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

I find it galling—in fact, the height of hypocrisy. There must be an election on for this debate about the Murray-Darling Basin to be so dominated by South Australians. In fact, the motion is moved by a South Australian. It seems that practically every South Australian in this chamber wants to have their two bob's worth, as if their voices matter more than anybody else's. In fact, I suspect they think that theirs are the only voices that matter.

Now, let's talk about South Australia in the context of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. First of all, Australian water licence holders have sold almost 1,500 gigalitres of water under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. You would think, from all the bleating that has been going on, that the bulk of that has come from South Australia. Not so. Thirty-two gigalitres out of almost 1,500 gigalitres have been bought back from South Australian irrigators. I heard, previously, Senator Ruston say what effect that had had on her town of Renmark. Most of those licences must have been bought back in her area, because the rest of South Australia's irrigators have not felt the pain. I can tell you where the pain has been felt; it has been felt all along the Victorian border, close to the Murray River, and all along the New South Wales rivers. Go to towns like Shepparton, Deniliquin, Griffith and many, many other small towns, where the loss of water and the loss of irrigated farming has had an absolutely devastating effect on those country areas. South Australia's price for participating in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is a pimple on a pumpkin.

Another thing that South Australians seem to forget all the time is that the Lower Lakes are kept artificially fresh. They wouldn't be fresh in their natural state. They are kept fresh because there are barrages across the mouth of the Murray which prevent the Murray from behaving like an estuary—the only river in Australia that is prevented from behaving like an estuary. In an estuary, when the river flow is low, the sea comes in; when the river flow is high, fresh water goes out to sea. That's how the Lower Lakes would be kept wet, permanently wet, so they wouldn't get salt-encrusted shores as occurred in the drought. They would be kept wet. They wouldn't be kept artificially fresh under natural conditions but for those barrages.

Now, of course, that fresh water evaporates in the Lower Lakes. Nine hundred gigalitres a year evaporates from the Lower Lakes, all of it fresh water. Vast quantities of it, naturally enough, are water that has flowed down the Murray, a little bit of it down the Darling River, and into the Lower Lakes, where it evaporates. If those lakes were not kept artificially fresh, that 900 gigalitres of water which evaporates from Lake Alexandrina—and a little from Lake Albert, of course—could easily be brackish water, a mixture of seawater and fresh water. A lot of that 900 gigalitres could be retained further up the system either for environmental benefits or for irrigation and agriculture.

The Lower Lakes are an artificial environment. When we talk about protecting the environment, we are not talking about the natural environment. It's an artificial, man-made environment, and the South Australians don't ever mention that.

The other man-made impact that is very, very significant in this debate—also in South Australia, naturally enough—is the state of the Coorong. Until a few months ago, when I tweeted that the Coorong was dying and got criticised by Senator Hanson-Young for that, I don't think she knew where the Coorong was. Since then she's gone to look at it, and finally she now agrees with me: the Coorong is dying.

But why is it dying? I'll tell you why. It's because, again in South Australia, they have a thing called the south-east drainage project. The swamps and the various other sources of water which stop the land from being productive agricultural land have been channelled into drains. The water is sent down and, instead of draining into the Coorong, which is where it used to go before it was channelled, it now goes straight out to sea. All that fresh water which used to go into the Coorong is now going out to sea. As a result, the tail end of the Coorong—in fact, the bulk of the uphill section, I suppose, if you put it that way—is deprived of fresh water because the water that would, under the natural environment, flow into the Coorong is not going into the Coorong.

Another aspect that I find the South Australians completely hypocritical about is this fish kill in the Menindee Lakes. Why did the fish die in the Menindee Lakes? There are two factors. One is not enough water. The other one is the high temperatures. That's what does it. You get blue-green algae. You get other bugs growing in the water. The water's not flowing; there's not enough of it to maintain an oxygen supply, and it kills the fish. Why was there not enough water in the Menindee Lakes? Because it was sent down the river to South Australia. They let it out. They've done it twice in the last five years. Both times it's caused problems.

Now, the Menindee Lakes are not some sort of sacred environmental thing either. They're man-made. Under the natural environment, they are called ephemeral. They dry out when water flow is low, and, when water flow is high, there's water in them.

I have some sympathy for the people who live around the Menindee Lakes. They like to go out and waterski and ride their boats, but you couldn't call that an environmental argument. In fact, the best person to emerge out of this issue on the Menindee Lakes is the Hon. Niall Blair MLC, the New South Wales Minister for Regional Water, who is now saying there will be no more releases of water from the Menindee Lakes to send down to South Australia. Guess what happens when it gets to South Australia. It ends up in Lake Alexandrina and evaporates. Nobody is any better off, and neither is the environment any better off.

I'm appalled that the South Australian royal commission is being quoted. The South Australian royal commission—despite the fact that it was a New South Wales QC: he might as well have said, 'Give me all your propaganda, South Australia, and I'll put it into a report,' that's what it amounts to—was a fancy argument for saying, 'Send more water to South Australia.' Why? 'The environment.' What about the environment? 'Don't go there—just, "The environment". South Australia needs more water. The whole Murray-Darling is going to die unless South Australia gets more water.'

One final aspect that I want to bring into this discussion about South Australia is the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder is the custodian of all the water owned by the Commonwealth for environmental purposes. But it is asked to release water by the various water owners. There is good evidence that the South Australian government has requested—and it has been acted on—the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder to send water down to the South Australian lakes in order to raise the level of the lakes to allow a sailing regatta to occur at Goolwa. They asked for environmental water to be sent down the river to raise the lakes so they can have a sailing regatta. There is good evidence of that.

So what is the solution we hear from the South Australians? 'Send more water from Victoria and South Australia—and Queensland too, for that matter—down the river to South Australia.' And then they can't even get their rivers right—the Darling and the Murray. They don't even know there is a difference between them. Very little of the water up the Darling River, whether it is stolen or not, ever makes it to South Australia. The average is six per cent—that's it. Hypocrisy knows no bounds.

My solution to this, my advice, is that New South Wales should simply withdraw from the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and tell South Australia to grow up, stop whingeing and answer a few questions. New South Wales should not rejoin any plan involving the Murray-Darling until South Australia can answer some serious questions. Why can't the Murray River return to being an estuary? That's the natural environment. Why is it being artificially blocked in South Australia, with no justification by the South Australians as to why it shouldn't return to being an estuary, the natural environment? Why can't the water from the south-east drainage program go into the Coorong and save it, like it used to? Why should the barrages stay at Goolwa? Why should New South Wales, Victorian and Queensland farmers sacrifice—and they have paid hugely so far for their involvement in the Murray-Darling Basin plan—so that you can have a sailing regatta on the Lower Lakes at Goolwa in South Australia?