Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation (Senator Abetz) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to water resources.

I am sure most senators know that tomorrow is World Water Day. The theme for this year is water security. What could be more pertinent for Australia than the theme of water security? I am very disappointed that the minister could not answer my questions, because the wetlands in South Australia are facing calamity. In my question I highlighted the fact that the South Australian water minister has announced that they will be cutting water supplies to a number of lakes, lagoons and wetlands. One of those, for example, is Lake Bonney.

Lake Bonney is already in a great deal of trouble: water levels are dropping and salinity is growing. If this lake is blocked off salinity will continue to increase in the lake and it is highly likely that if water were then returned to the lake it would have an adverse impact going back into the river. The concern is that if the lake is allowed to dry out it will be irretrievable. Therefore it is essential that the water level not be allowed to drop to a point where there is no return, which means the water should not be cut off and we need to ensure that the lake has access to environmental flows. That comes to the point of my question at the time, which was: what is the government doing about protecting these wetlands; what is the government doing to ensure that these wetlands have an environmental flow? That means buying water, not waiting to buy water until water efficiency mechanisms are put in place.

I spoke last year and earlier this year about the need to ensure that the government are aggressive participants in the water market to ensure that water is available now, not a couple of years down the track once they have exhausted any opportunities in water efficiency. Water needs to be purchased on the market now or these wetlands and others like it will die. The South Australian government, as I understand it, has already cut off the water supply to a number of other wetlands that are not as significant as the ones that they are now proposing to cut off.

Yesterday we also had the report by the World Wildlife Fund which listed the Murray-Darling as one of the top 10 rivers in the world at risk. It is at risk from the threat of invasive species and from issues such as climate change and water allocation, which brings us to the next point that has been raised yet again—that is, the impact of climate change on the Murray River system.

Dr Wendy Craik was in the media today talking about the impact of climate change and the new investment that has been made into research on the impact of climate change. She also quoted one of CSIRO’s climate change experts, Dr  Bryson Bates, who has suggested that this drought has the fingerprints of climate change all over it. I wonder if the Prime Minister is going to change his thoughts on the association between climate change and drought. As we know, he famously retracted his statements acknowledging the connection between climate change and drought and he thinks the jury is still out on that one. Obviously he is not reading the science. He is not reading what Bryson Bates has to say on the issue: he believes that there is a strong link between climate change and drought.

That puts into even more stark relief the failure of the federal government to act now to address the issues of these wetlands. I am looking forward to hearing—in my dreams!—an announcement on World Water Day tomorrow, 22 March, that the government has moved to purchase, for an emergency situation, water allocations to enable environmental flows to the wetlands that are at risk and at risk of dying. Lake Bonney has less than 12 months to exist if action is not taken now. If the South Australian government is forced to cut off the water supply to that particular lake, it will die. It is irretrievable. The government can deal with this issue by moving to address and to buy water allocations now. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.