Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

No; I will not be unparliamentary. If anyone is offended, I apologise. The annual average take-out for Goulburn, Pyramid Hill, Rochester, Shepparton and Turrumberry back in 1994-95 was 2,700 gigalitres. That is what they got. Last year they got just a bit over 500 gigalitres. Next year they are predicting 250 gigalitres. So we have gone from 2,700 gigalitres to perhaps 250 gigalitres. In that same system, with sheer stupidity, we have agreed that Melbourne will take what will be 100-odd gigalitres gross and 75 gigalitres net down a pipeline. There is already 94.6 gigalitres in credit in the system, as they see it, from other savings, so, if they get the pipe built in time, that could mean that next year they could well be taking nearly half the water that is available in the system, unless there is a dramatic change in the weather. How stupid is that? And they talk about high-security water.

Yesterday and the day before and the day before that there was a huge rain in the Gippsland, which is flowing down through Melbourne now and out to sea. How stupid is it that they are just sitting there watching it go by because it is in a different rain shadow from the rain shadow of the Murray-Darling Basin, which is basically in the same rain shadow as the city of Melbourne? So when it is dry in the Murray-Darling Basin it is generally dry in Melbourne, but Gippsland is in a different rain shadow. Why are we not taking water from there instead of from a system where 75 gigalitres net and 100 gigalitres gross could be—it will be, according to scientific predictions—a third of next year’s water availability for all the farming activities in the Goulburn River system. How sensible is that? I do not know what we can do about it and I do not know that this bill addresses it, but some of the ransom notes that are part of this bill are stupid acts like that by the likes of the Victorian government.

Managing what is proposed in this bill just worries me, given this history. If the climate science is right and we are getting more rain from one part of the catchment than from another, it worries me that there is still a veto capacity to rearrange the entitlements. In the committee stage we can address questions of how to make sure that we do not get held to ransom with a veto power and how the unanimous agreement of all states cannot be achieved. That is something that I would like to consider. The crassness of the political convenience of a thing like that pipeline beggars belief. It absolutely beggars belief that people would stoop so low as to almost invoke emotional blackmail with a pipeline that just does not make sense against the science of the future. It might have made sense if you were looking at it in 1956 or 1952 or 1974 or 1984, but, against the science of the future rather than the history of the past, it is a stupid decision. Here it is, Minister. There is the graph. They have gone from 2,700 gigalitres of available water to about 600 gigalitres last year, with a prediction of 250 gigalitres next year. Whether you like it or not, the state government is going to stand over you and say that they already have 94.6 gigalitres in credit, but that 94.6 gigalitres could ruin the system if they take it.

So I look forward to the details of amendments. Arlene Buchan and the Plug the Pipe mob are, to their great credit, a passionate mob. They appeared before the committee with great passion. The reason they have such passion is that they have great concerns about the impact of crass political decision making. So I look forward to seeing how their amendments get on in the committee stage and whether both sides of this chamber, and the parliament, have the political courage to try and get this right. We have not been through the proposition that may yet come, and obviously the committee considered the social impact of some of the decision making which, like the Toorale thing, is almost unbelievable. It is great for the people who want to get out but, in terms of stranded assets and social impacts, there is no work done. It is just like driving into a fog. God knows what the consequences will be. I am grateful to the Senate for this little contribution. I am just being told to sit down, I think. I was allowed 10 minutes and I had better sit down. Thank you very much.