Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to acknowledge what Senator Bishop just said, having had both grandfathers fight on the Western Front. This is obviously a very poignant thing for so many families listening today.

I rise today to speak about the water debate and to try and put on the record some facts to try and balance up some of the conjecture that has been floating around. It is interesting that I as an LNP senator from Queensland will be supporting the position of the state Labor Party in Queensland in trying to get some truth into this debate. I hope that some other Labor Party senators may do the same at a later stage.

I note with some interest that some of my colleagues in other states continue to raise the issue of overland flow licences in Queensland and in particular in the lower Balonne, where I live, and other stations that surround it. For the record, because Cubbie Station is always brought up, it is one of many water harvesting licences that are documented in the Condamine-Balonne resource operations plan.

It is significant that Queensland, in its water planning process for the Murray-Darling Basin, took the decision to account for overland flow extractions and not to turn a blind eye to these activities. Queensland accounts for every drop of water that is extracted for irrigation. All extractions of water are regulated under Queensland legislation. Clear evidence of this is found in the Murray-Darling Basin catchment water audit monitoring report—which I will go through later on—in which you will find the volume of water that was extracted for irrigation and from overland flows.

I look forward to determining through an inquiry whether this is the case of other states linked to the Murray-Darling Basin. I look forward in particular to ascertaining how overland flow extractions are regulated in other states, such as New South Wales. I will be questioning, if I get the opportunity, New South Wales departmental representatives as to how they regulate, record and report overland flow in their state. It is absolutely paramount that all states report water extractions to the high standard that has been set in Queensland. It is also paramount that water planning processes in other states achieve the high standards set by Queensland water planning processes. I also look forward to determining through an inquiry why Queensland extraction figures have been made available—which I agree should happen, by the way—but the extraction figures of other states have not been.

I want to go through some of the facts to try and bring this debate together. I will go through a comparative analysis. In 2006-07, in New South Wales, the total irrigation diversion was 2,352 gigalitres; in Victoria, it was 2,081 gigalitres; in South Australia, it was 627 gigalitres; and, in Queensland, it was 149 gigalitres. The only one that extracted less was the ACT, with 25. But maybe that was a one-off, so let us go through some of the others. In 2005-06, New South Wales extracted 5,038 gigalitres, Victoria extracted 3,267 gigalitres, South Australia extracted 590 gigalitres and Queensland extracted 316 gigalitres. The only one that extracted less was once more the ACT, with 32 gigalitres. There has been uproar this year because Queensland has extracted 1,041 gigalitres. But we know that at this point in time New South Wales has extracted more than 1,500 gigalitres and Victoria has extracted more than 1,400 gigalitres.

Then we go right back to 2004-05. Once more New South Wales extracted 3,666 gigalitres, Victoria 3,137 gigalitres, South Australia 623 gigalitres, and Queensland 392 gigalitres. Once more the only state or territory that extracted less was the ACT, with 27 gigalitres. And we could go back ad nauseam through all the years and you would find basically the same trend.

We must also acknowledge that Queensland is a long way away from South Australia, which in fact is about 2,400 kilometres, give or take a few kilometres, from Goondiwindi. The reality of water is, as I have said before, that the Murray-Darling Basin is like a big, old, dry carpet rather than a set of interconnected garden hoses. At one end of the big, old, dry carpet there is a lady called Queensland and right down the other end is a lady called Adelaide. If you tip a bucket of water on the dry carpet at Queensland it is very rare that it is going to get to Adelaide unless the whole carpet is saturated. That is the only way you will transfer water across it. I have used that metaphor because it is a metaphor that we have to build on to try to deal with some of the myths that are out there.

If you want to move along, it absorbs about one gigalitre per kilometre of river or about a megalitre a metre. So if you are 2,400 kilometres away at one gigalitre per kilometre, you can work out for yourself with very simple mathematics what the absorption is when you try to move water. Why is it important? It is important because it just goes to show you that, historically, Queensland extracts less water by far than any of the major states and, even if you try it as a solution, it is not a solution. It is not a solution by reason of its distance away.

And by reason of the structure of the environment, Queensland is an opportunistic harvesting area because it deals with summer rainfall. The southern part of the basin is more regulated because you have the major dams and the major reservoirs. If you want to move water effectively then you have to put it into a charged system, a system that is full of water, and move it along that. Think of the logic. You tip water where there is already water and you have an immediate transfer. How would you do that? If you really want to do it, get rid of the Hume Weir. You can move the water down from there. You could take the water out of the Menindee storage lakes and move it down from there. These would be outrageous propositions but they would at least deal with the effect of what would happen in that we know that the southern lakes are estuarine areas. It was only in the 1930s and 1940s that a barrage was put up. So by nature they have been estuarine areas and you would be moving water from where it is stored to where, before white settlement, it would have been a saltwater lake. So these are some of the facts that we have to get on the table, because the debate is affecting everybody.

I just want to go through some of the other figures on the percentage of areas where water has fallen and what water is used. In New South Wales, of the total run-off of about 11,295 gigalitres—and I am sorry to bore everybody with the numbers but you have got to get these facts on the table—the surface water used is about 6,255 gigalitres. So they use about 52 per cent of the water that falls there. In Victoria, of the 9,319 gigalitres that fall in the area, they use about 3,974 gigalitres. So they use about 41 per cent. In South Australia, of the 132 gigalitres that fall on the area, they use 713 gigalitres, so they use 542 per cent of the water that falls on the area. In Queensland, of the 3,104 gigalitres that fall on the area, they use about 544 gigalitres—about 18 per cent. I know that the states are just arbitrary lines on the map but you have got to understand that even if you just talk about them as geographic areas you can still see where the water is being used and where it is not, and who is using more than God gives them and who is not.

In the Sustainable Rivers Audit of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, when we actually rated the rivers through everything from hydrology to invertebrates and all the other indicators of a healthy river, the healthiest was the Paroo. This makes sense because there is hardly any irrigation on it except for a bit around a date farm and another bit of pivot irrigation further down. Then, after the Paroo, which is in Queensland, come the Border Rivers which run between Queensland and New South Wales—in fact it is the border; that is why they are called the Border Rivers. The next one is the one I live on, the Condamine. Then there is the Namoi. But, if you go right down to the bottom, the least sustainable are the Murrumbidgee, the Goulburn and the Mitta Mitta. Once more, when you go through the environmental audit, the sustainable rivers—the ones that have been managed properly—are all in Queensland. These are important issues. They might not be popular but it is important to get the facts on the table.

Now I just want to go through some of the other areas because of the uproar that has been used by some about how much Queensland has extracted. In Queensland we are honest; we tell the truth about what we extract. We have extracted over 1,000 gigalitres. But for the record I want to say how much has gone across the border. Across the border went 3,271 gigalitres of water and no-one is able to tell us what happened to it. We used one million megalitres and we sent three million across the border and apparently there it just disappears into the ether. We know that about a million megalitres ended up around the Menindee storage lakes but we do not know what happened to the rest.

But let us just forget about the states. At one part of this catchment they are managing it effectively. At one part of this catchment they are monitoring everything that happens. Then, because they are truthful and honest and actually declare what happens, it is used as a rod to belt them with. Let us have some truth and honesty right across the catchment. Let us, as I have tried to do today, get the facts and figures on the table about what is happening in the catchment. That is the only way you have a truthful discussion about finding a solution to fixing it.

There are so many conjectures put up here but the most important one to remember is that, in Queensland, overland flow is part of the licence but, if we start going down the path where we follow the pack and say that we will have compulsory acquisitions in a part of the catchment which is thousands of kilometres away from where the problems are and we fool ourselves that the expenditure of money in that area is actually going to fix the problem, then it will not be. I think it was one of the South Australian parliamentarians who correctly said that the only way that Queensland water would be of any use to South Australia was if it travelled there in little plastic bottles. That is the nature of the hydrology of how it works.

There is a sign outside my town, St George, which says that we are 200 metres above sea level. We are 200 metres above South Australia. It is a flat and dispersed catchment; there are bifurcation, absorption and flood plains. A release of water around our area may certainly have benefits in the area where it is released but it is not going to have benefits 2,400 kilometres away. This is part of the discussion. No matter how much we cut and dice and pontificate about what we might do, if the problem is that there is no water there then the only way you can fix it is to find new water for the system. That raises the question that everyone says is in the too-hard basket: moving water from another catchment into the Murray-Darling Basin catchment. In our whole nation, only about six to seven per cent of the run-off is from the Murray-Darling Basin; 24 per cent of our run-off runs into the gulf. If this nation really wants a nation-building project, if you want something to do with the $20 billion you have stashed away, then you should look at engineering mechanisms to collect that water from the north and move it into the Murray-Darling Basin catchment. If you have consistency in flow and consistency in piping then you will be able to move the water down there. But if that is in the too-hard basket and you think that there is some other policy that will magically make water appear when God has decided to turn the tap off then there is only one person that you are ultimately fooling, and that is yourself.