Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

For South Australians, the Murray-Darling River is life. It is our water supply, and without the river so many South Australian citizens would be without a water supply. For three million Australians, drinking water comes from our Murray-Darling system. It is our food bowl. The river is also a centre of community life, up and down the valley. It feeds our towns. It sustains our communities. It is a source of culture for so many of us, especially for First Nations Australians. It is a place of recreation for so many citizens. And it is a place where so many plants and animals are threatened and where a healthy system is critical to the survival of plant and animal species.

I was born on the river in Berri in South Australia. My grandfather and grandmother were 'blockies'. My grandfather returned from World War I, like so many Australians, and took a block to grow food and make a future for the family. My mother grew up in Barmera, and we all knew holidays every year on the river Murray, a place of recreation, of community making. As kids, we loved the river. Like so many South Australians, we see it as a place of community, family, food, water and recreation. The communities from the river system—Mannum, Berri, Barmera, Waikerie, Loxton, Renmark, Swan Reach—are all dependent on a healthy river. The City of Adelaide is dependent for its water supply on a healthy river. We all need a system that works, an ecology that functions.

For over 15 years, vested interests have been permitted to dilute and derail the Basin Plan, with some particular corporate interest prioritised over the health of the river and the communities that depend on it. The river is now in a bad way—rising salinity, mass fish deaths, algal blooms and a deteriorating water quality. There are no jobs on a dead river and there are no communities on a dead river. The existing plan has failed. The 2019 targets have not been reached and there's been no credible pathway to restore the pitiful level of environmental flows promised under the compromised and corrupted Basin Plan. Over the course of a decade, less than 13 of the 450 gigalitres promised for the southern basin have been recovered. That is just over a gigalitre a year. Richard Beasley, the commissioner for the River Murray in South Australia, described the existing plan as 'an opportunity that has been squandered'. However, he still held some optimism for the future, and that is why the plan that comes to us today, amended by the Greens, is a vital and important step forward. With a very hot summer bearing down upon us, it's urgent we change course now to overhaul the plan and start putting water back into the system.

I recently met with the Murray-Darling Conservation Alliance. It's a group of national conservation groups across the basin area, and they highlighted four keys areas they see as critical to the repair of our Murray-Darling Basin: restore natural flows to ensure environmental flows that are key to survival and recovery of our wetlands; invest in regional communities to build security and prosperity through the floods and the droughts; buy back water from willing sellers and secure guaranteed flows to rejuvenate the river and its larger ecology; and deliver funding for First Nations Australians. The Murray-Darling Basin is First Nations country. More than 40 First Nations communities have lived and live in the basin and they call for the right to protect, to manage and to own water resources in order to heal country and to heal people. After decades of water reform, the time for token gestures has long passed.

Our country is dependent on a healthy river system across the Murray-Darling Basin. For decades we've been let down by poor deals and very bad governance of our river. Most recently we experienced an appalling decade of neglect by the Liberals and the National parties—a basin plan that was and is completely off track. Three million Australians depend on the river system for water and yet there is a failed plan. We need more water in the river system and we need a better plan that is properly governed.

The Greens have worked hard with the government to take action and to address this crisis. Today's announcement is a huge win for South Australians and a huge win for Australians. I acknowledge the work of my colleagues in working with the government to bring this plan to bear, especially my colleague Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who has worked so hard for decades around the river to push for a better plan—a plan that works, a real plan, a plan that will make a difference, a plan that reflects the science and a plan that holds government accountable.

As Sarah said, a river dies from the mouth up. South Australia was promised 450 gigalitres of environmental flows—additional water—more than a decade ago, but the Liberal and National parties dropped the Basin Plan off a cliff. Today's plan rebuilds it. At last, by December 2027, South Australia will get its 450 gigalitres. Most importantly, we will have also increased accountability. We will have an independent audit on the water allocated through the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. We've all watched the news, the shows, the Four Corners programs and the 7.30 reports that show our river system in crisis and that tell us the story of overallocation, the corruption and the greed that have led to fish kills, to blue-green algae blooms, to species decline and to low flows and the degradation of flood plains and wetlands. Fraud, rorting and lack of accountability have put this system at risk.

We know our Murray-Darling River system is in need of fundamental increases in water flows. A river is not a resource to be used up and be expended to its last drop. It is life. We need an environmentally sound plan for our river, for our drinking water, for our animals, for our wildlife and for our communities. The agreement and the amendments the Greens bring today include for the first time an acknowledgement in the plan of First Nations peoples' connection, history, heritage and water needs. There is real funding on the table for an Aboriginal Water Entitlements Program—$100 million—and a mandatory say for First Nations in environmental water management and decision-making.

I have camped on the river at the mouth in Coorong with Major 'Moogy' Sumner, one of the elders of Ngarrindjeri country. He took our Greens community to his country at the Coorong. We camped, and he told us the story of culture and heritage and reminded us of the power of this beautiful country. This is our heritage as a country and as a community. First Nations people, like Uncle 'Moogy' Sumner, on his father's Ngarrindjeri country, have great wisdom to share with us about the health of the river and the care for the plants, the animals, the country and the ecology of our river system. Scientists must also be listened to. We must take account of the impact of climate change on our river system, and the original Murray-Darling plan did not.

This bill is, with our Greens amendments, a critical lifeline—a guarantee in law of greater flows of water down the river, especially for South Australia. It's a breakthrough agreement. It's a landmark. It has the promise to rescue our river from the broken promises of the Liberal and National parties. We are long overdue for an independent audit. Our river has suffered from greed, from overextraction and from failing to take account of climate change.

Not so long ago I paddled out on the river near Renmark and saw the hard work of Riverland communities in recovering the ecologies of the river and its backwaters. We camped and kayaked around Renmark with my friends, who happen to be here with me in the chamber as I talk today. We shared the optimism of the possibility of regeneration of the wetlands and the backwaters of the river: the green shoots on ancient trees, the long-buried seeds of plants recovering in the river and those wetlands as they are well-managed back to health. So thanks, Natalie Fuller and Peter Gill, for that adventure, and for sharing that experience of what good management of our system can look like. People up and down the river care passionately for their river and the community.

I've been the guest of the Renmark Irrigation Trust, one of Australia's oldest irrigation trusts. In five years to June 2022, the trust has rehabilitated many sites—more than 12—putting water back into 120 hectares of land around Renmark. They are regenerating flood plains in partnership with councils, the state and federal governments and local landholders. This is a taste of what we need. We need the water coming down the river. We need the resources to support communities to make these changes, to advocate and deliver the water and the consequences for their communities as we recover from the long-term degradation due to past irrigation practices and the failure of good management and accountability up and down our river.

Locals along the river know we need water to address that degradation, to rehabilitate our river—not just in Renmark, but up and down the whole river system. This plan puts water back into the river. We need that additional water into the Darling/Barka and into the Murray, and we need real accountability to deliver integrity, transparency and truth about the state of our river and the plans we need to rebuild it into the future. This set of amendments and this bill respond to the science, and they promise a more accountable delivery.

This bill offers a better future for South Australians, more reliable water supply and a real improvement in the prospects of generations to come. I especially congratulate Senator Hanson-Young, working with the government, for this effort. The bill is a breakthrough; it promises a way forward. It will make a difference for the kids who come after us, for the food producers, for the communities, for the First Nations people who make their way and live with independence on the river system as millions of Australians do. We need a healthy, sustainable river system, and so many people tell us this.

I'll end with a couple of quotes from South Australians. Glynn lives in South Australia and says:

As a South Australian I have witnessed the result of being 'at the end of the line' as the river struggles to run its course out to sea. I am also aware of how important the river is to all South Australians, including our flora and fauna, as a water supply. It is our lifeblood.

Jacqui, also from South Australia—she grew up in Renmark—says:

I grew up in Renmark and now as an elderly woman I live in Goolwa. i came to live here in the early 2000s at a time of drought and was devastated to see the river so low. the destruction of wildlife and the degradation of the environment that our Nganrrindjeri inhabitants did so much to protect—

over thousands of years.

We must protect our rivers—they are truly our lifeline.

This bill, as it's amended, offers a real opportunity to strengthen that lifeline and to create a better future for our communities up and down the river, for the kids to come and for our animals and plants into the future.