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

I move Greens amendment (2) on sheet 5659:

(2)    Schedule 2, page 294 (after line 2), after item 50, insert:

50B  At the end of section 21

Add:

Basin Plan to provide for reduction in use in additional population centres outside Basin

      (11)    The Basin Plan must provide for a reduction over time in the amount of water taken from Basin water resources to meet the needs of population centres outside the Murray-Darling Basin.

This amendment relates to the reduction of water use outside of the Murray-Darling Basin. The amendment seeks to require the Basin Plan to provide for a reduction over time in the amount of water taken from the basin’s water resources to meet the needs of population centres outside of the Murray-Darling Basin. This is in the spirit of the amendment that we have just passed. We do not say, and would not even dream of saying, that we have to cut off extractions outside of the basin straightaway. What we are trying to do is send a message that we are seeking to reduce the extraction of water from outside the basin. As I said, the amendment does not seek to stop it straightaway, but we do think that it is important that population centres outside of the Murray-Darling Basin actually start to move towards better water conservation and efficiency to ensure that the water that we do save in the basin—the water that we buy back and the water savings that we make through water efficiency measures—is in fact kept in the basin. We think that this amendment sends a very clear signal to those centres and to all the users of those pipelines that Senator Wong outlined earlier. This amendment basically puts on notice all of the centres in Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia that are taking water from the system that we need to reduce that use. Adelaide is slowly moving that way, and this amendment will ensure that that is actually given effect through legislation.