Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Minister for the Environment, I table a ministerial statement on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and seek leave to incorporate the statement in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

I rise to update the House on the Government's policy priorities in regards to the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

Water reform in our nation has progressed over many years and I speak on this matter today as one of many, from both sides of the House, who have been given the responsibility of managing this nationally important issue.

I acknowledge the work by former Prime Minister John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull as the Minister for Water and their courage to continue on the path of bold reforms in the water sector, building on the COAG reforms of the mid-1990s and the National Water Initiative and Living Murray Program from the early 2000s.

On a continent such as ours, with such variable climatic conditions, managing water resources sensibly, equitably and sustainably, is the most important aspect of Commonwealth's role in leading the nation's water reform agenda.

The making of the Basin Plan in 2012 by the then Minister for Water Tony Burke, with the bipartisan support of the Coalition, represented the culmination of twenty years of substantial water reform.

Under Prime Minister Abbott, each state has now signed up to the Intergovernmental Agreement for Implementing Water Reform in the Murray Darling Basin, a historic achievement that all members of this parliament and state Parliaments can be proud of.

This Plan is the epitome of bipartisanship, recognition of the dire situation highlighted by the millennium drought and shows what can be achieved through Federal and state collaboration, negotiation and cooperation.

I have only been in this portfolio a short time, but I immediately commenced travelling throughout the regions of the Murray-Darling Basin listening to and observing the concerns of all sectors of the community.

I have travelled the length of the Murray, I have visited parts of the Goulburn and Murrumbidgee Rivers, and I have travelled to Menindee Lakes to see the dire situation with their water shortage, with water now only remaining in Copi Hollow. I look forward to continuing my travels down the Darling with the Members for Parkes and Maranoa after Easter.

No matter where I go, it is clear to me are two key issues facing communities in the Basin; the first is the policy fatigue that has set in after more than twenty years of water reform and secondly the sense of urgency for certainty regarding the implementation of the Basin Plan.

The communities of the Murray-Darling Basin understand the need for the reforms that have gone ahead, but they – rightly – want assurances that the implementation of these water reforms will achieve a win-win-win that delivers good outcomes for the environment and a good outcome for the farmers and irrigators, as well as the communities and businesses in the Basin.

I want to make it abundantly clear that the Coalition Government is committed to delivering the Basin Plan, in full and on time. The Coalition is completing the water reforms that we started. It is what we pledged and we are delivering.

However, we recognise the concerns and challenges that the plan creates for some communities and we must, and we will, find a way to deliver the best possible outcome for Basin communities and the environment.

It is our responsibility to ensure the long term environmental and business sustainability for our communities to prosper.

The Coalition is cognisant of the need for certainty for all businesses to enable them to invest in the future of their community and industry. This is true from the north of the Basin to the south, as it is from the east to the west of the Basin.

We are listening to environmentalists, to townspeople, to farmers, to irrigators, to businesses, tourism operators, to industry and to fishermen alike. Every person and every group in the Basin matters and they must all be considered. This is why we are aiming to implement the Basin Plan to achieve a win-win outcome and provide a level of certainty that has been missing.

This is why we are now moving to legislate the 1500 giglitre cap on water buybacks in the Basin, to place a ceiling on the amount of water recovery that can be achieved through water purchase, in line with the Coalition's Water Recovery strategy released in June 2014.

To date, 1162 gigalitres has been recovered through water purchase, 607 gigalitres recovered through investment in infrastructure projects and a further 182 gigalitres through other state recovery actions. That's 1951 gigalitres – 71 per cent of the water recovery required under the plan.

There is still more to be done, but it needs to be done with the least detrimental impact on all sectors of the community.

For the remaining water recovery efforts, we have prioritised the remainder of the Basin Plan funding for investment in infrastructure, particularly through more efficient on- and off-farm irrigation systems, and environmental works and measures, to achieve the outcomes of the Basin Plan to the full extent.

People often talk about the Snowy Hydro Scheme as the biggest infrastructure project that rural Australia has ever seen. While the project is an impressive hydrological engineering feat, let me tell you the $820 million Governments spent over 25 years, pales in comparison to the $13 billion that will be spent implementing the Basin Plan reforms.

From now until 30 June 2019 the Australian Government will spend $2 million per day, investing in infrastructure right across the Basin, investing in the future of sustainable farming and irrigated agriculture, and investing in our environmental sustainability as well as community sustainability, all with a level of certainty.

That is $2 million per day invested into our regional communities.

We will do this working in partnership with our state counterparts who are key and critical to delivering the Murray Darling Basin reforms.

Throughout my travels with local members I have seen the positives of this investment by the Commonwealth Government.

With Sharman Stone, Member for Murray, I visited the diary farm of Nick and Nicole Ryan who have upgraded their farm with laser leveling and automated, pressurised pipe and riser irrigation technology. Irrigating paddocks through automation reduces watering time and delivers water to the soil more efficiently and effectively, reducing the volume of water required to maintain healthy pastures and reducing salinity impacts. These infrastructure works increase farm productivity and reduce the labour demands of farming, all the while delivering water savings for the environment.

I also visited Deniliquin with Sussan Ley, Member for Farrer, where I saw infrastructure investment in new remote controlled regulators and metering and met with the Wragge family, a father and son rice growing team. Again they are benefiting from on-farm laser levelling, which is reducing the amount of water needed, but also increasing crop yield.

Innovation is the Australian way and this rice farmer is looking for further means to increase his yield per hectare – he is doing this by putting fresh water eels into the flooded paddocks, which is achieving the dual benefit of eel production for market, but also improving their environmental footprint through bug control, as the eels feed on the insects, reducing pesticide and input costs.

I encountered similar stories of efficiency and effectiveness in the electorate of Tony Pasin, Member for Barker visiting grape and citrus growers who are achieving similar feats of increased efficiency and productivity.

While in Renmark, I also visited the Chowilla Regulator, which is an impressive example of the types of works we can develop to achieve better environmental outcomes through the more effective control and delivery of water and, just like irrigators, achieve a more efficient use of water.

This project is part of the $1 billion for the Living Murray works developed for environmental icon sites in the Murray system; the regulator will allow for regular inundation of up to 50 per cent of the 17,750 hectares of wetlands.

I also saw the fish ladders and gates in action, which now span the entire length of the Murray River restricting the passage of non native carp which destroy our river system, whilst providing safe passage for our native species, an environmental engineering feat in itself.

Similarly, the Koondrook Pericoota forest works on the New South Wales side of the Murray, which covers 32,000 hectares of floodplain and is home to a significant bird, fish and native flora populations, including the iconic river red gums and black box colonies.

Over $100 million invested through the Living Murray initiative is finally delivering water to the wetland and I have seen the success of the recent environmental watering – with trees, the bush scrub and wildlife responding slowly, but positively.

Andrew Broad, Member for Mallee, and Michael McCormack, Member for Riverina, who despite the distance between their electorates, have good examples of the positives from Government investment in off-farm irrigation delivery infrastructure.

In the Sunraysia, Lower Murray Water are converting their channel system to pipe, which reduces water losses during delivery and improves water quality to the farmer, through $103 million in Federal Government investment.

In the Murrumbidgee I saw the innovation and drive from Coleambally Irrigation, to deliver world's best practice farming techniques and water management. They also highlighted increased investment in the region due to more efficient water delivery and certainty of access through these irrigation networks.

In a sign of confidence in the future of irrigated agriculture, six local cotton farmers have banded together, investing $24 million to build a cotton gin – I was so impressed at the enthusiasm in this small, but dynamic community.

I met with Leeton Mayor Paul Maytom who was upbeat about the investment the reforms were delivering to his community; however, when meeting with him and local businesses such as Sunrice, Walnuts Australia and JBS Meat, they highlighted the need for certainty from Government – the need for the 1500 gigalitre cap to be legislated.

At the end of the day, all of the above projects are investment into agriculture that are delivering improvements for our farmers and water for the environment.

We recognise the challenges for all groups, from townspeople, to farmers, to irrigators, and environmentalists, to businesses, tourism operators, and industry, and to fishermen alike, indeed everyone. That is why we are determined to deliver a triple bottom line outcome; the Basin as a whole depends on it.

As I said, delivering the Plan it is not without challenges or issues that we must address, but we will work with the states to finesse and deliver a Plan that meets this aim, and we will make sure it is effective.

From my visits to the Basin, I can see and understand the emotions, but I can only address the facts, and I will address the facts.

I have clearly heard the concerns surrounding the Constraints Management Strategy and the delivery of environmental water.

I thank those groups on the Edward and Murrumbidgee Rivers that showed me around their farms and highlighted the issues in some of the modelling and what the models mean for those on the ground.

It is clear this is an area that states need to examine more thoroughly as part of the development of the Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism.

I have listened to the calls for improved transparency and greater community engagement. I have directed the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the Department of the Environment and the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder to address this with a level of urgency.

There will be challenging times as we again go through dry periods as we did with the millennium drought, as much as we will go through challenging times during excessive wet periods as we did in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

As Dorothea McKeller wrote those immortal words in the poem My Country on the deck of Torryburn House, near Gresford in my electorate of Paterson, this is a land of sweeping plains, of ragged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains.

We, and I mean all of us, need to take people on the journey with us, we need to provide greater certainty, so that communities can understand where the journey in these reforms will take them, from now to 2019 and of course beyond.

We need to work together in a bipartisan way, to provide a level certainty, to address the challenges together, with our Basin communities, not against them. Communities have a need and right to know what the plan will deliver and what their future holds.

We need to build a strong future in the Murray-Darling Basin and this is why the next step to legislate the 1500 gigalitre cap is so important as means of providing confidence and certainty to Basin communities as a whole, they deserve nothing less.