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

The incorporated speech read as follows—

The Water Amendment Bill 2008 is another significant step towards securing Australia’s water needs into the future. In particular, this Bill addresses the need to ensure the most efficient use possible of water in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Covering more than 1 million km², the Murray-Darling Basin occupies one seventh of Australia’s total area and produces some 40% of the value of our agriculture. The Murray-Darling Basin and its wetlands provide habitats for many threatened animal and plant species. If these wetlands dried up, we would see the extinction of some of these species. And, of course, rural and urban communities in South Eastern Australia in particular rely on the Basin for water. For all of these reasons and more, we need to implement changes to how we manage the precious water in the Basin.

The health of Australia’s rivers has deteriorated over the last 100 years due to a number of factors, ranging from overallocation of water to planting of non-native, introduced plants and crops that require water from irrigation to survive. Rural research has gone a long way towards improving the efficiency of irrigation, yet a proportion of inefficient systems such as unlined channels on sandy soils remain and these contribute to the drain on the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin and other water courses used for irrigation.

Other significant influences have been:

• Our growing population which has increased our water extractions by 500% since the 1920s;
• The manipulation and diversion of flows, largely for irrigation, leading to a severe impact on what would be a natural environmental flow—according to CSIRO, the mean annual discharge from the Murray mouth for the last ten years has been about 2,700 gigalitres, whereas without diversions the average annual figure would be about 12,000 gigalitres;
• Salinity, pests and weeds which affect the health of major rivers in the MDB including the invasion of carp which have caused the decline of native fish species; and
• Climate change.

The fact that we have treated the Murray-Darling Basin badly over a long period of time is not new.

When faced with this information the Howard Government did not take action. Instead, the Opposition spent 12 years in Government doing nothing, just as they did nothing when faced with mounting evidence of the consequences our nation would face if no action was taken against climate change. While the Coalition to this day continues to be riddled with climate change deniers, the Howard Government did eventually recognise, with the help of a looming election, that a problem existed with the Murray-Darling Basin.

Following the November 2006 Summit on the southern Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), the former Prime Minister and Murray Darling Basin State Premiers commissioned the CSIRO to report on sustainable yields of surface and groundwater systems within the MDB. This report from the CSIRO Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project summarises the assessments for 18 regions that comprise the Basin.

Yesterday, the final report for the Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields project was released. This final report will be a critical resource in the Rudd Government’s work to restore the balance in the Murray-Darling Basin and will be essential to informing the development of the new Basin Plan.

Key findings of the report are:

• Total flow at the Murray mouth has been reduced by 61 per cent and the river now ceases to flow through the mouth 40 per cent of the time, compared with one per cent in the absence of water resource development;
• The median decline for the entire Basin is projected to be 11 per cent by 2030—nine per cent in the north and 13 per cent in the south;
• Under the median 2030 climate, diversions in driest years would fall by more than 10 per cent in most New South Wales regions, 20 per cent in the Murrumbidgee and Murray regions, and from around 35 per cent to 50 per cent in the Victorian regions;
• Under the dry extreme 2030 climate, diversions in driest years would fall by around 40-50 per cent in New South Wales regions, over 70 per cent in the Murray, and 80-90 per cent in major Victorian regions;
• By 2070 the median climate under high global warming is expected to be broadly similar to the dry extreme 2030 climate; and
• Current groundwater use is unsustainable in seven of the 20 high-use groundwater areas in the Basin and will lead to major drawdowns in groundwater levels in the absence of management intervention.

These findings remind us of just how serious the situation is and the Rudd Government is determined to take action. The Australian Government is investing $12.9 billion in Water for the Future—a 10-year plan to secure the long-term water supply of all Australians.

Water for the Future is built on four key priorities:

• taking action on climate change,
• using water wisely,
• securing water supplies, and
• supporting healthy rivers.

Water for the Future is the first ever nationwide plan that addresses both rural and urban water. It will help secure water supplies for Australian households, businesses and farmers, as well as provide water to restore the health of Australia’s stressed river systems.

In addition, on 3 July this year, the Rudd Government achieved something that the Howard Government never did. At the meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and First Ministers of each of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory (the Basin States under the Act) made an intergovernmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin reform. The reforms in that agreement are necessary to meet the current needs of the Basin, and to protect and enhance its social, environmental and economic values in the long term.

The Bill before us today is designed to amend the Water Act 2007 to give effect to the Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform IGA. This will be achieved through four major amendments:

1.

Clarifying the processes of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (the Authority) when the Authority is providing the proposed Basin Plan, or a proposed amendment of the Basin Plan, to the Minister for adoption;

2.

Recognising the adoption by New South Wales of the National Water Initiative risk assignment framework;

3.

Clarifying that references to water access rights and interests held by the Commonwealth in paragraph 108(3)(a) of the Water Amendment Bill 2008 (the Bill) extend to water access rights and interests held by any agency of the Commonwealth; and

4.

Extending the operation of paragraph 108(3)(d) of the Bill to cover water access rights and interests held by the Commonwealth and any of its agencies for the purposes of the Living Murray Initiative, including water access rights and interests held by the Commonwealth Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, to ensure that water access rights and interests acquired under the Living Murray Initiative will continue to be managed under the Living Murray Initiative in the future, consistent with the agreement reached between the Commonwealth and Basin States in the Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform.

The Bill addresses the long term management of the Basin’s water resources, and the approaches and mechanisms required to ensure that it is sustainably managed in the future. The Rudd Government is building for the future, not the next election. We are a Government that has a vision of a stronger, healthier country for future generations and this Bill will help that vision become a reality.