wetland. I have seen the success of this recent environmental watering, with the trees, scrub and wildlife responding slowly but positively.

Andrew Broad, the member for Mallee, and Michael McCormack, the member for Riverina, despite the distances between their electorates, have good examples of the positives from government investment in off-farm delivery infrastructure.

In the Sunraysia, Lower Murray Water are converting their channel system to pipe, which reduces water losses during delivery and improves water quality to the farmers, through the $103 million in federal government investment. In the Murrumbidgee I saw the innovation and drive from the Coleambally Irrigation deliver world's best-practice farming techniques and water management. They also highlighted increased investment in the region due to more efficient water delivery and certainty of access through these irrigation networks.

In a sign of confidence in the future of irrigated agriculture, six local cotton farmers have banded together, investing $24 million to build a cotton gin. I was so impressed by the enthusiasm in this small but very dynamic community. I met with Leeton mayor Paul Maytom, who was upbeat about the investment that the reforms were delivering to his community. However, when meeting with him and local businesses such as JBS meats, SunRice and Walnuts Australia, they highlighted the need for certainty from government—the need for the 1,500-gigalitre cap to be legislated.

At the end of the day, all of the above projects are investments in agriculture that are delivering improvements for our farmers and water for the environment. We recognise the challenges for all groups, from townspeople to farmers, irrigators, environmentalists, business and tourism operators, industry and fishermen alike—indeed, everyone. That is why we are determined to deliver a triple-bottom-line outcome. The basin as a whole depends on it. As I have said, delivering the plan is not without its challenges or issues that we must address. We will work with the states to finesse and deliver a plan that meets this aim, and we will make sure that it is effective.

From my visits to the basin I can see and understand the emotions, but I can only address the facts—and I will address the facts. I have heard clearly the concerns surrounding the constraints management strategy and the delivery of environmental water. I thank those groups on the Edward and Murrumbidgee rivers that showed me around their farms and highlighted the issues in some of the modelling and what the model means for those on the ground. It is clear this is an area that the states need to examine more thoroughly as a part of the development of the sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism. I have listened to the calls for improved transparency and greater community engagement. I have directed the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the Department of the Environment and the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder to address this with a level of urgency.

There will be challenging times as we again go through dry periods, as we did with the millennium drought—as much as we will go through challenging times during excessive wet periods, as we did in 2010, 2011 and 2012. As Dorothea Mackellar wrote in those immortal words of the poem My Country, on the deck of the Torryburn house, near Gresford in my electorate of Paterson, this is:

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

We—and I mean all of us—need to take people on the journey with us. We need to provide greater certainty so that communities can understand where the journey in these reforms will take them from now to 2019 and beyond. We need to work together in a bipartisan way to provide a level of certainty to address the challenges together with our basin communities, not against them. Communities have a need and a right to know what the plan will deliver and what their future holds. We need to build a strong future in the Murray-Darling Basin, and that is why the next step is to legislate the 1,500-gigalitre cap. It is so important as a means of providing confidence and certainty to the basin community as a whole. They deserve nothing less.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment for the opportunity to speak and acknowledge the bipartisanship that lies very much of the heart of the Basin Plan. I congratulate him on his appointment to this portfolio. Both of us, representing our respective parties, bear a great deal of responsibility to continue the implementation of a plan that was very much one of the highlights of the last parliament. I also acknowledge and thank him for the work that his office continues to do in keeping us in touch with the work of the government in that implementation. As the parliamentary secretary has acknowledged, continuing that bipartisanship is absolutely essential to achieving the objectives that people worked so hard to put into the plan in the last term of parliament.

As many of us in this place know—as many who have come in to participate in this part of the debate know—the question of allocation around the river Murray, the sharing and the regulation of waters in the Murray, is a dispute that goes back to way before Federation. This is something I am deeply aware of. My family were fruit growers, and my great-great-grandfather represented South Australia at the conference that achieved the 1915 River Murray agreement, which, for the first time, dealt with some questions of regulation and sharing of water. This was important not only for South Australia but also for New South Wales and Victoria in terms of the waters upstream and downstream from Albury. It started the locking of the river that allowed, in times of drought, for waters to stay in the system and to continue to sustain production in so many of the communities in the basin. All of us understand just how important these issues have been for, really, many decades in restoring our rivers to health or sustaining the health of our rivers, supporting strong regional communities right up and down the basin, and ensuring sustainable food production.

I acknowledge the work on the reform process that was started in the mid-1990s but particularly during the Howard government, including with Minister Turnbull, and carried through our period of government. In particular, Minister Burke, the member for Watson, had the very difficult task at times to bring this together into an intergovernmental agreement and to deal with the very serious concerns of different members of the community—basin communities, most obviously, but also communities in my own state of South Australia, including Adelaide, which probably is the most affected of all of the large metropolitan communities in Australia. The plan and the agreement, as is the nature of these things, did not satisfy everyone entirely.

There are concerns from all perspectives in this debate about the contents of this agreement, but that demonstrates it is an agreement—if we all work hard enough—that can be sustained for the long-term. As the parliamentary secretary has said, the Basin Plan will set basin-wide sustainable diversion limits and return 2,750 gigalitres to the environment. Basin states are required to prepare water-resource plans that will give effect to the SDLs from July 2019. Under the SDL adjustment mechanism up to 650 gigalitres can be provided through supply measures, projects that deliver environmental outcomes with less water. Proposals for these supply measures are, as I understand it, in varying states of preparation and assessment still. There is a bipartisan commitment to bridge the gap between what these supply measures can provide and the 2,750 gigalitres to be returned to the environment.

As members know, on top of that 2,750-gigalitre target, an additional 450 gigalitres will be returned to the environment. Funding was provided through legislation, in 2013, for the additional 450 gigalitres, which must be obtained through projects that ensure no social or economic downsides for communities, such as on-farm irrigation projects. There is $1.78 billion in the Water for the Environment Special Account, including $200 million for the removal of constraints identified in the constraints management strategy.

To date, 1,951 gigalitres has been recovered for the environment through a mix, as the parliamentary secretary identified in detail, of water purchase, infrastructure, investment and other basin state recovery actions. This is water that can be used at appropriate times and where it is needed to improve flow and help restore health throughout the system. Already, we have seen successful water releases overseen by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, CEWH—or 'chew', as he is affectionately known—and the state and regional water management agencies.

Importantly, there has been significant Commonwealth investment in ensuring that farms remain productive as the plan is delivered. As stated by the parliamentary secretary, $2 million a day is being and will continue to be spent on efficiency and infrastructure measures out to 2019. This is not only a significant amount of taxpayers' money but also it is a significant commitment to the Basin Plan itself—to the health of our rivers, to the ecosystems and to the regional communities that they support.

The basin supports agriculture, as everyone knows, on a grand scale—around 40 per cent of Australia's agricultural production. According to ABS figures, in 2012-13 the basin accounted for over 50 per cent of Australia's irrigated produce, including almost 100 per cent of Australia's rice, 96 per cent of Australia's cotton, 75 per cent of Australia's grapes, 59 per cent of Australia's hay, 54 per cent of Australia's fruit, 52 per cent of Australia's production from sheep and livestock and 45 per cent of Australia's dairy. They are extraordinary statistics.

Around two million people live and work in the basin, in communities ranging from fewer than 1,000 people to large urban centres, like Wagga Wagga, with over 45,000 people. A further 1.2 million people depend on the waters of the basin to survive. All of this agricultural production and the two million people living in the basin rely on a healthy, functioning river system.

There are also the environmental needs of the river. Within the basin there are approximately 30,000 wetlands, over 60 species of fish, 124 families of macroinvertebrates, 98 species of waterbirds, four threatened water-dependent ecological communities and hundreds of plant species supported by key floodplains. The health of the river, the channels themselves and the flora and fauna they support, is not only vital in its own right but also vital for the economic and social wellbeing of basin communities. As a South Australian, I know the health of the basin—and particularly the Murray—is epitomised by the health of the Lower Lakes and the Murray Mouth as well.

Related to environmental needs and flows, the Aboriginal nations and communities in the basin want and should have access to the flows they need to ensure the continuation of their culture and their social and economic wellbeing. Aboriginal people feel a deep connection to their land and the waters that flow through and across them. This needs to be recognised and provided for, not as an exercise in imperial patronage but by ensuring Aboriginal people are empowered through water rights. When environmental water is released into the rivers and wetlands, Aboriginal expertise should also be called upon.

The deep knowledge of Aboriginal people of the river systems means that they have important, if not vital, advice to give our water managers that, if heeded, can add great value to their work. Groups such as the Northern Basin Aboriginal Nations and the Murray Lower Darling Rivers Indigenous Nations have a lot to offer us if we listen. Engagement with Aboriginal people in the basin cannot be done as a simple tick-the-box exercise. Proper, ongoing engagement will benefit all of us.

I recognise, at the core of the parliamentary secretary's ministerial statement today, that the government wishes to provide certainty to basin communities by placing a cap of 1,500 gigalitres on water purchases. As with the Basin Plan itself and many aspects of it, there are different points of view on the issue of water purchase versus infrastructure measures as the best means of achieving the agreed outcomes of the Basin Plan. I have spoken with a number of different stakeholders about this particular issue, including the National Farmers' Federation, the National Irrigators Council, the Australian Conservation Foundation and many others. I very much appreciate the time taken by those groups—most recently the NIC and the NFF, whom I met with over the last couple of weeks—to give me the benefit of their views about this issue, in particular, and implementation of the plan, in general. I also acknowledge the work that the parliamentary secretary and his office has done to try to continue the bipartisan basis on which this parliament has dealt with this plan over the past few years.

For the opposition there are two key imperatives around the success of the Basin Plan, beyond the engagement I have talked about with stakeholders, such as the NIC, NFF, ACF and others. Those imperatives are: firstly, to achieve, as far as possible, bipartisanship within this parliament, and I acknowledge that is a discussion we are in the process of having; and secondly, that there is the support of those basin states. That is the unknown position, from our perspective.

We understand there are some views that the South Australian government has already expressed about this cap. We will continue to talk with them, and I am sure the parliamentary secretary will as well. For understandable reasons, the Victorian and Queensland governments are fairly new to the job and I am not aware that they have expressed a developed position about this. But, obviously, the opposition—and I am sure, the government—would be very keen to know the views of those new governments and, for very obvious reasons—being 48 hours out from a New South Wales election—I think the New South Wales government has been distracted by other matters.

I do encourage—not that I probably need to—the government to continue to talk with those basin states, because the opposition will certainly be very keen to understand the views of those four states before we reach a view about the wisdom or otherwise of imposing a legislated cap on water buybacks to the tune of 1,500 gigalitres.

We do look forward to further reports from the parliamentary secretary about the implementation of this plan, and we do undertake to continue to work constructively with the government on that very important work.