Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to express my concerns about the disturbing actions of my state government, the Queensland state government. The Queensland state government does not seem to understand the importance of water security, the cost of living and those dreadful electricity prices that we face. Securing water at a time of devastating drought is quite feasible. We need reliable, affordable power to pump the water where it is needed. This should be a priority for the Queensland government—but I think that's falling on deaf ears.

Firstly, just recently, the Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, decided to permanently reduce the capacity of SunWater's Paradise Dam, in my electorate, by 60 per cent. The state government said that it would release 105,000 megalitres from the Paradise Dam and let it wash through the city of Bundaberg into the open sea. This was a knee-jerk reaction. However, I understand there was a safety issue involved in this plan to release the 105,000 megalitres of water. I do not deny that SunWater has to take safety into consideration, and safety is paramount in these situations. However, there also needs to be a plan implemented at the same time as this water is rushing down through the cane fields of Bundaberg, because 105,000 megalitres is equivalent to 32,000 Olympic swimming pools. That's how much is being washed out to sea.

After the 105,000 megalitres have washed out, they will assess the damage caused to this new dam, which was only built in 2005 but has had two severe floods, in 2011 and 2013. The damage will be assessed, and it may be that the dam will be lowered even further. But such a report needs to be done as soon as possible. The farmers in the Bundaberg district and in the upper reaches of the Burnett need water security, because their livelihood—their fields of citrus, sugarcane, macadamia nuts et cetera—is at risk.

So I applaud the situation, but do I urge the state government to get on, make a decision quickly and come up with a plan that doesn't take the water away from our farmers, because we're trying to urge farmers to increase their production in that area, and, of course, water is the main thing for that.

Secondly, the Rookwood Weir project has just become farcical. The Queensland government have said, unclearly at this stage, that they want to reduce the weir size from 76,000 megalitres to 54,000 megalitres. I feel that this whole project won't pass the test of viability. I think they should come clean and tell us what they want to do. We as the federal government have put in $176 million to match their $176 million. Now they say that they've under-engineered the dam and it doesn't stack up. They'll need more concrete, more this and more that, so they would prefer to take it down in size instead of increasing the engineering for the dam to keep it at 76,000 megalitres.

To top it all off, the Callide B coal-fired power station was to go through to 2038. In the Queensland state government's wisdom, they have said that, to meet their 2030 targets of 50 per cent renewable energy, they have decided to reduce the life of that power station by 10 years. This is a very modern power station. We as a government can't afford to be knocking down coal-fired power stations with no replacement. Otherwise, we will end up in the same situation as South Australia and Victoria, where there's nothing to replace the coal-fired power stations that have been knocked down.

House adjourned at 20 : 00