David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Water Amendment Bill 2018. This bill allows the minister to direct the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to prepare an amendment to the Basin Plan that is the same in effect as an amendment that has previously been disallowed. The bill allows the disallowed Basin Plan Amendment Instrument 2017 (No. 1) to have effect, which will reduce the water recovery target in the Northern Basin from 390 to 320 gigalitres. In other words, it reduces by 70 gigalitres the amount of water to be taken from productive users—irrigated agriculture, in other words—and sent down the river. To hear some in this place, you would think that the future of the planet was at stake—the Great Barrier Reef, at the very least, and of course South Australia will disappear without a trace. While there are times when that latter suggestion has some appeal, there are a few problems with all that. For a start, an average of just six per cent of the water that goes down the Darling River makes it to Wentworth, where it joins the Murray and then flows on to South Australia—a mere six per cent of 70 gigalitres. The rest is used for environmental or productive use along the way, or it simply evaporates; in fact, a large amount of it evaporates. And nobody has argued that there is a lack of environmental watering in either southern Queensland or New South Wales. So returning 70 litres to productive agriculture to grow food and fibre is obviously the best use that can be made of it.

It is pretty clear from the debate about this issue that some people don't know their geography very well. I include South Australian Senator Hanson-Young in that. She discovered the Coorong, at the mouth of the Murray, only in the last couple of months, after having abused me for pointing out that it's dying. I suspect that she visited for the first time in her life after I said that, when she realised I was exactly right. But, being geographically challenged, she thinks a lack of water in the river at the Queensland-New South Wales border is somehow responsible for the condition of the Coorong and that somehow the Murray-Darling Basin Plan will fix it. For the benefit of Senator Hanson-Young and anyone who has a similar disability, the Coorong is actually not even included in the plan; it's outside it. And no matter how much water is sent down the rivers, either the Darling or the Murray, it won't benefit the Coorong.

The Coorong is probably the most neglected environment in South Australia, and it's true that it lacks water to flush it. But this is not the fault of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It's due to the fact that the Murray mouth is virtually always closed. As a result, the Coorong doesn't get properly flushed by seawater. To claim that it should be assisted by more fresh water flowing down the Murray is utterly absurd. The Coorong has a narrow entrance which is seaward of the barrages at the Murray mouth and operates in an unnatural tidal environment dictated by the barrages. If the Coorong environment were a primary concern, the mouth of the Murray would not be closed—in other words, if the environment was operating naturally. In its natural state the Coorong would also receive a lot of run-off from the surrounding area. However, that's not happening because of the south-east drainage scheme, which diverts fresh water to the sea instead of to the Coorong. If that water was allowed to flow into the Coorong, as it previously did, it would help restore the natural environment.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was negotiated during the millennium drought in an atmosphere of crisis based on the perception that drought was the new normal. As a result, it is deeply flawed. I am confident that had the plan been developed in a normal year it would have been substantially different. It's based on the simplistic notion that all the environment needs is more water—not the right amount of water in the right place at the right time, just more water. Australia is naturally a land of droughts and flooding rains. Droughts are normal, and too much water can be as harmful as not enough. The fact is that there is now an abundance of water available for the environment, and if any more water is added to the Murray River then sections of it wouldn't have the capacity to carry it within its banks. It's full.

But nobody wants to take responsibility for the damage to private property that will occur if there is man-made flooding caused by adding more water to the river and nobody will explain why we allow a lot of the water that flows down the Murray and the Darling to evaporate in the Lower Lakes—Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. Between 800 and 900 gigalitres of fresh water evaporates per annum. That is one-third of all the water saved in the plan. If the Murray mouth were open and this evaporation were sea water—or, more correctly, a mixture of sea and fresh water—a significant amount of fresh water would be available for consumptive or environmental use within the basin. Think of how much extra food and fibre that would mean. Think of the healthy rural communities it would allow. The water taken from Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian agriculture has had a devastating impact on rural communities. More water sent to South Australia will have no additional environmental benefits.

It's high time some facts and reason were applied to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. If South Australian politicians who don't know the difference between the Darling and Murray rivers can't explain why the Lower Lakes should remain fresh and don't know why the Coorong is dying, they should keep their mouths shut. They have nothing to contribute.