Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to comment on some concerns that I share with minister and fellow South Australian senator Senator Wong. These are concerns about the Murray-Darling Basin and concerns for the nation arising out of the dire straits facing the Murray-Darling Basin. I share with Senator Wong concerns about the environment; I share with Senator Wong concerns about the communities; I share with Senator Wong concerns about the livelihoods; I share with Senator Wong concerns about the people, both country and city—indeed, all of us—who need a sustainable Murray-Darling Basin; I share with Senator Wong concerns about the very accurate sentiments expressed by the head of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, Wendy Craik, when she notes that regrettably we continue to set records that as a country we would prefer not to set; and I share with Senator Wong concerns that we are faced with some very tough choices indeed. But, unfortunately, it is pretty much about there that the sharing with Senator Wong comes to an end.

Senator Wong accuses us of failing to nominate which of the tough choices we would make. At long last Senator Wong has shared with Australians the tough choices that do indeed face us in respect of the lower lakes and Coorong in terms of the departmental advice which she had tabled to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee in the last few days. She has finally shared with us the identification of some of those tough choices. We now call on her to act on some of those tough choices. But it also highlights the areas in which Minister Wong has failed to identify the tough choices that unfortunately face us. As a senator for South Australia, I am talking in particular about the tough choices that face South Australians in their water use. I am talking in particular about Minister Wong’s indication that we are essentially in a holding pattern at the moment. Well, in a holding pattern we may remain for as long as we actually fail to take any of those tough choices. But, in the future, unless we take those tough choices, a holding pattern may indeed look like a luxury.

As a senator for South Australia I want to know why Minister Wong has failed to identify, as one of the tough choices facing South Australia, weaning Adelaide off the Murray. Why is it that a minister from South Australia continues to advocate a capital city sucking from the Murray? Why isn’t Minister Wong advocating weaning Adelaide off the Murray and leaving the Murray for people who have less choice in their water source than the people of the city of Adelaide? Minister Wong says this week, ‘There is simply not enough water in the system to do everything we want. My view is that it confirms that what we have to give priority to is Adelaide’s water supply and that of other towns which rely on the river.’ There she is nominating short- to medium-term reliance for Adelaide on sucking on the Murray-Darling.

But she goes further. She is quoted in the Advertiser on 25 August as saying that in 10 years time she hopes to see a river system that provides food and fibre for Australia and provides water for Adelaide. So our minister—our South Australian senator—is advocating that in 10 years time Adelaide will still be sucking on the River Murray. Why? On what basis is she so advocating? She and the Prime Minister promised Australians evidence based policy. On what evidence based policy is she saying that in 10 years time a capital city should continue to suck on the Murray—a capital city that is not even on the Murray, the only capital city that relies on the Murray for a significant proportion of its water; indeed, up to 80 per cent of its annual use in some years? It is a capital city that actually has choices in its water use, collection, storage and reuse. It has choices in its collection, storage, use and reuse of water that many others along the Murray-Darling do not have. It has far more choice than others have. Why is Senator Wong not urging her state Labor colleagues to end the blame game, wean Adelaide off the Murray. Why is Senator Wong not compelling her state Labor colleagues to take action to better collect, store, use and reuse water? What are the facts? Yes, we are the only capital city to have a significant proportion of our water coming from the River Murray. What are the facts? What are the choices that we have that others do not? We can build a desal plant. Finally we are talking about it. We are talking about something advocated by the state Liberal opposition years ago. Finally we are going to build a desalination plant. But you know what? It is going to supply Adelaide with 50 gigalitres a year—50 gigalitres out of the some 300 gigalitres we use. It is going to take us five years to build it, when it took the Western Australians two years. It is not fast enough and not big enough.

In a dry year Adelaide ditches into the ocean anything from 120 gigalitres of stormwater; in a normal year it is up to 230 gigalitres of stormwater. Do you know what? That is up to 80 per cent of Adelaide’s water use in a year—ditched into the ocean. Finally, a state Labor government is into feasibility study mode about capturing and reusing the stormwater. We have options as a capital city. Minister Wong should compel her state Labor colleagues to take action and use the options so that Adelaide is able to be weaned off the Murray. While she is at it, she might compel her state Labor colleagues to end backyard water restrictions. Does that mean we have enough water? Of course it does not. But she knows that backyard water restrictions are not increasing the efficiency of our use of water. She knows they are not putting a drop of water back in. She knows that education achieves as much as backyard water restrictions. She said as much when she acknowledged that Melburnians saved 22 per cent of their annual water use in their backyard when they did not have water restrictions. She knows we are saving water because we are water wise. She knows that the state Labor minister in South Australia, Karlene Maywald, cannot prove, to the extent that we are saving water in South Australia, that those savings are caused by backyard water restrictions, because they are not. Backyard water restrictions are pitting citizen against citizen; they are unnecessary; they are causing unnecessary costs and they are not saving the Murray.

South Australians are going to save 30 per cent of backyard water used. Do you know what that means? We will save a whole 11 gigalitres in a year of our water use. This will be saved not through backyard water restrictions but because we are water wise. But what is 11 gigalitres out of South Australia’s annual usable take from the Murray of 600 gigalitres? Do your sums, ladies and gents: it is 11 gigalitres out of 600. It is 1.8 per cent, which is not even two per cent. It is a pee in the pond that the Murray is fast becoming.

While Minister Wong is at it, she might exhort her state Labor colleagues to drop backyard water restrictions, which are a camouflage for Labor inaction. That is all they are. And she might take responsibility and have courage, as a senator for South Australia, to advocate weaning Adelaide off the Murray. Why will she not do this? Because Adelaide has drawn on the Murray for many years? Why will she not? Because she is a South Australian and it is hard, because she knows her state Labor colleagues are guilty of inaction on better collection, use, storage and reuse of water for Adelaide? Why will she not? Because of the politics. Come on, Minister. Why will the minister not nominate a target, a date by which Adelaide should be weaned off the Murray? Or, again, is she cowed into submission by the inaction of her Labor colleagues? Is she not prepared to do that for as long as we have a Labor administration in South Australia? (Time expired)