Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed, Senator Sterle. I find it very disturbing that such dire issues as the future of the lower lakes and future water security in my state of South Australia have become the political playthings of the opposition.

The Labor government have been absolutely up-front with the people of South Australia about the situation in the lower lakes and in particular we have been up-front in saying that there is no easy fix. I do not know how many times South Australian senators, and indeed the minister herself, have said in this place that there is no easy fix for the future of the lower lakes in South Australia, just as there is no easy fix for the whole situation in the Murray-Darling Basin. However, that does not stop the opposition from using this critical and very complex situation, which affects a great number of people in my state of South Australia, to wind people up and offer them false hope.

Dr Nelson, the Leader of the Opposition, appeared on a television program last night where he was asked questions about this issue and he could not quite work out whether he actually believed in climate change. It was particularly disturbing. Here we have the opposition using a dire situation, which gravely affects a lot of people, as a political football in a by-election that they are probably going to win anyway. We had the Leader of the Opposition unable to articulate a coherent position on whether climate change has affected the flows of water into the Murray, whether it is only the effect of drought or whether it is the effect of 100 years of mismanagement and overallocation of River Murray water. He does not seem to understand the situation. Nevertheless, the opposition come up with cheap tricks and stunts to use this issue to influence the outcome of an election that has possibly already been decided.

We see not just the opposition backbenchers but also the shadow ministers travelling up and down the length of the river promising different things to different people, depending on where they find themselves. In the lower lakes they say: ‘It is terrible. Those people upstream are stealing all your water. We know how to fix it. We will just get all of the water off them.’ When they are upstream the opposition say: ‘Those people in the lower lakes just have to cop it. We are going to protect you here upstream.’ They have no coherent plan to deal with the issue. They have no coherent idea how to grasp the significance of the problem and how to move forward on it.

Senator Wong today mentioned a very good submission that has been provided by her department to the inquiry being undertaken by the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport into the Murray-Darling Basin. I urge people paying attention to this debate about the future of the Murray-Darling Basin to get hold of that submission because it clearly articulates the nature of the problem and some of the things that can be done to ameliorate the problem. It outlines quite clearly how many options there are but how difficult some of them are to implement. It outlines that nothing will work better than having more water in the system. That will have to come fundamentally from rainfall. Thank goodness, we have had increased rain in South Australia, and I understand the levels in the lower lakes have been increased by about 200 millimetres. This has given us some breathing time to determine whether to continue pumping water from one lake to another, to think about another of those hard issues—whether we release the barrages or not—and to think about whether there should be a dam at Wellington and the possible consequences of undertaking a major project like that. The submission outlines all of those options. (Time expired)