Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Listening to Senator Birmingham speak, it was really hard to tell why he seemed to be trying to attack the Labor government when in fact most of his comments and hand wringing about poor timing relate specifically to the former coalition government, which of course sat on its hands for some 11 years as these problems continued to grow and grow. Yet it was not until it feared losing an election that water emerged on its political agenda. So I find it quite interesting and greatly ironic that the coalition is lamenting time frames of months, weeks, day and even hours.

They come in here and complain about Labor’s alleged inactivity in certain time frames, when the time frames for the coalition’s inactivity extend not just to years but to over a decade. Let us get this into perspective. How long has Labor been in government? Senator Birmingham could not fit enough words into his speech to describe the actions that actually have taken place since Labor was elected—as was so eloquently articulated by our minister earlier in question time today—because we have done so much to try to catch up on the neglect of the coalition government. So it is with great pleasure that I remind the senators opposite again about the large number of activities that the Labor government has engaged in to fix the very problems that they have been guilty of neglecting for so long.

We know and they know that the Labor government has supported both short- and long-term measures to protect the lower lakes, particularly from the threat of acidification, and to return the Murray-Darling Basin to sustainable levels. It presents a particular challenge in the lower lakes region of South Australia and we are extremely conscious of the impact this is having not just on communities and the environment but on irrigators as well. In fact, in May 2008, the Murray-Darling Basin ministerial council agreed to provide $6 million to pump water from Lake Alexandrina to Lake Albert in order to maintain the levels in Lake Albert. Also, a high-level committee is developing risk management strategies; it is due to report within a few weeks.

There is more. At the Council of Australian Governments meeting on 3 July 2008, the Commonwealth agreed to provide up to $610 million towards water projects in South Australia, and obviously the lower lakes and Coorong areas will be major beneficiaries of this. Some $200 million of this is to support the response to the environmental problems of the lakes, and $120 million is for an integrated network of pipelines to service townships and communities and help them with their water supplies.

On 14 August the minister announced three sets of water initiatives to help deal with the critical situation in the Murray-Darling Basin: the comprehensive and externally reviewed audit of both public and private water storages in the basin; initiating a new basin-wide tender for water purchasing for the current financial year, and expanding the previously announced Queensland tender—and, I might add, increasing funding for this by $50 million to $400 million and a Commonwealth-state initiative to co-fund the purchase of properties holding large water entitlements, particularly in the northern basin.

All of these seem to be something that the coalition conveniently ignores. The time frames are extremely tight. The Labor government was elected in November of last year and yet the opposition is lamenting the fact that nothing has been done. But an extraordinary amount has been done. I have been particularly impressed with the pace of change after so many years of neglect and lip-service being paid to the area—and we have had the very important acknowledgement that the previous government only acted when there was an election in the offing. We cannot muck around with issues like this. We are facing the challenge of climate change, which is another fact of life that the coalition has chosen to ignore. All of these environmental issues are completely interrelated.