Tim Storer (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

We have the balance wrong. It's very clear. The Murray-Darling Basin needs more water to ensure its survival. The intent of the Water Act—to share savings between irrigators and the Commonwealth on a fifty-fifty basis—should be returned to. Irrigators are the primary beneficiaries of a plan originally designed to increase flows to the environment to have a sustainable system. But the irrigators won't benefit for much longer if the river dries up. The Menindee Lakes fish kill will only be the start of much larger and regular catastrophic events. So we must reorientate the plan to fairly balance environmental sustainability of the system with economic concerns of individual irrigators.

Management of the Murray-Darling Basin requires urgent reform. That reform must be pragmatic. We must improve the integrity of the plan carefully and methodically without putting the plan itself at risk. Reforms outlined by the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission, delivered 29 January this year, include critically important recommendations to improve transparency by requiring real-time data sharing and publication on water extractions, and a call to abolish the water buyback cap of 1,500 gigalitres, which we're addressing today. It recommends to undertake further research into return flows, so that we know the effects of irrigation efficiency projects.

The Productivity Commission also delivered its findings to the government, on 19 December last year, pointing out that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's twin roles as overseer of the plan and its regulator are conflicted and that the conflicts will intensify in the next five years. Structural separation of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority into a basin plan regulator and a Murray-Darling Basin agency is required to ensure effective implementation of the plan. That is per the Productivity Commission.

I am encouraged that the Labor Party, the Greens and others are moving to abolish the water buybacks cap following the recommendation of the South Australian royal commission. I drafted an amendment to the Water Act to double the cap, which I had planned to introduce this week. The system needs more water to survive, and water buybacks have proven to be the most successful mechanism to achieve that aim. There is overwhelming evidence that water buybacks are cheaper, more reliable and more effective than other measures of water recovery. It's important to note that the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder puts out a blind tender, and those who want to sell put an offer in—so Senator Ruston's analogy regarding Renmark and the irrigators there is not solid—yet, since 2013, water buybacks have stalled just below the 1,500 gigalitre cap imposed by the coalition government in 2015.

I call upon the government to adopt each and every recommendation proposed by the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission, which includes abolishing the water buyback cap of 1,500 gigalitres, and to proceed with the structural separation of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority as proposed by the Productivity Commission. We must act now before it is too late, but we must act carefully and responsibly, putting the sustainability of the system above short-term political gains. I, for one, believe that is the priority.