Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Water Amendment Bill 2008. There are few issues that South Australians are more passionate about than ensuring a sustainable future for the Murray-Darling Basin but in particular the River Murray. While the government, together with the South Australian government, is taking action to reduce Adelaide’s dependence on the Murray for drinking water, the river is part of the essential fabric of our state and supports not only agriculture and tourism but also almost all economic activity that occurs in towns located near the river.

In the financial year 2005-06 the Murray-Darling Basin constituted 65 per cent of Australia’s irrigated land and 39 per cent of the gross value of Australia’s agricultural production. The Murray-Darling Basin is not merely urban Australia’s food basket; it is the system that hundreds of thousands of Australians rely on for their livelihoods. As a result of overallocation of water and mismanagement of the river over decades by successive governments, the environmental management of the Murray-Darling Basin has become one of the greatest challenges we face as a nation. The final report from the CSIRO Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project was released yesterday, and it highlights the challenges that we face. The CSIRO found that the amount of water flowing through the Murray mouth had fallen from an average of about 12,200 gigalitres per year to just over 4,700 gigalitres per year. If the worst case scenario rainfall projection comes to pass, in 2030 fresh water might only flow through the mouth of the river in three out of 10 years. We cannot allow this to be the future that our children face, and that is why the government are taking serious, responsible long-term action to tackle the challenge that the basin faces.

Unfortunately, rather than taking real action to fix the Murray-Darling Basin, the previous government’s treatment of the Murray-Darling Basin was a case study in its approach to federalism. The CSIRO report released yesterday is hardly the first warning sign that the Murray River was in trouble. Rather than take real action, rather than make the tough decisions, the previous government huffed and puffed about how they were not at fault more than John McEnroe at Wimbledon and then announced a flawed plan written up by John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull on the back of an envelope just months before the last election.

The people of Australia called their bluff and elected a new government with a commitment to end the blame game over the Murray River. The negotiations and processes in the lead-up to this bill show how the Rudd government’s cooperative approach to federalism is bearing fruit. Rather than bluff and bluster and then blame the states for inaction, like the previous government did, the Rudd government did the hard yards nutting out the issues with the states and came to an agreement that was acceptable to both the states and the Commonwealth.

In the spirit of cooperative federalism, the bill gives all basin states a seat at the decision-making table through the creation of the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council and the Basin Officials Committee. In the intergovernmental agreement, the states agreed to refer legislative powers to the Commonwealth to enable the authority to assume powers previously held by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. While the new ministerial council will retain a role in determining specific functions that will be moved from the Murray-Darling Basin into the new authority, I applaud the states for referring the powers required to create one agency responsible for the management of the entire Murray-Darling Basin.

Since the first constitutional conventions were held in the 1890s, South Australia has advocated for Commonwealth management of the Murray-Darling Basin, to ensure that the basin is managed in the national interest rather than the particular interests of individual basin states. However, it is no surprise that this outcome came from constructive negotiation and working together with the states rather than the creative constitutional interpretations favoured by the previous government.

The Murray-Darling Basin Authority, which was created by another act, is charged with the development of the Basin Plan, the first ever single basin-wide water resource management plan. The Basin Plan will include limits on the amount of surface and ground water that can be taken from the basin on a sustainable basis; identify risks to the water resources within the basin, such as climate change, and develop strategies to address those risks; include an environmental watering plan to optimise environmental outcomes for the basin by specifying environmental objectives, watering priorities and targets for the basin water resources; and include a plan to improve water quality and salinity management and rules about the trading of water rights in relation to basin water resources.

In addition, this bill will require the consideration of critical human needs in the development of the Basin Plan. It will also require consideration of the amount of conveyance water that will be required to deliver the water for critical human needs, and consideration of the water quality and salinity trigger points at which water becomes unsuitable to meet those needs. Critical human needs are an essential consideration in the management of the river and I am sure that the authority will consider the issue seriously in the finalisation of the Basin Plan.

The bill includes new measures to give the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission the power to enforce the same water market rules with regard to all water service providers, regardless of how those providers are legally structured. This means that all water users and sellers will be subject to the same rules and provide for greater certainty for participants in the water market. The bill is part of the government’s suite of measures focused on tackling Australia’s water challenges, which include the $12.9 billion Water for the Future plan that provided funding for more sustainable rural water use and infrastructure programs, as well as the purchase of water from willing sellers to increase environmental flows into the basin. This plan is not a plan for next year or the next election; this is a plan to secure a sustainable, environmentally responsible river for the future. I commend the bill to the Senate.

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

I am very pleased to have this opportunity to rise to talk about the critical issue of water, but I am rather disappointed that the occasion comes about through this bill, because this bill—the Water Amendment Bill 2008falls significantly short of what it needs to do to implement the necessary reform for water across the country. Many of my colleagues have already spoken in large part about significant numbers of the shortcomings, and we will be addressing those in the committee stage. To that extent I clearly support and endorse their comments.

I want to focus on two aspects of this bill: the first is so-called critical human water needs and the provision of the bill that relates thereto, and the second is the failure of this bill to prevent the construction of the north-south pipeline, and the fact that this bill offers this government the opportunity to do just that—to stop the construction of the north-south pipeline.

Firstly, I will address the terminology ‘critical human water needs’ as used in the bill. Why does this matter? This matters because, once water is designated for critical human needs, it is excised from the system. The user to whom that water is given is able to enjoy the use of that water as a first priority user. In short, they get to go to the front of the queue. The evidence provided to the Senate committee inquiring into this bill was overwhelming. It was overwhelming about the need for a definition of the term ‘critical human water needs’ and overwhelming in its agreement that the bill failed to provide a definition of ‘critical human water needs’. The bill failed to provide a definition that was clear, transparent and equitable and that gave all water users in Australia a fair opportunity to work out how you get to the front of the queue. Instead, we have a bill that talks about critical human water needs, core human requirements and non-core human requirements. It talks about human critical water needs having first priority and then in the next breath—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just remember ‘core’ and ‘non-core’ from somewhere before.

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

Yes; it has been used in the government’s legislation. Having talked in one paragraph about critical human water needs attracting the highest priority, in the next breath it then talks about conveyance water therefore attracting first priority. Is there a difference? If so, what is the difference? It talks about non-core human water being given the status of critical human water needs, where the failure to provide water for those purposes would cause prohibitively high social, economic and national security costs. Witnesses were overwhelming in their evidence about not knowing what this definition was intended to mean or what would be rolled out by the government or the new authority in implementing this definition.

The consequences of this are significant and profound and must not be underestimated. Indeed, yesterday the CSIRO released a report on water availability in the Murray-Darling Basin. It found that groundwater use, under existing state government plans, could double by the year 2030. This would effectively halve the flow of water through the mouth of the Murray. The CSIRO report warned that future levels of use of water were unsustainable and, in referring to that report, Minister Wong reportedly has urged state governments to enforce tighter controls on farmers’ and miners’ use of underground water. How has this come about? The minister has focused on one aspect of the use equation—farmers and miners—at the same time as presiding over a bill that spectacularly fails to set out what the human use component will be. It spectacularly fails to set out who gets access to water for critical human needs and for what purpose they get access to such water, whilst allowing those people and those users to have first crack. Yet the minister has used the CSIRO report as an opportunity to have a crack at farmers and miners.

‘Human critical water needs’ has been used, and is continuing to be used, by the government as an elastic term to allow them to give water where they find it expedient, in a political sense, to do so. I come now to the second opportunity for the government in this bill, the north-south pipeline. There is little better example of this than the north-south pipeline. We have heard technical arguments that the north-south pipeline is not critical human needs water under this bill because the north-south pipeline is coming from something that is not defined by the bill as being part of the Murray-Darling Basin. How offensive is that? It is simply not acceptable to attempt to carve Melbourne and its water needs out of the Murray-Darling Basin and at the same time allow Melbourne to go on the teat to take from the Murray-Darling. We are in the midst of a debate about the necessity to wean a city like Adelaide off the River Murray. We have state and federal Labor governments that refuse to commit to the wisdom of weaning Adelaide off the Murray—let alone setting a target date for the end point of a weaning process which, by definition, is gradual and which should have been started long ago. We are in the midst of a debate about weaning Adelaide—a capital city—off the Murray. It is a capital city that is not even on the Murray, yet from time to time it relies on the Murray for 80 per cent of its water use. We are in the midst of a debate about being more responsible with backyard Adelaide in its collection, storage, use and reuse of water, and at the same time we are going to put yet another city on the teat that is the Murray. And this is at a time when there is simply not sufficient water. So says the government.

The government seems to think that they can answer, ‘There is not enough water; what can you expect us to do?’ This bill must be amended in order to set out very clearly how you get to the front of the queue in terms of human critical water needs. Instead, we have an agreement extracted at the time of COAG to construct a pipeline, the north-south pipeline, to feed Melbourne, an agreement made during discussions that were supposed to be about putting water back in, not taking it out. The evidence from witnesses to the Senate committee was, again, overwhelming. No-one thinks construction of the north-south pipeline is common sense. It would appear that the only ones who agree with it and support it, aside from some probably well-intentioned but rather misinformed Melburnians, are Penny Wong, John Brumby and Mike Rann.

Opposition Senators:

Peter Garrett!

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

And Peter Garrett. Aside from the politics, it is clear that no-one can agree with the construction of the north-south pipeline because it is just plain wrong. It must be stopped, and this is this government’s opportunity to stop it.

Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that the water that will fill the pipeline is not going to be part of the critical human needs definition of the bill because it somehow does not come from the bit defined as the basin. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that Melbourne is therefore entitled to have some sort of carve-out separate from the bill. Once water designated for human needs—as it will be for the city of Melbourne—wets that pipeline, what Victorian Premier of any political persuasion would risk political suicide to let the pipeline dry out? It simply will not happen. Once the pipeline is built and once it is wet, Melbourne will be on the teat. It should not happen; it is wrong.

If this bill is so clear in defining human critical water needs then how is it that we have a minister, in Minister Wong, on Adelaide radio, as she was last week, saying to the effect that human critical water needs are for drinking water? I challenge the minister to show me, us, the Australian public and the stakeholders in this debate where the bill says that. It does not.

To say that moving amendments to this bill—particularly amendments around the human critical water needs definition—will delay the bill and to say, as is intimated in the majority report, that the so-called definition is the result of many months of negotiations and is, after all, the subject of some common sense is an indictment on the negotiation process thus far. It underlines the extent to which characterising the management of the plan through negotiation with state governments is compromised and hamstrung from the start. It simply has not done the job. It will not do the job.

To suggest that the term is capable of a common sense definition again sidesteps and obviates the argument. Where is that common sense definition in the bill? How is it that witnesses before the Senate inquiry were able to suggest that an abattoir could be given first priority for human critical water needs? In the words of Dr Buchan from the Australian Conservation Foundation, it could be used to justify spray irrigation of a regional golf course if that were necessary to support the social and economic needs of the community. They are all very important water uses, but how do you get to the front of the queue? The bill needs to be amended in that respect, and we will be proposing that during the committee stage.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to speak in support of the Water Amendment Bill 2008. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Water Act 2007 to make changes to the cooperative water planning, management and regulatory regime in the Murray-Darling Basin. The measures contained in the bill have been made possible because of a historic Council of Australian Governments agreement achieved by the Rudd Labor government. This agreement gained the commitment of the governments of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the ACT to fundamental reform of the planning and management of the Murray-Darling Basin’s water and other natural resources as a whole in the context of a new federal-state partnership.

This commitment has been formalised by the signing by the relevant state and territory governments of an intergovernmental agreement on Murray-Darling Basin reform. The IGA has paved the way for new governance arrangements for the Murray-Darling Basin to be put into place. Importantly, the state and territory governments concerned, together with the Commonwealth, have committed to a new culture and practice of basin-wide management and planning. Also, the changes being brought forward by this bill reflect agreement by the relevant states to refer constitutional powers to the Commonwealth to broaden the Commonwealth’s planning, management and regulatory powers so far as the Murray-Darling Basin is concerned.

The Murray-Darling Basin is Australia’s most important agricultural region, with production worth $15 billion in 2005-06, accounting for no less than 39 per cent of the nation’s gross value of agricultural production. The gross value of irrigated agriculture production in the basin in 2005-06 was $4.6 billion. The volume of water consumed in 2005-06 for agricultural production was almost 8,000 gigalitres. This amounted to 66 per cent of Australia’s agricultural water consumption. These figures underline the importance of the Murray-Darling Basin to Australia’s agricultural production and the importance of the rivers in the basin to the supply of the water necessary to sustain this level of agricultural production. With the very large decline in average annual rainfall and in river catchment inflows over several years, improved water management within the basin has become critical to the future of the basin’s agricultural output and to people living in the basin, not to mention Adelaide and other population centres that rely on basin water for direct human needs.

On 1 September this year in Brisbane, the Minister for Climate Change and Water addressed the 11th International River Symposium. In her speech, the minister, Senator Penny Wong, made specific mention of the situation in the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s most extensive and important river system. In referring to the basin, the minister had this to say:

…we’ve inherited a significant overallocation problem in surface and ground water resources, and unfortunately a history of neglect for the health of our rivers and wetlands.

The minister went on further:

We’ve also inherited old and often-outdated water infrastructure, and many irrigated farming systems and practices that fall well short of best practice in efficient water use.

The minister was, of course, putting into words what has become abundantly evident to the majority of Australians, not only those who live and earn their living in the Murray-Darling Basin. Whilst recognising the complexity of the issues involved, there is a feeling of frustration amongst many Australians that the problems in the basin have been allowed to go on for far too long. Many feel that the seriousness of the issues affecting water availability and river flows in the overall basin have been known for a decade and that progress to deal with changing circumstances in the basin has been far too slow.

Against this, with the election of a Labor government we have for the first time a federal minister for water. All the relevant state and territory governments have since signed an intergovernmental agreement in respect of the future governance of the Murray-Darling Basin’s water resources. As well, an enormous amount of work has already been done behind the scenes to put into place the required organisational structures and to fast-track the necessary practical research and planning to move forward rapidly with the necessary reforms in the way Australia manages its most important river system. This work continues to proceed at a rapid pace. Further, the Commonwealth government is complementing its governance reform with the $12.9 billion Water for the Future program. This program has four priorities: tackling climate change, supporting healthy rivers, using water wisely and securing our water supplies—all vital for the future of water supplies in this country.

Also, the Rudd government has announced investments of close to $3.7 billion for significant water projects in South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory. These projects will improve irrigation efficiency, raise the productivity of water use and make water savings that will be returned to the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin. The Commonwealth government is buying water entitlements from willing sellers in the water market to tackle overallocation in the Murray-Darling Basin so that rivers and wetlands will get a greater share of water when it is available. Nonetheless, while we are certainly not at ground zero, as far as some of the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin are concerned we are still uncomfortably close to the bottom. This bill is an essential element in putting into place a solid foundation to achieve what has to be done for the future of the basin.

In this regard I would like to quote Professor Michael Young, who is Professor of Water Economics and Management at the University of Adelaide and a spokesperson for the well-known Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists. In his opening remarks at the Senate public hearings into the Water Amendment Bill 2008 conducted by the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport in Canberra on 12 November 2008, Professor Young had this to say:

I would like to start by praising everybody—the governments of Australia, the state and the Commonwealth. The rest of the world is watching how Australia struggles to solve the Murray-Darling’s crisis and we really are at the eleventh hour. I would like to start by congratulating everybody on the progress made.

Professor Young followed up by saying:

The time has come to expedite implementation. We could go on arguing about reforms and trying to improve things, but the cost to communities and to the river itself is too high.

This puts it in a nutshell. We have done what is necessary to give ourselves the best chance of success as we go forward. It is now the time to back up these efforts with real action on the ground. In this regard, I think we have been particularly fortunate to have a minister who has worked tirelessly to come to terms with the enormous complexity of the task she has before her. She has been able bring the vast majority of stakeholders with her and has been able to engage cooperatively and collaboratively with the relevant state and territory governments in a way where long-term principle has never given ground to short-term expediency. This is something that, in time, Australians will look back on as a great and lasting achievement of the Australian Federation.

As I have already mentioned, on 12 and 13 November the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport held two days of hearings in Canberra on the Water Amendment Bill 2008. Whilst the committee received much useful and constructive input from those who gave evidence at these hearings, the two main and urgent messages that the committee received were that there is general support and, in most instances, strong support for the bill; and that the bill should be agreed to—and I hope you are listening on the other side—and passed through the Senate as quickly as possible. It was generally felt that the organisational structures and operational mechanisms that the bill will facilitate provide significant scope to finetune and, where necessary, improve the complex process of implementing the necessary reforms. The orderly, fair and sustainable management of a large inland river system which passes through four states and the ACT is an immensely complex task, particularly in a situation where declining river flows mean that demand for water has outstripped the available supply.

Sadly, time is against me, but in wrapping up I will say that this bill and the progress that has been made over the past 12 months demonstrates what can be achieved by a disciplined and cooperative approach to dealing with problems as large and as complex as those of the Murray-Darling Basin water management regime—problems that have been accumulating for over 100 years. Because the productive capacity of the basin is so vital to agriculture in this country, all Australians have a stake in the reform and improvement of water management in the basin. I believe the measures contained in this bill and the actions taken by the Rudd Labor government and the minister over the past year have laid the foundations for a secure future for the Murray-Darling Basin. On that, I commend the bill to the Senate.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish that I could share the optimism of Senator Sterle. I genuinely wish that I could. I wish that I could feel that the Water Amendment Bill 2008 was about to serve all of the grand purposes that Senator Sterle mentions. I wish that I could believe that all of Senator Sterle’s rhetoric would deliver the results for the river that we all wish for. Because, Madam Acting Deputy President Hurley, I believe that Senator Sterle, like you and I as fellow South Australian senators, actually does want the best outcomes for the river system. I genuinely believe that most, if not all, in this chamber wish to see the best outcomes for Australia’s greatest river system and to ensure that it can survive into the future and provide the types of benefits—environmentally, ecologically, economically and in a community sense—that it has for so long. Tragically, politics has continued, as it has for decades, to plague the future of the Murray-Darling system. It is politics that continues to get in the way of delivering the ultimate outcomes that could provide the river with its best chance of long-term health.

I wish to read a brief passage to the chamber. It starts:

Somehow as time went on the national spirit of the people changed, and petty rivalries between the colonies as to how much water each was entitled to use hampered progress, and thus it came about that Victoria and New South Wales entered into large schemes of diverting the waters of the Murray and its tributaries. Several active associations were formed in various settled parts of the Riverina country to protect the interests of navigation, and meanwhile successive Governments of South Australia played ignominious parts, spending years attending useless conferences, discussing and wrangling with our Sister States over the division of the water calculated to flow for given periods through certain gauges. So far as New South Wales and Victoria were concerned, the true object of these conferences was to discover how little South Australia could be induced to accept, and to gain time to push on with their own works in their respective States.

The memoirs of Simpson Newland were published in 1926. In 1926 we had these debates raging about the future of the place known as the Murray-Darling Basin. Of course, by then the debate had been going for some decades because, in the Federation conferences that led to the establishment of this Australian parliament and the Commonwealth of Australia, we had grand attempts made by some South Australian statesmen and others around the country to ensure that the management of river systems, systems that by their very nature do not know or recognise state borders, was vested in the hands of the Commonwealth. At the 1897 Constitutional Convention a proposed clause of the new Commonwealth Constitution was debated. It would have given the new Commonwealth jurisdiction over fisheries in Australian waters beyond territorial limits and in rivers which flowed through two or more states. We wish that our founding fathers had had the foresight to actually adopt those recommendations at that time, some 120 years ago, when they were under debate. If there is a fundamental mistake that was made in the establishment of our Federation, it certainly relates to the management of our rivers and waterways.

It is a tragedy that we stand here today still debating how to achieve national management of our river systems and how to achieve the things that many of our forefathers knew were right some 120 years ago. We are still grappling today with trying to get things right. Tragically, we are not getting them right. It is now nearly two years since John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull outlined a plan for national management of the Murray-Darling Basin. They had put a clear plan for true, genuine national management, a plan that would have sought that all of the basin states and territories clearly refer their powers to the Commonwealth, to provide the Commonwealth with the capacity to actually manage this, our nation’s greatest river system, in the best interests of the nation and in the best interests of the river system. Instead, petty parochial political squabbling broke out, as it has done throughout the history of attempts to manage this river system.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, by the South Australian Liberal Party!

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Petty parochial political squabbling led, in this instance, Senator Evans, by the Victorian Labor Party! But I recognise that of course it can happen in many places.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They learnt it off the masters!

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will take plaudits as masters of many things, Senator Evans.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Whatever happened to the liberal movement? Don’t you remember that?

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The liberal movement predated me.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle interjecting—

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sterle, you are interjecting out of your place.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Petty parochial politics broke out over how we were to manage this river system. As the Howard-Turnbull plan for national management was discussed, the Victorian Labor government dug its heels in. It dug its heels in so emphatically that very little progress could be made though the course of last year. The foundation stone for this bill that we are debating today was of course laid in the last few months of the Howard government. It tried to establish a pathway to true national management of the river. It was supported by the allocation of some $10 billion in funding, funding that was there to support the purchasing back of water, which the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, likes to make much of and which I have acknowledged my support for. That support is very clearly on the record and I am happy for it to be recorded again. But I emphasise that that is but part of the solution and it needs to be done in an appropriate way. The funding provided support for the structural adjustment necessary in the communities that needed to deal with living with less water. It provided support for both on-farm and off-farm infrastructure, privately owned and publicly owned infrastructure, to ensure that it could all be delivered in a more efficient and effective manner to ensure that ultimately, given the finite resources of the river system, we would be able to do more with less. So a great framework was laid down but, sadly, it could not be taken up at the time of the election thanks to the Victorian Labor government’s recalcitrance.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So 12 years of the Victorian government’s fault!

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Evans wants to talk about time. Tragically, since the national plan was first discussed by Mr Turnbull and Mr Howard we have seen two more seasons of record low inflows coming into the basin—two more seasons that could not have been foreseen as being as bad as they were. It has been tragic for the communities in the basin, the environment and the river itself. That means a demand for action that is even more urgent than was envisaged two years ago. If you—or anybody else—want to talk about time, Senator Evans, I say the time of urgency has only increased in the time since you have been in government.

What we needed back then was not a prolonged period of negotiation between the new federal Labor government and all of the states in the Murray-Darling Basin jurisdiction that have continued to exist as Labor states; they are all still Labor states. What we needed was not prolonged debate and argy-bargy between the government and those states; what we needed was an end to the blame game. We needed to see a rapid cessation of political hostilities. We needed to see Premier Brumby put down the fighting stick and actually come to the table and say: ‘We accept. We will have a referral and we will do so in the national interest. We will do so without needing to be bribed with a billion dollars of funding targeted specifically at Victoria. We will do so without the need to pillage the basin even further by taking out more resources for the north-south pipeline.’ We needed the type of political statesmanship that has been lacking in the management of this system for some 120 years. Sadly, the system we have got and the proposal that we have before us today have done nothing to improve the timeliness of things. We will now have a basin plan that will be developed over the next couple of years and then gradually implemented across the regional basins of the area depending upon when current plans expire.

What that means is that, in terms of timing, a plan that could, should and ideally would take effect more quickly will not take full effect across the basin until 2019. We will have to wait until 2019 to see a fully implemented national basin plan. Even with the adoption of the powers of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission into the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority, we are seeing not the unfettered national management that many of us had hoped for but management that maintains levels of state based vetoes. This maintains the capacity of the states to sit at the table and continue to play petty politics with this critically important issue.

We have seen the ugly compromises of things like the north-south pipeline. I know that my colleagues have indicated that amendments will be moved to this bill, and there is no more important amendment to be discussed in this place on a matter of principle than that associated with the north-south pipeline, or Sugarloaf Pipeline. At this time, when everybody agrees that the basin’s resources are stressed and that we need to be doing all we can to save more water in the system, it is beyond ridiculous to consider that we should be taking more water out of the system and, as my colleague Senator Fisher said, putting another major urban centre on the teat of the basin. It is quite preposterous that the government should stand idly by and consider this.

It is also quite preposterous that government seems to be willing to intervene and interfere in other places where it has not even been asked to do so. During the recent Senate estimates this year, I asked Senator Wong what discussions she had had with the South Australian government before the Prime Minister and she, in the midst of a community cabinet meeting, announced another $100 million for the doubling of Adelaide’s new desalination plant; what requests had been made by the South Australian government for that; and what commitments had been made that the desal plant could or would be doubled. It is safe to say that pretty much all of those questions drew blank stares. Obviously what had occurred was not that the South Australian government had sought the extra $100 million to double the desal plant but that the Prime Minister was in need of an announcement. So, whilst in Adelaide for a community cabinet meeting, he suddenly threw out an extra $100 million for the doubling of a desalination plant in Adelaide. But to this day we still do not know whether it will be doubled and the $100 million taken up.

Contrast that with the response of the Minister for Climate Change and Water to my question on whether she had had any discussions with Premier Brumby or any other ministers of the Victorian government about alternatives to building the north-south Sugarloaf Pipeline. There were no discussions there either. But, equally, there were no random offers of kindness coming from the Commonwealth. There were no random offers of kindness coming from the Prime Minister. I do not know whether the federal government need to hold a community cabinet meeting in Shepparton to get them thinking about offering some alternatives and putting some money on the table. Perhaps the federal government, out of the various funds available for water resources, could have made this offer to the Victorian government: ‘How about $100 million to increase the size of your desalination plant by, say, 75 gigalitres or 75,000 megalitres?’ or ‘How about $100 million to further progress water recycling?’ or ‘How about $100 million to further progress the capturing of stormwater?’ All these options could be pursued; instead, the government is building a pipeline to take more water out of the basin and is attaching another major urban population centre to the basin.

The major problem with attaching an urban centre to the basin is that it just does not relate to South Australia’s interests—far from it. The interests of those building the pipeline collide firstly with the interests of the communities of the Goulburn Valley. They will be the first to suffer. They will see a pipeline built that will take water out of their communities and piped down to Melbourne for its needs. Yes, the valley is getting some infrastructure works that will hopefully deliver water savings—and we trust that those water savings will be delivered. We certainly expect that at the end of this process there will be mechanisms in place to make sure those water savings are genuinely and truly accounted for. But we equally believe that those water savings could best be used for two purposes, not the three that they have been divided into. At present, they are divided between the needs of Melbourne, the irrigators and the environment with increased flows.

Frankly, things would be a whole lot better if the infrastructure works being undertaken in the Goulburn Valley area and in the Victorian food bowl with the modernisation program went to the environment and the irrigators. It would be better if it went to two sources, not to three—not to Melbourne. It would be much better for the nation, for the river and for all concerned if those water savings could simply be returned to those two sources. The irrigators, like irrigators throughout the entire river system, are feeling the enormous stress and pressure of the prolonged drought and, as a result, the prolonged cuts to their allocations. The environment and the stressed river system itself could happily do with another 35 or so gigalitres a year to support their causes rather than water being piped off in the direction that it is going in. This would be of great benefit to the nation’s food security and to the many different food bowl communities, particularly in the Goulburn Valley but also beyond that, further down the Murray-Darling Basin, to South Australia and our Riverland communities.

Madam Acting Deputy President Hurley, I know that you recognise the importance of these communities to our state’s economy. These communities are certainly suffering and feeling the pain. They are communities that have at times in recent months been too often overlooked for the immediate stresses that are felt at the bottom of the basin. It is a challenge for all of us who represent the diverse interests of the Lower Lakes and Coorong regions and the irrigation interests of the Riverland regions—those above and below lock 1—to make sure that we effectively advocate for their diverse interests, because their diverse interests are all equally important.

We need to hold the government accountable for the fact that those Riverland communities need a fairer system for how exit packages are worked out and provided to them. We need to ensure that there is a fairer system of support for people when they choose to take exit grants; that, when people choose to leave irrigation trusts, they are not burdened with undue fees to get out of their responsibilities and that there is support for the communities of the Riverland, as there should be for irrigation communities throughout the system, to deliver the structural adjustment required not only to do more with less water but also to adjust to increasing interests without irrigation.

Equally, at the bottom end of the river, in the Lower Lakes and Coorong communities, there is a crying need for certainty that governments are doing everything possible. That is where the failure of the north-south pipeline stands out greatest. The government is failing to do everything possible to assist the river and those at the tail end of the river system, in the Lower Lakes region. The Ngarrindjeri people, the traditional owners of the Lower Lakes region, talk about how all living things are connected. All parts of the river basin are connected. That is something we on this side recognise. We believe that the model put out for true national management and a mix of funding across infrastructure, buybacks and the range of areas required could deliver for the system. We urge the government to consider the amendments that I know we, the Greens and others will propose, because we are genuinely seeking to make this a better bill with a better outcome for all of the river’s communities and, in doing so, to fix the errors of 120-plus years of failed management of this river.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I was told a distressing story. A grower from Mildura I had met on a visit there spoke about his uncle, a man who had been growing vines on his property for more than 40 years, following on from his father before him. The property had been part of his family for generations and the family had dealt with hard times in the past, but the current drought and the lack of water have crippled them. Five years ago the grower’s property was worth a million dollars. He sold it recently for less than a third of that and was left without enough money to clear his debts. This man is 73 and has worked all his life for his family and in his community. He now has a pile of debts and no legacy for his family and he feels hopeless about his future.

Even more distressing is the number of suicides in these communities. Research by the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention has found that the rate of suicide among farm workers is double that of the rest of the population. It is happening because many of these farmers are depressed. They feel they have failed their families and have no future ahead of them. Growers speak of properties being abandoned because farmers have had to walk away, taking their heartbreak and despair with them. These are the people who must be given support and assistance to get through this crippling drought.

Water is an extremely complex issue that needs a national approach, but at the core of it there must be trust. Governments should be uniting people over the water issue, not dividing them. The Water Amendment Bill 2008 is another important piece of the puzzle of how best to manage water in the Murray-Darling Basin. Last year the parliament passed the Water Act 2007 to establish some of the administrative framework necessary to manage the basin. Now, with the agreement with the states achieved in March, the federal government is moving to establish the Commonwealth controlled Murray-Darling Basin Authority. This will help overcome some of the problems of governments pursuing their own interests, which often clash with the needs of the Murray-Darling Basin as a whole and the communities that depend on the basin.

Unfortunately, shamefully, governments still play politics with water. Last month, at a Senate estimates committee hearing, the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, reconfirmed that the government’s $57 million Small Block Irrigators Exit Grant Package would provide relief to farmers who are struggling with the drought. The exit grant package would provide drought-stricken farmers with a grant of up to $150,000. But there is a catch. The minister did not reveal that these grants would be made available to Victorian farmers only if the Brumby Labor government agreed to abolish some water-trading rules. The Rudd government should not be stringing along desperate farmers for months, holding them to ransom in an attempt to put pressure on a Labor state government. Irrigators in the Sunraysia area and others have been caught up in a fight between governments, their futures put on hold because of a game of political blackmail.

Another significant issue for Victorians is the Sugarloaf Pipeline, which is to take water from the drought-stricken Goulburn River to a thirsty Melbourne. Sadly, the Sugarloaf Pipeline has divided Victorians. It has pitted country folk against city folk. I can understand the Victorian government wanting to safeguard Melbourne’s water. That is the government’s job, and water is an essential service governments must provide. The question is whether the cure is worse than the illness and whether in fact it takes us backwards when there are alternative approaches available.

The Sugarloaf Pipeline has been approved by the federal government on the condition that the water it takes to Melbourne can be demonstrated to be independently audited water savings. The minister’s office assures me that water will be available for the pipeline only if it is audited savings and meets the four per cent cap. But Family First believes that taking water from the Murray-Darling Basin is wrong. It is totally opposite to what this bill is about—that is, maximising the value of water in the basin, not reducing it.

I do not want to single out the Sugarloaf Pipeline without mentioning that it is not the only project that diverts water from the Murray-Darling Basin. The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts told the Senate committee inquiry that there are seven pieces of infrastructure in different states diverting water from the basin, but:

The basin plan will set a limit on the amount of water that can be diverted from basin water resources, and this limit will be set at a level of individual resource plan areas identified in the basin plan.

However the difference with the Sugarloaf Pipeline is that it has not been completed yet.

Another very important fact that must be considered is that the Goulburn River is not the only possible source of water for Melbourne. Family First’s policy is that water should be piped from Tasmania, from an area where there is water excess to needs, to Victoria where water is scarce.

I met with Hydro Tasmania last month to discuss the plan. Hydro Tasmania told me that water flowing from Tasmanian rivers into the Bass Strait or the Indian Ocean is enough to cover almost three times Victoria’s total demand and 35 times metropolitan Melbourne’s demand. Water can be supplied to Victoria without taking away from Tasmania’s needs. Significantly, a pipe from Tasmania would have a much smaller carbon footprint than a desalination plant being built in Victoria. Hydro estimates a capital expenditure of $2.5 billion and operational expenditure of around $40 million a year, which compares to the Victorian desalination plant’s cost of $3.1 billion and operating expenses of $100 million a year. So, per megalitre, water from Tasmania is much cheaper.

Water from Tasmania could also be piped further north to add to the flow of the Murray River. A water tunnel from the Upper Yarra Dam to Lake Eildon would feed the starved Murray River and give hope to struggling farmers along the Murray River system. Family First wants the federal and Victorian governments to unite on this issue and build a 30-kilometre water tunnel to connect the Upper Yarra Dam to Lake Eildon at a cost of $300 million. The Upper Yarra Dam feeds water to the Thomson and Silvan dams, both providing Melbourne with most of its water. Under Family First’s water plan, water from the Upper Yarra Dam would be redirected to the Murray River. This plan would put water back into a starved, dying system, not take it out.

There is water to be found in Australia—look at the recent floods in Queensland—and it is a matter of distributing it properly. Australia does not have a water shortage problem; Australia has a water distribution problem. The plan to pipe water from Tasmania and use that water to service Melbourne and then tunnel water from the Thomson Dam over to the Murray would give farming communities on the Murray hope that, within a year, their crops will become viable and they will prosper.

Family First believes that nation-building projects like the ones I have described are needed to help fix Australia’s water problems. We must look beyond robbing Peter to pay Paul. We must look outside the square to solve the crisis. We must look to the vision of someone like Prime Minister Ben Chifley when he put forward the Snowy scheme. It was outrageous, it was daring and it worked. The Tassie pipe is another nation-building project that should be embraced.

This water bill will provide a much-needed centralised water management system for the Murray-Darling Basin. It is also an important piece in the puzzle of improving Australia’s water management. But it is not the only piece, and without big nation-building water projects like Family First’s plan to pipe water from Tasmania we will continue to squabble and struggle with the water issue for many years to come.

Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to add my support to this legislation, the Water Amendment Bill 2008, which is another example of the Rudd Labor government honouring its commitment to the Australian people. It is historic legislation built on a foundation of unprecedented agreement and unity between the Murray-Darling Basin jurisdictions and the Commonwealth.

One year ago this government was elected on a platform which included a promise to end the blame game between Canberra and the states and territories. Voters made a clear choice for nationwide cooperation and collaboration on important issues. The Australian people also told us they were concerned, even worried and fearful, about the consequences of the Howard government’s 11½ years of scepticism and inertia on climate change and water. Their votes called for decisive action, and that is what this legislation before us today is about. It is overdue and it is urgent. And, importantly, we want to and must get it right.

It is government reform that will set the Murray-Darling Basin on a better path as we face and address what is in reality a national crisis. This bill paves the way for the basin to have a viable future and be managed nationally as one river system blind to state borders. Rivers do not stop at state borders. For almost a century the basin has been held hostage by a largely unchanged governance model that required each of its jurisdictions to sing from the same song sheet before anything could be done. This set-up often resulted in decisions that were not in the best interest of the whole basin and its environment. The basin is now, as Minister Wong has pointed out, ‘in very bad shape’. However, in 1914, the architects of the River Murray Waters Agreement and founders of the River Murray Commission could hardly have foreseen the terrible triad which has sucked the life out of the basin—record low inflows, the overallocation of resources and the onset of climate change.

We are all only too well aware that we have reached a critical point in our national story. This is essentially a point of no return and the challenge is enormous. There are variables that underpin this challenge, including that of climate change and the extended drought. Coupled with too many years of injudicious water usage and resource distribution, they have become a poison impacting negatively on the health of the whole Murray-Darling system. Left unaddressed, the result will be increasing social, ecological and economic damage.

Along the great Murray-Darling system, water has dropped to levels generally unseen, unknown and unheard of in living memory, which is an unprecedented position. In my own state of South Australia we have a situation in which the government is putting in place measures to reduce the exposure of acid sulphate sediments in lakes Albert and Alexandrina. The environmental, economic and social costs are high. I am pleased to say, however, that the South Australian Labor government and its neighbours along the Murray-Darling system have entered into a historic agreement with the federal government. This agreement has been conceived so as to more fairly and appropriately manage water allocation, the environmental damages, the depredations of climate change and the social and economic transitions that will be required to go forward for the basin to have a future.

I am pleased to say also that South Australia has taken a leading role in fashioning the legislative framework we discussed today. Indeed, South Australia was the first state to introduce legislation to refer powers in the context of water management. Yet, despite the significance of this and associated legislation, a cautionary note must be sounded. There is no miracle overnight cure for the present plight of our rivers and the basin as a whole—no quick fix, no silver bullet and no simple answer. The Murray’s situation means that there are no easy options but only hard decisions when it comes to restoring the health of the once mighty river.

The opposition, hopelessly divided on water and downrightly dismissive on climate change, has demonstrated a complete lack of understanding and responsibility regarding the difficult choices that must be made. Those opposite should cease and desist the political game playing that has seen the Murray and the Lower Lakes degenerate. In stark contrast, the government has already been rolling up its sleeves and is keen to face the challenges head on and bring about remedy and restoration.

There is no doubt that the necessary reforms will take time to implement. Patience is a quality well appreciated by those who have seen our mighty rivers on their journey through the body of this land. It has taken much negotiation and no small measure of goodwill to arrive at this point. We are now in a position to pass into law reforms that will foster and grow a new era of unity and partnership between our state, territory and federal colleagues. Together our aim is to better manage the system that has so generously nourished our land since the Dreamtime.

The bill will achieve this by amending the Water Act 2007 and by giving effect to the intergovernmental agreement on Murray-Darling Basin reform, which was signed in July by the Prime Minister and by the heads of the basin states and territories. It is a step towards placing a scientifically established cap on basin water use and it will underpin a long-term plan for the whole of the basin. Specifically, it will transfer the purposes and powers of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority. As law, the legislation will also strengthen the role of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission by expanding the application of water market rules and water charge rules.

A key role for the independent expert basin authority will be to prepare a basin-wide plan over which the federal minister will have final say. To ensure that it is the best possible plan, the ministerial council of basin governments will provide advice.

Under this bill, the Basin Plan will see that the critical human needs of the one million Australians relying on the Murray for drinking water are met. The bill’s reform will dovetail with the Rudd Labor government’s 10-year, $12.9 billion Water for the Future plan, which was announced by the Minister for Climate Change and Water in April in order to secure the water supply of all Australians. It is the first ever nationwide plan for both rural and urban water. The plan addresses four key priorities: tackling climate change, using water wisely, securing water supplies and supporting healthy rivers. Measures under Water for the Future include a $3.1 billion investment in buying water for the basin to improve the river’s health; the allocation of $5.8 billion for irrigation infrastructure projects and to help basin communities to adjust to a new cap; and a $1.5 billion injection towards improving water security for our cities and towns through measures such as desalination, rainwater and grey water initiatives.

As I pointed out in this chamber last year, Labor’s focus on water is not new. It is about a long-term, serious and sincere commitment to the health and prosperity of our nation, our major river system, our towns and cities and our people. For decades we have called for, backed and initiated moves to improve water planning and resources. Labor has spoken out about the need for national leadership in this crucial area since the 1980s. Under the Keating government, true national water reform began with the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement and the Murray-Darling Basin Bill of 1992 and the historic bipartisan COAG agreement of 1994.

There was no doubt that Paul Keating understood the importance of this network of waterways. In December 1992 he said:

The Murray-Darling is Australia’s greatest river system, a basic source of our wealth, a real and symbolic artery of the nation’s economic health, and a place where Australian legends were born. Nowhere is the link between the Australian environment, the Australian economy and Australian culture better described.

Now that symbolic artery needs our help and our commitment to change. This bill will enable the Murray-Darling Basin to be truly managed in the national interest, for the first time. This move will optimise social, environmental and economic outcomes for the whole of the system—those who rely on it for life, for leisure and for livelihood. Therefore, I commend this bill to the Senate.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no greater crisis facing this country than the crisis surrounding the availability of water, and nowhere is this clearer than along the Murray-Darling Basin. The Murray-Darling Basin covers one million square kilometres and extends through Queensland, New South Wales, the ACT and Victoria, ending up in my home state, South Australia. More than 50 per cent of all water consumed in this country comes from the Murray-Darling Basin. This is the nation’s food bowl and, put simply, the state of the river directly impacts upon the state of our nation. If the river is allowed to die, what will happen to our nation?

The Water Amendment Bill 2008 was designed to give effect to the intergovernmental agreement on Murray-Darling Basin reform by amending the Water Act 2007. In particular, the amendments reflect a concession by New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and the ACT to refer constitutional powers to the Commonwealth to enact measures including the transfer of the current powers and functions of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, broadening the role of the ACCC in relation to water market rules and water charge rules, and expanding the Basin Plan to include arrangements for critical human needs.

The bill is supposed to enable water resources in the Murray-Darling to be managed in the national interest, optimising environmental, economic and social outcomes. If the bill actually did this, that would be great. But it does not. Instead, it seems designed to make it seem more like the federal government is taking control of the basin from the states when in fact it is doing no such thing. So why do we need a federal government takeover? For years state governments have grossly mismanaged the Murray-Darling Basin. They have treated this precious resource like a watery version of the Magic Pudding, acting like they could take as much as they like without worrying about running out. The states cannot be trusted to act in the national interest, which is why we need a federal government takeover of the river system. With one river system there should be one set of rules. But this response to the crisis, which I believe is a half-hearted, piecemeal approach in the form of the Water Amendment Bill, is not a federal takeover in any real and substantive sense.

I have been urged, along with my fellow senators, to accept the bill in its current form. The government claims that any amendments would need to go back to the referring states for consideration and could potentially lead to the collapse of the IGA. First, may I say that it cannot be a very robust agreement if sensible amendments from the Senate could jeopardise the deal. To suggest that the bill should be passed despite some fundamental flaws and without at least considering areas of improvement is both unreasonable and irresponsible. For this bill to achieve what the government claims it will, substantial amendments are needed. One of the most concerning aspects of the current Basin Plan is that it is not due to be completed until 2011, with implementation taking up until 2019. To me, this is totally unacceptable. There must be a greater sense of urgency.

Members will recall that earlier this year I introduced a bill into the Senate aimed at addressing this issue by proposing the implementation of an interim Basin Plan to deal with the crisis affecting the Murray-Darling Basin and to ensure its environmental and economic sustainability until such time as the Basin Plan is implemented. In other words, it would give the Commonwealth and the minister the powers that are needed to deal urgently with the crisis. The irrigators in the Riverland and those who live and rely on the precious Lower Lakes and Coorong do not have years; they do not even have months. Some farming families are just weeks away from bankruptcy. For this reason I will be moving an amendment to implement an interim Basin Plan aimed at providing a short-term solution to the current crisis to give the authority to the government, to the minister, to deal with this.

Restriction on the trading of water is another area of concern, particularly given the severe constraints it imposes on the ability to purchase water for the southern Murray-Darling Basin regions. The argument for the cap is that it keeps water in a given region. However, as reported by the Age recently, in Victoria alone the cap is costing farmers some $19 million and the state’s economy almost $6 million as well as potential jobs. I commend Minister Wong for her moves recently in terms of there being some sanctions, some consequences, as a result of the states keeping the caps in place, at least with respect to emergency assistance packages. That is a good first step but it needs to go much, much further. I remain deeply concerned that Victoria appears to have used its four per cent cap as a bargaining tool while negotiating its entry into the IGA. My concern is that the lifting of the four per cent limit on water trade and the application of that limit on a consistent basis must be dealt with as a matter of urgency. If this actually happens it will be an important outcome, and I will be moving amendments in relation to the issue on the four per cent cap. It is something that must at the very least be debated.

The whole issue of the north-south pipeline and the way the Victorian government has approached this is something of very serious concern to me and many others. The act of—I believe—state sanctioned environmental vandalism to take 75 billion litres of water out of the Murray-Darling Basin for the use of Melbourne is something that should not be countenanced. I do not resile from my position that the north-south pipeline project should not proceed, especially given that there has not been an independently prepared due diligence report and comprehensive audit of the savings asserted by the Victorian government. Victoria’s own Auditor-General, Mr Des Pearson, has been critical of the project and has cast doubt over the anticipated water savings the project will yield. In his report Planning for water infrastructure in Victoria, released on 9 April this year, Mr Pearson concluded that the level of information provided to the community on water supply projects has been inadequate and needs to be improved. Specifically he noted that processes underpinning the Victorian water plan fell short of the standard the department applied when developing the white paper and the central region strategy. He further criticised the Victorian water plan for:

… widely varying levels of rigour around the plan’s costs and expected water savings benefits.

Despite this and despite the concerns of communities across the basin, Victoria has been given the green light for a project that I believe is environmentally indefensible. And yet it is made clear in the CSIRO report into sustainable yields in the basin released just yesterday that the one state most at risk from the impact of climate change is Victoria. Incidentally, I believe an organisation like the CSIRO has the independence and rigour needed to properly audit the merits of a proposal like the north-south pipeline, and that is why I foreshadow that in the committee stage of this bill I will support coalition amendments that will seek to stop the north-south pipeline.

I also think there is an issue of equity that needs to be considered. For many years South Australian farmers and irrigators across the Riverland have spent their own money modernising their farms to ensure they are amongst the most efficient users of water in the country. In fact, in the many visits I have had to the Riverland in the last 12 months, one of the points made to me has been that the Riverland started getting its act together after 1967, after the prolonged drought. From 1967 onwards they have been getting on with the business of being a very water efficient region. I issue a challenge to anyone who doubts that the Riverland, in terms of its productive capacity, is one of the most water efficient regions—if not the most water efficient region—in the nation.

It was put to me by citrus growers when I visited the Riverland just last week that they have an issue with the eastern states getting the lion’s share of the $5.8 billion allocated by the federal government to pay to modernise irrigation practices—so, in effect, those regions that have done the wrong thing or have not dealt with the issue of water saving with alacrity over the years are being rewarded for poor or bad behaviour. They are being rewarded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars because in a sense they did not get their act together on water for decades. That is why I propose to move an amendment to Senator Nash’s structural adjustment package amendments—to have the authority give some consideration to the history of water-saving measures in a particular region in the context of structural adjustment packages. If a region such as the Riverland has done the hard yards over many years, that should be taken into account in any structural adjustment. I think that is equitable and fair.

There is also a concern about how water buyback is being dealt with. Obviously I welcome any additional environmental flows into the Murray. But there is a concern about the urgency in relation to the time frame. I agree with the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists and experts such as Professor Mike Young who talk about the urgency of bringing more water into the system, of dealing with overallocation and dealing with it in an equitable way.

A lot of the debate has also focused on the definition of ‘critical human needs’. I look forward to the debate on that in the committee stage. There is conjecture as to what ‘critical human needs’ actually are. I note that Senator Fisher has been quite outspoken on her concerns in relation to that. Is it simply drinking water or is it water for showers and toilets? Does it cover gardens; does it cover commercial industries? I believe that is an important issue for consideration in the committee stage.

The independence and the actual powers of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority are also a concern. I refer honourable senators to an article by Jack Waterford, the editor-at-large of the Canberra Times, who wrote an opinion piece entitled ‘Black hole in the basin “fix”’ back on 9 July, a few days after the IGA was signed. He talked about his concerns about the minister having the final say in the Basin Plan—which is a good thing—after a lot of toing and froing on the processes set out in the bill. But, at the end of the day, the implementation is up to the states. Mr Waterford was of the view that ‘If anyone kicks up a fuss on anything, paralysis is virtually inevitable’ in terms of the way the plan is implemented and dealt with. I think Mr Waterford is reflecting the belief of many in the community that there ought to be a greater degree of federal control over the river system. I will be urging the government to consider an amendment to ensure that, when preparing a Basin Plan, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority takes a whole-of-basin approach, taking into account environmental, economic and hydrological considerations. There is no point having an authority unless you give it real authority.

I understand that the CSIRO has an important role in preparing its sustainable yield report. I think it is important that the CSIRO has an ongoing role to monitor in a robust, independent way the progress of assertions made as to water savings, water efficiencies and the north-south pipeline. You need an independent body with that level of expertise to do that. I also think it is important that the implementation of the act be reviewed on a regular basis by another independent body such as the Productivity Commission to look at the whole issue of water savings and efficiencies and ensure that the objects of the bill are carried out effectively and efficiently in the context of the aims of the bill.

On the issue of auditing: on 14 August the Prime Minister announced new water initiatives in response to the situation in the Murray-Darling Basin. One of those included what he claimed would be a comprehensive audit of both public and private water storages in the basin. My question to the minister for consideration and response in the committee stage is: can the minister advise what has happened to the audit that was announced, what is the progress of the audit, when will the results of the audit be provided and what were the parameters, in the context of the methodology, resources and rigour, in undertaking that audit? That audit was announced over three months ago, and my understanding was that it ought to have been released by now.

I also have a query in relation to the Menindee Lakes in New South Wales. Why aren’t the Menindee Lakes counted until they reach an arbitrary level of 640 gigalitres, a level that seems to be always just out of reach? And that is something that New South Wales can control anyway, by releasing water from the Menindee Lakes. I note also that, when I visited the Menindee Lakes a number of weeks ago, the Darling River Action Group were quite adamant that for the last 10 years they had been talking about some fundamental projects, some key projects, to reduce the level of evaporation of those lakes of several hundred gigalitres a year and about the fact that Broken Hill, with the 10 to 20 gigalitres that it needs for water on an annual basis, needs to store about 200 gigalitres in the Menindee Lakes because of the level of evaporation and the lack of works that have been carried out.

I acknowledge that the bill does give South Australia carryover water rights for the first time. On the surface this seems like a good thing. But, if gross mismanagement and overallocation of the river are allowed to continue because of the flaws in this bill, how much water will be left to carry over? Will it be carryover water or will it be carryover air?

Finally, I note that the Greens will be moving amendments in relation to a quantitative regime for sharing water in the Basin Plan, something that Professor Mike Young and the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists have been outspoken on—and I can indicate my support for those. The government describes the Water Amendment Bill as a historic agreement for the long-term reform of water management in the Murray-Darling Basin. It describes a ‘new era of cooperative arrangements between the Commonwealth and the states’. I wish I could share the government’s enthusiasm. I am concerned that there is simply too much scope for the paralysis that Mr Waterford refers to.

I urge the government to have the same political determination that the Hawke government brought to the issue of the Franklin Dam, to use its constitutional powers to take on the states in order that we have one river system with one set of rules, and to heed the advice of constitutional law experts, such as Professor John Williams from the University of Adelaide law school, who are adamant that the federal government has the power to fix this problem. It needs to have the political will as well. I will support this bill going through to the committee stage, but I reserve my position in relation to the third reading stage based on the way the amendments are dealt with by this place.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, the day has arrived. It has taken a couple of hundred years to figure out that rivers do not stop at the borders. Governments of all persuasions for all time should take a lot of discredit for what has happened till this point in time. At the same time the previous government should get as much credit as the present government for where we are today. You can play all the words you like into that, but what is happening now was instigated by the previous government, and I think there is equal opportunity between governments and political persuasions to at last get the thing right. So I am not going to disagree with the proposition, which they figured out after 100 years on railways when they actually got all the gauges the same, in relation to state borders. If you want to do a bit of blaming, how could you have a resource operating plan for the Culgoa or the Warrego River in all seriousness that stopped at the Queensland border? What better example do you need of stupidity, of political crassness, of states holding the system to ransom? What greater example do you need of a state holding the Commonwealth and the people of Australia to ransom than the Victorian government in the lead-up to the last election with this stupid proposition, as a political convenience, for the pipeline in Victoria? There are endless examples of why this legislation, the Water Amendment Bill 2008,fundamentally makes sense, if we can get some rules around it that make it manageable.

There are potentially some fundamental flaws in this legislation—none greater, Minister, than the ultimate veto power of the states over reallocating the states’ individual consumption from the Murray-Darling Basin. The science for the future says there is going to be a serious decline in run-off in the southern parts of the Murray-Darling Basin. The same science, which of course is always subject to vagaries, says there is the potential of increasing run-off in the northern parts of the basin—particularly, strangely enough, in some of the south-west of Queensland, which would be the Warrego, the Paroo and the Culgoa type areas—if we are to reconfigure the contribution coming from a particular state. And, as we all know, 38 per cent of the run-off in the Murray-Darling Basin comes from a very specific two per cent of the landscape here in the southern parts of the Murray-Darling Basin. We all know that there is a prediction of somewhere—and I see Tom Hatton produced his document yesterday, which we have all known about for a long time, but at least it is written out now—between a 25 and a 50 per cent decline in run-off in a very sensitive part of the catchment.

I am unaware what the answer is on the final veto power of the states. We have an amendment that will turn up in the Senate report, which is not there at the present time—I suppose you would say that it was a misprint, it not being in the actual report, but it will turn up as an addendum—to deal with the potential of the veto powers of the states. For too long the states have held people to ransom for their own political crassness, for their own insecurities on understanding things as basic as the contribution of the groundwater to the river system. We put the cap in in 1996 and then all the farmers, being the likeable rogues that we are, got stuck into the groundwater. Before we understood the connection between the groundwater and the river water we had allocated a whole lot of licences, which have put a whole lot of added pressure on the system—all of those sorts of things. Nothing is more stupid—and every government of every persuasion can take the credit for this as well—than that we agreed some years ago to allow overallocations. Tim Fischer, who works for Minister Penny Wong, would know all about this—how are you, Tim? He will be watching. How stupid is it that we allowed the overallocation of water to be converted to a financial instrument? People with sound minds apparently did that. The consequences of that are a further burden on the financial compensation package that will have to be paid for water that was fundamentally free. The river got to a certain point, or it was in flood, and they said, ‘All bets are off; go for your life—it is overallocation.’ It was fundamentally free water which we converted into a compensable financial instrument.

In recent days, Tandou Ltd have rescued themselves financially by having taken advantage of that decision some years ago. In a business sense, good luck to them. In its wisdom, the state government, with the assistance, but not necessarily with the full knowledge, of the federal government, agreed to pay $34 million for what they now call supplementary water, which is just an old-fashioned way of saying overallocation. This water is overland flow water that is available when the Darling system is in full flood. It has not been accessed since 2001 by Tandou, even though it had a 49-gigalitre extraction history from 1984 to 1988. In some years they have been able to take 260 gigalitres. It is not metered. It is almost an honour system to own up to the fact that they have it. As I say, good luck to them, if the system is that stupid and the taxpayers are so generous. But we have agreed to do that and in effect it will deliver 35 gigalitres gross and about 26 gigalitres net to the Murray River, at a cost of $34 million. A state government instrumentality brought that into motion—the same state government that, in the same week, announced that, as a cost-saving measure, to save $8 million in the same budget, they were going to make people who were using donated blood pay for that blood. How bloody stupid is that?

As I have said, all governments have managed to stuff this up. This could be a step in the right direction. There are some serious problems which will come up by way of amendments to the bill. I do not doubt that the intent of the previous government was absolutely on the money and the intent of this government is on the money. But the trick for its implementation is in the detail. I put the minister on notice that, at the present time, the Victorian government has 94.6 gigalitres of credit for the pipeline, and they are already claiming that they can shove those 94.6 gigalitres down the pipeline. I can table the document. Let me just tell you that all this is sheer bloody lunacy.

Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Heffernan, you will withdraw—

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry. I withdraw ‘bloody’. It is sheer lunacy.

The Acting Deputy President:

Thank you. And I draw your attention to the appropriateness of parliamentary language.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, that is good. But I am sure that the mob out there understand what I am talking about.

Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do not be unparliamentary.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No; I will not be unparliamentary. If anyone is offended, I apologise. The annual average take-out for Goulburn, Pyramid Hill, Rochester, Shepparton and Turrumberry back in 1994-95 was 2,700 gigalitres. That is what they got. Last year they got just a bit over 500 gigalitres. Next year they are predicting 250 gigalitres. So we have gone from 2,700 gigalitres to perhaps 250 gigalitres. In that same system, with sheer stupidity, we have agreed that Melbourne will take what will be 100-odd gigalitres gross and 75 gigalitres net down a pipeline. There is already 94.6 gigalitres in credit in the system, as they see it, from other savings, so, if they get the pipe built in time, that could mean that next year they could well be taking nearly half the water that is available in the system, unless there is a dramatic change in the weather. How stupid is that? And they talk about high-security water.

Yesterday and the day before and the day before that there was a huge rain in the Gippsland, which is flowing down through Melbourne now and out to sea. How stupid is it that they are just sitting there watching it go by because it is in a different rain shadow from the rain shadow of the Murray-Darling Basin, which is basically in the same rain shadow as the city of Melbourne? So when it is dry in the Murray-Darling Basin it is generally dry in Melbourne, but Gippsland is in a different rain shadow. Why are we not taking water from there instead of from a system where 75 gigalitres net and 100 gigalitres gross could be—it will be, according to scientific predictions—a third of next year’s water availability for all the farming activities in the Goulburn River system. How sensible is that? I do not know what we can do about it and I do not know that this bill addresses it, but some of the ransom notes that are part of this bill are stupid acts like that by the likes of the Victorian government.

Managing what is proposed in this bill just worries me, given this history. If the climate science is right and we are getting more rain from one part of the catchment than from another, it worries me that there is still a veto capacity to rearrange the entitlements. In the committee stage we can address questions of how to make sure that we do not get held to ransom with a veto power and how the unanimous agreement of all states cannot be achieved. That is something that I would like to consider. The crassness of the political convenience of a thing like that pipeline beggars belief. It absolutely beggars belief that people would stoop so low as to almost invoke emotional blackmail with a pipeline that just does not make sense against the science of the future. It might have made sense if you were looking at it in 1956 or 1952 or 1974 or 1984, but, against the science of the future rather than the history of the past, it is a stupid decision. Here it is, Minister. There is the graph. They have gone from 2,700 gigalitres of available water to about 600 gigalitres last year, with a prediction of 250 gigalitres next year. Whether you like it or not, the state government is going to stand over you and say that they already have 94.6 gigalitres in credit, but that 94.6 gigalitres could ruin the system if they take it.

So I look forward to the details of amendments. Arlene Buchan and the Plug the Pipe mob are, to their great credit, a passionate mob. They appeared before the committee with great passion. The reason they have such passion is that they have great concerns about the impact of crass political decision making. So I look forward to seeing how their amendments get on in the committee stage and whether both sides of this chamber, and the parliament, have the political courage to try and get this right. We have not been through the proposition that may yet come, and obviously the committee considered the social impact of some of the decision making which, like the Toorale thing, is almost unbelievable. It is great for the people who want to get out but, in terms of stranded assets and social impacts, there is no work done. It is just like driving into a fog. God knows what the consequences will be. I am grateful to the Senate for this little contribution. I am just being told to sit down, I think. I was allowed 10 minutes and I had better sit down. Thank you very much.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to incorporate speeches by Senators Polley and McEwen.

Leave granted.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

Mr President, I rise in the Senate on this occasion to speak on the Amendments to the Water Amendment Bill 2008.

As Minister for the Environment Heritage and the Arts commented in the opening of his second reading speech on this Bill:

“This legislation before the House is a much needed, long overdue reform in governance that will put the Murray-Darling Basin on the right footing to face the challenges that lie ahead.”

Australia’s rivers and wetlands serve many functions and support many values—economic, environmental and cultural.

The Murray-Darling Basin is 3,375 km long, drains one- seventh of the Australian land mass, and is currently by far the most significant agricultural area in Australia.

The Murray-Darling Basin includes the three largest rivers in Australia; the Murray River, the Darling River and the Murrumbidgee River.

The Murray-Darling Basin is very important for its biodiversity. The Murray-Darling Basin is also very important for rural communities and Australia’s economy.

Three million Australians inside and outside the Murray- Darling Basin are directly dependent on its water. About 85 per cent of all irrigation in Australia takes place in the Murray-Darling Basin, which supports an agricultural industry worth more than $9 billion per annum.

The long-term productivity and sustainability of the Murray-Darling Basin is, however, under threat from over-allocated water resources, salinity and climate change.

Many of those sitting opposite to me today are climate change skeptics. I wonder how much more evidence they need to believe that climate change is real, and it is one of the most serious problems that will affect our country over the next few decades.

The rapidly emerging threat of climate change, with its inherent uncertainties and risks, is something that we must plan for and manage. As a nation, we have not had a Federal Government alive to these threats until now.

I believe it is imperative for Commonwealth, State and Local Government to share a common understanding of the problems in water and respond in a comprehensive and co-ordinated way.

Like many areas of public policy involving multiple levels of government, water policy has been derailed by bickering and blame. As a result, progress on many of the important issues has been a case of too little, too late.

The purpose of the Water Amendment Bill is to amend the Water Act 2007 and to give effect to the inter-governmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform. It is my understanding that the matters requiring amendment relate to non-referred parts of the Bill and so are within the Commonwealth’s own powers.

The Government has informed the States that we will be introducing these Government amendments, to maintain a spirit of co-operation. This government was elected on a platform of ending the blame game between Canberra and the States and Territories and we have invigorated the Council of Australian Governments with a major reform agenda underpinned by more effective working arrangements.

In May 2008, the government took a major step forward with a memo of understanding on Murray-Darling Basin reform, signed by the Prime Minister, the Premiers of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland and the Chief Minister of the Australian Capital Territory.

In July 2008, as promised, an inter-governmental agreement on Murray-Darling Basin reform was signed by Ministers, which built on the principles of the memorandum of understanding.

In the inter-governmental agreement, governments committed to a new culture and practice of basin-wide management and planning through new governance structures and partnerships.

The first amendment in this Bill recognises the NSW risk assignment framework. This amendment is consistent with the commitment in paragraph 3.4.2 of the inter-governmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform—Referral (the Referral IGA) that:

‘If a State applies the risk assignment framework referred to in Section 74A of the Water Amendment Bill 2008 before the Bill is passed by the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth Parliament, the Commonwealth undertakes to use its best endeavours to include a transitional provision in the Bill providing that the Minister is taken to have determined, under subsection 74A(1) that the State is a State to which section 74A of the Bill applies.’

The second amendment relates to separating water access rights and interests of the Commonwealth from those of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder.

This amendment is consistent with the agreement reached between Commonwealth and Basin State officials under the inter-governmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform that all rights and interests established under the Living Murray Initiative should continue to be managed under the Initiative.

This matter was not addressed prior to introduction of the Bill as it was raised late in negotiations.

The third amendment seeks to clarify the process for consideration and adoption of the Basin Plan. This matter was not addressed prior to introduction of the Bill due to a genuine oversight.

As Nick Champion, the Member for Wakefield, commented in his second reading remarks on this piece of legislation,

“We have to face the unpalatable truth that, over 100 years, our unco-ordinated State-based approach to the Murray-Darling, the irrigation and the establishment of lochs and weirs, has led us to the point where only a clear and uniform national approach, as well as a serious concerted effort to look for alternative sources of water for communities, will save the river basin.

He went on to say:

“A national independent authority is the only solution to manage the river basin and co-ordinate sustainable and capped water extraction and that is why it is essential that this Bill passes in the House”.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Champion.

The Water Amendment Bill is very much about working together as a nation to solve one of the great environmental disasters in Australian history: the near death of our great Murray-Darling river system.

In July, the Rudd Labor Government announced investments of close to $3.7 billion in the basin states to improve irrigation efficiency, raise productivity of water use and return water savings to the rivers. The Federal government is, for the first time in history, buying water entitlements from willing sellers to tackle over-allocation.

The Australian government has already completed the first-ever Federal government water purchase program, which will put 22.6 billion litres into the Murray when water is available, with a further 5.5 billion litres expected to be settled soon. Recently, the Australian government also assisted the New South Wales government to purchase Toorale, a cotton station near Bourke, which currently holds entitlements to extract 14 billion litres of water.

I believe these are all positive moves by the Rudd Labor Government.

Additionally, I would like to note in the Senate today that the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, recently released guidelines for groups of irrigators wanting to submit proposals to sell combined water entitlements in ways that deliver simultaneous benefits for farmers, irrigation water providers and the environment.

I am pleased that the Rudd Labor Government has put water on the national agenda. We have many challenges for the future and I believe Julie Owens, the Member for Parramatta in the House of Representatives was quite right when she stated that:

“Our rivers are stressed and over-allocated and we need a whole-of-basin approach to combat the problems that have arisen over the years.”

She went on to say:

“A properly functioning water market will be essential to help irrigators manage future reductions in water availability. It is a responsibility of the whole nation to assist our farmers to manage the changes that they will need to make with climate change. We have lived on the back of our farming community for decades and it is now time for us to be there when they need us.”

By far the biggest user of water in Australia is the irrigation sector, accounting for around two-thirds of all water use nationwide. Around 70 percent of this irrigated agriculture takes place within the Murray-Darling Basin.

Irrigated agriculture provides a wealth of food and fibre. This not only generates considerable export income, but provides fresh food for Australian households at prices that are low by world standards.

But despite the economic importance of irrigated agriculture, we must become more efficient in the way we use water for crops.

The Rudd Labor Government has already made progress to save the Murray-Darling Basin.

The Australian Government’s framework, Water for the Future, provides national leadership in water reform for all Australians.

Water for the Future is built on four key priorities:

• Taking action on climate change
• Using water wisely
• Securing water supplies
• Healthy rivers and waterways

Water for the Future is the first ever nationwide plan that addresses both rural and urban water. Importantly, it will help secure water supplies for Australian households, businesses and farmers, as well as provide water to restore the health of Australia’s water systems.

Australia needs a truly national approach to water because it cannot be the domain of one single government.

Although State and Local governments are responsible for delivering water services to Australian households, businesses and farms, the Commonwealth Government must provide strategic direction and leadership to help State and Local governments secure water supplies in the era of climate change.

I remember quite clearly when the former Treasurer Peter Costello said on 9 May 2007 that

“...meeting the urban water crisis was a job for State Governments, not the Federal Budget”.

Unlike our predecessors, the Rudd Labor Government will not blame the States. We are ending the blame game, and actually doing something about the water crisis in this country.

The water crisis in Australia threatens the very fabric of our great country.

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. Despite this, Australians use more water per head than any other country on the planet.

Urgent attention is needed for all Australians to change the way we use and value water.

As the impact of climate change intensifies, Australia faces increasingly acute long-term water shortages both in our cities and regional areas—with lower rainfall, rivers drying up and dam water levels falling.

Tackling the water crisis is a major long term priority for the Australian Government.

Years of low rainfall and record high temperatures have severely depleted water supplies and cut soil moisture across Australia.

This has particularly been the case in southern Australia in our major urban areas and in the Murray-Darling Basin.

The health of our rivers and wetlands is rapidly declining and rural and regional communities are suffering. All Australians have felt the effects of water shortages through increased food prices and water restrictions.

The water supply systems of mainland capital cities are under current and growing strain. For several years now, Australian households have shown a remarkable community spirit in adapting to water restrictions and helping to conserve our water resources, but I am sure we all recognise there is more we can do to save water.

There is a water crisis in my own home state of Tasmania. Tasmania has a large and diverse agricultural industry, but its needs have been largely ignored by the previous Government.

Tasmania was not even mentioned in John Howard’s national water policy announcement on 25 January 2007. The Howard Government neglected my State completely.

The Rudd Government has delivered key water election commitments for Tasmania through the 2008-09 Budget.

Supporting sustainable irrigation projects through an investment of up to $140 million will help grow the Tasmanian economy.

The Tasmanian projects form part of the Rudd Government’s $12.9 billion Water for the Future package.

For Australians to adjust to climate change and continue to prosper, our attitude and behaviour towards water must change.

We are running out of time.

As the National Government, we cannot fix all problems in water, but by making our priorities clear, we are putting in place framework in which we will work with other levels of government to achieve water reform.

The Federal Government has an important leadership role in ensuring each and every Australian, wherever they live, has a secure supply of water.

We can, and we must, make better use of our available water resources. This means improved efficiency and productivity of water use, and better use of water markets to optimise the economic benefits that water brings.

In our towns and cities, we must secure water supplies for current and future needs, including from a range of new sources that rely less on rainfall given the clear threat climate change poses to traditional water sources.

In delivering Water for the Future we will be seeking to set a new standard in national leadership and co-operative relations with State and Territory governments.

I believe that Water for the Future is the right path to take. It’s a truly comprehensive plan that works in the national interest. And it is based on a co-operative approach to working with State and Territory governments - a real change from the last 12 years.

I stress this is a very important piece of legislation and I urge those on the Opposition benches to vote in favour of this Bill.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

The Water Amendment Bill 2008 is another significant step towards securing Australia’s water needs into the future. In particular, this Bill addresses the need to ensure the most efficient use possible of water in the Murray-Darling Basin.

Covering more than 1 million km², the Murray-Darling Basin occupies one seventh of Australia’s total area and produces some 40% of the value of our agriculture. The Murray-Darling Basin and its wetlands provide habitats for many threatened animal and plant species. If these wetlands dried up, we would see the extinction of some of these species. And, of course, rural and urban communities in South Eastern Australia in particular rely on the Basin for water. For all of these reasons and more, we need to implement changes to how we manage the precious water in the Basin.

The health of Australia’s rivers has deteriorated over the last 100 years due to a number of factors, ranging from overallocation of water to planting of non-native, introduced plants and crops that require water from irrigation to survive. Rural research has gone a long way towards improving the efficiency of irrigation, yet a proportion of inefficient systems such as unlined channels on sandy soils remain and these contribute to the drain on the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin and other water courses used for irrigation.

Other significant influences have been:

• Our growing population which has increased our water extractions by 500% since the 1920s;
• The manipulation and diversion of flows, largely for irrigation, leading to a severe impact on what would be a natural environmental flow—according to CSIRO, the mean annual discharge from the Murray mouth for the last ten years has been about 2,700 gigalitres, whereas without diversions the average annual figure would be about 12,000 gigalitres;
• Salinity, pests and weeds which affect the health of major rivers in the MDB including the invasion of carp which have caused the decline of native fish species; and
• Climate change.

The fact that we have treated the Murray-Darling Basin badly over a long period of time is not new.

When faced with this information the Howard Government did not take action. Instead, the Opposition spent 12 years in Government doing nothing, just as they did nothing when faced with mounting evidence of the consequences our nation would face if no action was taken against climate change. While the Coalition to this day continues to be riddled with climate change deniers, the Howard Government did eventually recognise, with the help of a looming election, that a problem existed with the Murray-Darling Basin.

Following the November 2006 Summit on the southern Murray-Darling Basin (MDB), the former Prime Minister and Murray Darling Basin State Premiers commissioned the CSIRO to report on sustainable yields of surface and groundwater systems within the MDB. This report from the CSIRO Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project summarises the assessments for 18 regions that comprise the Basin.

Yesterday, the final report for the Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields project was released. This final report will be a critical resource in the Rudd Government’s work to restore the balance in the Murray-Darling Basin and will be essential to informing the development of the new Basin Plan.

Key findings of the report are:

• Total flow at the Murray mouth has been reduced by 61 per cent and the river now ceases to flow through the mouth 40 per cent of the time, compared with one per cent in the absence of water resource development;
• The median decline for the entire Basin is projected to be 11 per cent by 2030—nine per cent in the north and 13 per cent in the south;
• Under the median 2030 climate, diversions in driest years would fall by more than 10 per cent in most New South Wales regions, 20 per cent in the Murrumbidgee and Murray regions, and from around 35 per cent to 50 per cent in the Victorian regions;
• Under the dry extreme 2030 climate, diversions in driest years would fall by around 40-50 per cent in New South Wales regions, over 70 per cent in the Murray, and 80-90 per cent in major Victorian regions;
• By 2070 the median climate under high global warming is expected to be broadly similar to the dry extreme 2030 climate; and
• Current groundwater use is unsustainable in seven of the 20 high-use groundwater areas in the Basin and will lead to major drawdowns in groundwater levels in the absence of management intervention.

These findings remind us of just how serious the situation is and the Rudd Government is determined to take action. The Australian Government is investing $12.9 billion in Water for the Future—a 10-year plan to secure the long-term water supply of all Australians.

Water for the Future is built on four key priorities:

• taking action on climate change,
• using water wisely,
• securing water supplies, and
• supporting healthy rivers.

Water for the Future is the first ever nationwide plan that addresses both rural and urban water. It will help secure water supplies for Australian households, businesses and farmers, as well as provide water to restore the health of Australia’s stressed river systems.

In addition, on 3 July this year, the Rudd Government achieved something that the Howard Government never did. At the meeting of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and First Ministers of each of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory (the Basin States under the Act) made an intergovernmental Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin reform. The reforms in that agreement are necessary to meet the current needs of the Basin, and to protect and enhance its social, environmental and economic values in the long term.

The Bill before us today is designed to amend the Water Act 2007 to give effect to the Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform IGA. This will be achieved through four major amendments:

1.

Clarifying the processes of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (the Authority) when the Authority is providing the proposed Basin Plan, or a proposed amendment of the Basin Plan, to the Minister for adoption;

2.

Recognising the adoption by New South Wales of the National Water Initiative risk assignment framework;

3.

Clarifying that references to water access rights and interests held by the Commonwealth in paragraph 108(3)(a) of the Water Amendment Bill 2008 (the Bill) extend to water access rights and interests held by any agency of the Commonwealth; and

4.

Extending the operation of paragraph 108(3)(d) of the Bill to cover water access rights and interests held by the Commonwealth and any of its agencies for the purposes of the Living Murray Initiative, including water access rights and interests held by the Commonwealth Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, to ensure that water access rights and interests acquired under the Living Murray Initiative will continue to be managed under the Living Murray Initiative in the future, consistent with the agreement reached between the Commonwealth and Basin States in the Agreement on Murray-Darling Basin Reform.

The Bill addresses the long term management of the Basin’s water resources, and the approaches and mechanisms required to ensure that it is sustainably managed in the future. The Rudd Government is building for the future, not the next election. We are a Government that has a vision of a stronger, healthier country for future generations and this Bill will help that vision become a reality.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank all senators for their contributions to this debate. I want to make a number of points in the time remaining. The first is that we, on this side of the chamber, regard the Water Amendment Bill 2008 as a much needed and long overdue reform. It is a reform that will put the basin on the right footing to face the challenges ahead. It has taken a long time for Australia to get to this point. Some 93 years ago, in 1915, the basin states—New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia—and the Commonwealth signed the River Murray Waters Agreement and established the River Murray Commission. This later became the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, and the resulting governance model required the agreement of all basin jurisdictions before anything could be done by the commission.

These arrangements for decision making about basin water management have remained largely unchanged to this day, and the reality is that the overallocation of water resources that we know exists today, combined with record low inflows and the onset of climate change, were not envisaged at the time that this River Murray Waters Agreement was signed. The final report for the Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project, which I launched yesterday, is a stark reminder of why we need to act, a stark reminder of the risks and challenges that this basin faces. But it has taken until 2008 for a government to be able to strike the agreement with the basin states that is now before this Senate. So, to those senators who are critical of this, I say they must understand from where it is that we have come and what it is we are seeking to achieve at this time—because the reforms in this bill, which is before the chamber, are needed to ensure that the communities of the Murray-Darling Basin, and the governments which are responsible for that basin, are able to meet these challenges. Those challenges, as identified in the CSIRO study which I launched, are substantial.

The reforms in the bill are needed to ensure the viability of the basin’s water-dependent industries. They are needed to ensure vibrant and productive communities and to ensure the sustainability of the rivers of the Murray-Darling Basin. The reforms in the bill reflect a new era of cooperation and collaboration between the Murray-Darling Basin governments for basin-wide water resource management. For the first time in history we are recognising, as Senator Heffernan said, that rivers run across state borders, and we are seeking to manage the basin on this basis. This has followed on from an important series of negotiations between the then new Labor government and the basin states. Senators will recall that the first major step was in March 2008. Some four months after being elected, we achieved a memorandum of understanding on Murray-Darling Basin reform signed by the Prime Minister and the premiers of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland and the Chief Minister of the ACT. And, as we said we would, we achieved an intergovernmental agreement at the subsequent COAG meeting—also signed by first ministers—which grounds the legislation before the parliament today.

It is important to pause and recollect that this has never actually been achieved by any previous federal government in the nation’s history. An arrangement to manage the Murray-Darling Basin was promised by Prime Minister Howard in, I think, January 2007, but it was never delivered. The reforms which are before the chamber have only been possible because basin states have been willing to refer powers to the Commonwealth under the Constitution. This, again, was not achieved by past governments. It was something that I think the current Leader of the Opposition, the then Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr Turnbull, wanted but was never successful in delivering.

The bill before the chamber establishes a single body to manage the basin and transfers the current powers and functions of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. It also enables the Basin Plan, which the authority is charged with developing, to provide arrangements for critical human water needs as well as the strengthening of the ACCC by extending the application of the water market rules and water charge rules.

What has occurred to enable the government to bring legislation into this place is that we have seen bills referring power to the Commonwealth, consistent with the intergovernmental agreement to which I have referred, having passed the New South Wales, Queensland and South Australian parliaments. The same legislation has passed the legislative assembly in Victoria and is to be debated in the legislative council on 2 December. Upon passage of the legislation through that chamber, all referrals will be in place to enable the Commonwealth government to assume the referred powers. I wish to record the acknowledgement and thanks of this side of the chamber to the governments and the parliaments of the basin states for acting promptly in addressing the referral of their powers. We look forward to the finalisation of the referral by the Victorian parliament.

What more does this bill do? This bill delivers on our election commitment. Before the election, we said a range of things in relation to water, and we are delivering on them. This delivers on our election commitment to bring the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission together as a single body. The bill ensures that there will be a single body for overseeing the water resource planning in the Murray-Darling Basin, an authority that will be an independent expert agency established by the Commonwealth with the powers and functions necessary to ensure that the basin’s water resources are managed in an integrated and sustainable way—again, something that  has never occurred before.

A key role for the independent expert authority is the preparation of a whole-of-basin plan in the context of clear accountability to the Commonwealth minister. While the ministerial council of basin governments will provide advice on the plan to ensure it is the best possible plan, ultimately the decision in relation to the plan under the bill rests with the Commonwealth minister. The government’s intention is that the first Basin Plan will be finalised in early 2011.

The Basin Plan enables the national interest to be put first by providing new sustainable diversion limits on water use, taking account of future climate change and addressing a legacy of past overallocation in the basin. For the first time ever, we will have enforceable, scientifically informed limits on the amount of water that can be taken out of our rivers and groundwater systems across the basin. It is extremely important (a) that the science is, for the first time, actually going to drive the sustainable diversion limits; and (b) that the authority’s approach will reflect the recognition by this government—which, unfortunately, is not shared by those on the other side of the chamber—that we have to confront the future of climate change and the challenge of climate change not only as a nation but also in the particular context of the Murray-Darling Basin. It is also important that we recognise the legacy of overallocation. This government is prepared to work with the community to deal with that legacy.

There are a number of issues which have been raised in the context of the debate. I will turn to some of those now, although I note that they primarily relate to amendments which have been moved, so no doubt the chamber will deal with them in the context of the committee stage. For example, the issue of variability in averages has been raised by previous speakers and also in the Senate inquiry report on the bill. I make the point that the term ‘long-term average sustainable diversion limit’ is used in the bill. This was intended to provide a useful metric for levels of diversions in various parts of the basin and for the basin as a whole. The use of this term does not, however, suggest nor necessitate the management of basin water resources through averages, either in terms of planning or in terms of compliance. The bill will also allow markets to operate much more effectively in allocating water between competing uses, improving water use efficiency and delivering water to its highest value uses. Under its current terms, the bill provides a range of amendments in relation to the role and powers of the ACCC.

To be frank, the inconsistency and, at times, hypocrisy of some of the arguments put by the opposition over time on water has been quite extraordinary. I turn first to the Sugarloaf Pipeline and I make this point on timing: the Food Bowl Modernisation Project and the diversion of the 75 gigalitres of water to Melbourne for Melbourne’s drinking water supplies were announced about two months before the passage of the Water Act, but did Mr Turnbull put into that act the amendments that he brought forward and that the opposition are now proposing? Did he criticise in the parliament and put forward amendments in relation to Premier Bracks’s already announced project? He did not.

Of course, the opposition have now seized upon this. It was not an issue when they were in government. They did not run on it in government. They did not put it into their legislation but they want to put it on the table in this chamber—frankly and, I suggest, quite patently—to play some political games. I also make the point that the opposition have completely failed to acknowledge the stringent guidelines that Minister Garrett, in his approval under the EPBC Act, has placed on this project and that confirm that Melbourne only receives a share of water that is saved through the project, and that independent audited reports of water savings must be undertaken. It is a condition also that savings allocated to the Living Murray or Water for Rivers programs may not be allocated for Melbourne. Water designated as an environmental sieve must be maintained. In other words, we will protect environmental water.

It is an interesting point. We can have a long discussion with various opposition senators from various states who say, ‘You shouldn’t be taking water out of the basin.’ I have a summary in front of me, which I am happy to go through with senators from the other side, in relation to every state where such infrastructure occurs, where water is diverted outside of the basin. Senator Bernardi is looking at me. He would be aware, for example, that Tailem Bend to Keith is one of them. If the opposition is going to be consistent, are they saying that all of those should also be put out to pasture? They will not say that, because they want to pick on one project for political purposes, a project, let’s remember, that the Liberals in Victoria have conceded that they will use the water from. I do not think that anybody who looks too closely at what the opposition is doing could come to anything other than a  reasonable determination that the opposition is playing politics here.

I note that a number of coalition senators have raised the issue of the time frame; it was certainly raised in the context of the Senate inquiry. A number of senators were critical of the honouring of the state water-sharing plans. That appears to be a change in their position. I look forward to seeing whether or not what was flagged in the coalition’s comments about the bill is actually reflected in their amendments, because Mr Turnbull committed to honouring existing state water plans when he introduced the bill into the House of Representatives in August 2007. Mr Turnbull stated that the bill will honour existing state water plans, and that comment was made in the full knowledge that Victoria’s current state water plans generally expire at 2019. So I look forward to listening to the views of opposition senators on that point, because it is very clear that some of what has been said by opposition senators on the issue of state water shares directly contradicts the position of their leader when he was the minister introducing this bill. We look forward to their consideration of these issues.

On some issues in relation to communities and structural adjustment, I will deal with the specific amendments rather than responding when summing up. Despite some of the criticisms that have been made in this chamber and externally, the government has actually committed more money to investment in infrastructure and irrigation than it has to purchases. On this side of the chamber, we do believe that the best way of assisting communities to meet the challenge of climate change and reduced water availability is to invest in those communities so as to enable greater efficiencies.

Senator Fisher made some comments about critical human needs. The definition of critical human needs has been the subject of extensive and detailed discussion with the states, so this is an issue where the opposition needs to be aware that the states have a very keen interest. Of course, this legislation stands or falls on the existence of the state referral powers in their current form. I think that Senator Fisher said, ‘We can live with drinking water but we can’t live with the definition that talks about prohibitively high social, economic or national security costs.’ One of the examples given to me in relation to the second part of the definition is to enable water to be supplied in those circumstances to an ammunitions factory, and there are obviously security implications with that. OneSteel at Whyalla is another example of an operation which at this stage also sources water from the Murray, so there are very significant economic and social considerations. I do want to make the point in more detail that critical needs are something that South Australians in particular, one would have thought, understand the importance of, given that those of us who are from Adelaide and the communities on that side of the border do rely primarily on the River Murray for our drinking water. So giving priority to critical human needs is a fairly self-evident need.

Senator Xenophon made a number of comments, and I am happy to deal with those again in the committee stage and more generally if he wishes. He made the point that people are being rewarded for bad behaviour. I have made the point that in the context of the Murray-Darling, no-one in any of the basin states is perfect. Criticisms can be made of water management decisions probably in every part of the basin. There would certainly be different opinions. We in this government think that we have to get beyond the sort of finger-pointing and blame-shifting that has bedevilled water policy, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin, for too long. In our view, it really is not constructive to simply go through a litany of perceived past wrongs, which obviously some people have one opinion on while others have another. What we have to do is get on with the job, and that is what the government is doing.

I also make the point that Senator Xenophon seeks for the government to go beyond this legislation, and he talks about the views of John Williams. I know John; he is an extremely impressive constitutional lawyer. But I do want to make this point—

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Williams interjecting—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A different lawyer—a constitutional lawyer from Adelaide, not a senator from Queensland.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Try New South Wales; I am formerly from South Australia.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, New South Wales. Okay, now that we have got over that! There are a range of things that I am sure we could get lawyers to give their views on. If we had not gone down the path of getting agreement, cooperation and collaboration from the states, the prospect of actually implementing reform would become much more difficult. I for one do not believe that the best interests of any community in the basin are served by having a long constitutional validity argument. Their best interests are served by the government getting on with progressing this legislation, purchasing water, ensuring the independent authority can work on the Basin Plan, which includes the scientifically based cap, and investing to ensure that there are efficiencies.

From a South Australian perspective, there are a range of reforms in this bill that are beneficial, and which I am happy to take Senator Xenophon and other senators through, including conveyance water, which is one of the key issues for securing drinking water. This is a bill that will enable the government and communities to respond to the challenge of climate change. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that consideration of the message in Committee of the Whole be made an order of the day for a later hour.