MURRAY RIVER IRRIGATORS

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (15:00): What science did the government rely upon when it changed allocations for irrigators from 16 per cent in August 2007 to 22 per cent on 1 December 2007 and then just three weeks later on 22 December to 32 per cent? These changes to allocation levels have caused extreme financial hardship and emotional stress to Riverland irrigators with the price of a megalitre of water fluctuating (because of these changes) from $1,200 a megalitre down to $180 a megalitre as a result of being tied to the government's U-turns on policy.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD (Chaffey—Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water Security, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Small Business, Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry and Trade) (15:01): This is a very important question because there is a lot of skulduggery out there in trying to confuse how the water sharing arrangements have been determined.

What happens for South Australia is that the Murray-Darling Basin Commission releases information on the available resource and the water sharing rules that have been agreed upon at a national level and signed off by the former prime minister, John Howard, and the minister for water security at the time, Malcolm Turnbull. The jurisdictions involved New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia through our premiers and water ministers.

Those water sharing arrangements were agreed upon for the commencement of the water year on 1 July 2007. How that works is that the commission actually assesses the available resource, and the science that this is based upon is how much rain falls in the catchment and how much of it results in inflows into the system. The Murray-Darling Basin Commission undertakes that assessment.

Mr Hamilton-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD: Well, the leader might say there was not that much rain in December. He isn't an authority and I wonder on what basis he is actually making that statement. He has no basis for it. Can he tell me how much rain actually fell in December? Does he know how much inflows have resulted into the catchment? I can tell you what happened.

What happened in those months was that the Murray-Darling Basin Commission provided advice to all the jurisdictions about how much water had flowed into the system and how much was likely to flow into the system before the end of the month. What happened then was we actually based our allocation decisions on allocating every drop. Every single drop that the Murray-Darling Basin Commission had allocated to South Australia for consumptive use was allocated to irrigators. Every drop of it.

What happened in the middle of November was the Murray-Darling Basin Commission put out an assessment which said that we think by the end of November we will have about 162 gigalitres to apply to South Australia for consumptive use. That resulted in 30 gigalitres for carryover water and about 24 gigalitres for allocation. They put a rider on it, however, and they said, 'We have to do some work. We think we might have to double-check the figures in the Hume Dam. There have been some queries on exactly how much water is in there. We are going to double-check that, but we think that our best guess is 162.'

So we thought, 'We will be a bit conservative on this,' because we thought that if it does come down below that we do not want to give false hope to our irrigators. We said to our irrigators that, instead of saying 24 per cent, it was likely that we could provide at least 22 per cent from the start of December as a consequence of the outlook for November.

On 29 November we received further advice from the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. That arrived in the department late on the Thursday. The department actually assessed the numbers to ensure they were correct on the Friday. We had a meeting on the Monday, and we announced on the Tuesday that the Murray-Darling Basin Commission had reassessed the situation and, with the rainfall that had fallen in that period of time, we now had 206 gigalitres available to us. Now, 206 gigalitres equals 30 gigalitres of carryover and 32 per cent.

I have received advice from all the irrigation communities that are consulted as a consequence of this—and we have the Riverland Horticulture Forum, the River Murray Advisory Committee, the Lower Lakes Drought Steering Committee, the independent advisers and the community liaison managers above Lock 1 (Neil Andrew when he was in the role and Dean Brown below Lock 1)—all of whom advised us without qualification that we must allocate water as soon as it becomes available to us—all of it; allocate it. The leader is obviously not interested in the answer.

All those irrigation groups advised that if you get water made available to South Australia for consumptive purposes you must make it available, so we did. That is why the allocations went from 16 per cent to at least 22 per cent to 32 per cent. You cannot stuff up the science that comes out of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, that is, figures that are signed off by the Prime Minister, by Malcolm Turnbull and all the jurisdictions. Those figures come out of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, and we act upon them immediately. That is what the irrigation community has demanded of us and that is what we are doing.