Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This is the fourth time in my three short weeks here as a senator that I have risen to talk about the plight of the Murray-Darling Basin, in particular the crisis we face in the Lower Lakes and the Coorong. While I agree with Senator Fisher that we are yet to see any real evidence based policy initiatives to address the urgency of the Murray-Darling water crisis, it is important to recognise the lack of action from the past government as well. It is important to recognise the devastating impact which decades of inaction and continued mismanagement from both sides of this chamber have had on the current state of Australia’s greatest river system. We must see positive action from state and federal governments on these issues, to allocate the lower Murray its fair share of freshwater flows and to alleviate ongoing damage that years of ineffective policy has had on our Storm Boy country.

In my home state of South Australia, the government has yet again failed this week to allocate any water from the increased flows for the environment. Again we have seen a lack of allocation for the river itself and a lack of allocation which has been prioritised to save the Lower Lakes and the Coorong. Despite the fact that we have had a small—and I acknowledge that it is small—improvement in the water volume available in South Australia, none of this has been shared with the environment and none of this has been allocated to the river itself.

On Monday this week during question time, I asked the minister whether or not a risk assessment had been conducted by the department on the devastating ecological and community impacts that flooding the Lower Lakes with sea water would have. We must have a risk assessment before any government contemplates committing to such an environmentally devastating policy. We have heard evidence throughout the current Senate inquiry that once we let salt water flows into the lakes they will damage them in a way that will never allow them to fully recover. In response to my question and call for a risk assessment to occur as a matter of urgency, Minister Wong’s office has essentially passed the buck to the South Australian government to make a decision. Frankly, I do not care who does the risk assessment. No minister should be pushing for the flooding of salt water into the lakes without having all the facts. It is time that our governments, state and federal, started working together and it is time that our major parties started to accept that we have to change ‘business as usual’. We need to prioritise the environmental flows of the river right throughout the system and, in order for us to— (Time expired)