Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That:

(a)

the Senate notes the likely impacts on agriculture, the community and the environment of the proposed dam on the Mary River at Traveston Crossing in Queensland; and

(b)

the following matters be referred to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee for inquiry and report by 27 March 2007:

(i)

the impact on the Mary River, its dependent species and environs of the proposed dam,

(ii)

the implications for communities living along the Mary River of the proposed dam to their livelihood and lifestyle, and

(iii)

the balance of other options available to meet the regions water resource needs.

I think the issue of the proposed dam on the Mary River is of national importance and relates very intimately to the water debate that is currently going on around Australia. I am deeply concerned about the impacts this dam is going to have on the environment and on the people of Queensland and I do not believe that it is the best option for the water future for the south-east region of Queensland. It is 20th-century thinking in the 21st century. It will displace people and destroy ecosystems.

The Mary River is the home of the endemic Murray River cod, which I think most people know is endangered, and the endemic and vulnerable Murray River tortoise. It is also home to several other endangered, threatened and vulnerable species, including the Australian lungfish—which many people often refer to as the ‘missing link’ between humans and fish—the Richmond birdwing butterfly, three species of frogs and the Coxen’s fig parrot, to name but a few.

The dam is designed to create a mega storage to take water from the Mary to the Greater Brisbane and Gold Coast region. A 1994 report by the Department of Primary Industries titled An appraisal study of water supply sources for the Sunshine Coast and Mary River Valley advised that the Traveston dam was unsuitable because of the high capital cost, inundation of prime agricultural land and displacement of rural population. The Noosa Shire Council engineer says that the dam’s capital cost per megalitre is $24,300. I would suggest that is a very expensive option, five times greater than was claimed when the announcement was originally made.

The proposal would see a 600,000 megalitre dam covering 7,600 hectares at Traveston Crossing. In terms of storage capacity, the dam would be, if it ever went ahead, the fifth largest in Queensland and the second largest serving the state’s south-east. The first stage is to be completed at the end of 2011. It would cost up to $1.7 billion and involve the construction of a 180,000-megalitre dam delivering up to 700 megalitres per annum. As you can see, this is a very big project. Then there are the second and third stages. All of these will cost a large amount of money and will have, I believe, an unacceptable impact on the environment and on the community.

Only stage 1 at this stage is proposed for environmental assessment. That is only the first part of the proposal and really you need to be considering the whole proposal as one. The incremental approach to environmental degradation also hides the overall environmental and community impacts of what is a mega proposal. As I said, it is 20th-century thinking in the 21st century. Rarely mentioned, the proposed water grid has enormous energy costs as well in moving water around the state, and it is all powered at this stage by solar fuel.

The dam is proposed to displace 900 landowners, inundating prime agricultural land, flooding the Bruce Highway and forcing the proposed upgrade to go through. This will displace other residents and, of course, impact on other prime agricultural land. Negative environmental and economic impacts on the Mary River catchment and downstream receiving waters include those impacts on the Great Sandy World Heritage area.

Permanent reduction in fisheries production, I believe, will result from this as well and will have serious implications for the fishing industry and on the tourism industry in the Great Sandy region, which as I think everybody in Australia knows is a large tourism area. Tourism related industries are a very important part of the regional economy there, with over 200,000 visitors to Fraser Island, and a vast amount of money is also pumped into the local economy by those tourists.

As you can see, this proposal will have unacceptable environmental, community and economic impacts. There has not been, I believe, an open and thorough analysis of the water in that region. We have not been able to analyse Queensland’s water figures to see just what alternatives there are. There are alternatives, we believe, that are much more appropriate, such as recycling. Water efficiency and conservation are also issues that should be fully considered. This is a stop-gap mega-engineering approach to the water crisis. I was hoping that we had got over this approach, but obviously we have not in this country yet. We need to look at a much more sustainable water future because this proposal is in no way sustainable, given its unacceptable environmental, community, economic and social impacts.

We believe this proposal needs to be referred immediately to the committee to look at because there will be decisions to be made in the very near future. If we are truly committed to a sustainable water future we should be looking at alternatives. The Queensland government is obviously trying to rush this decision through without adequate consideration of the social, environmental and economic impacts. Just by limiting the environmental assessment process to stage 1, the full extent of this proposal will never be considered, and that is of course a flawed environmental process.

This issue is pressing. It is very clear that there is strong community opposition to this proposal. The local community certainly do not support it, judging by the number of emails, phone calls and letters I have received on this issue. I am sure every other senator in this place has also received letters and knows those issues of concern.

I presented the notice of motion yesterday with the aim of bringing the matter on today and sending it off to a committee immediately because, as I said, we think this is urgent. I know that there are meetings coming up that will be discussing the future of this dam. We tried to keep this reference very simple, clear and focused on the impacts on the environment and the community and to ensure it looked at alternatives with the full knowledge of the water estimates for that region. I believe that they need thorough investigation. This is a very important issue. Given the focus of the whole country at the moment on the water crisis, those estimates go to the very heart of that issue and what we in this country believe is sustainable water management and its impacts on the community. We can no longer make decisions on water that have unacceptable impacts on the community, the economy and, very importantly, the environment. This will lead to the loss of a number of endemic and endangered species and in the 21st century we should no longer be making those sorts of decisions.