WATER RESOURCES

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (15:24): I have another question for the Premier. Did the Premier fail to ensure South Australia's best interests when he rushed to agree to sign up to the memorandum of understanding on 26 March? On 28 February this year, the Premier advised the house that:

There should be one commissioner, not a River Murray authority with veto powers by various states. There needs to be one independent commissioner running the River Murray, which is empowered to make all the hard decisions, not just the day-to-day running of the River Murray but also covering everything from entitlement flows to environmental flows, to buyback rights across the system. But the memorandum of understanding, sir, of clause 10 states, as provided in the Water Act, the commonwealth minister is the decision maker of the basin plan.

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (15:25): And he really thinks that's clever. In the John Howard plan that you urged me to sign up with immediately, it talked about handing over power from the states, which had a veto power, to one federal minister, who would be under the influence of his or her colleagues. Right?

Mr Williams interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN: Are you going to listen to me or not? The difference is that what I did, attacked by the Liberal opposition, is to say that I would not sign the plan unless there was an independent commission with experts rather than another group of politicians, and that, if, of course, the federal minister decided to go over the top, it had to report to the parliament to explain why it was going against the advice of the experts. That was then accepted by—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN: No; it doesn't. It was accepted by prime minister John Howard. The difference is that—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN: You are totally wrong. The advisory council of the states no longer has a veto power. So, the independent commission, which has been given extraordinary powers, can be overridden in the democratic process only by a federal minister. But, if the federal minister dares to go against its advice, they have to table the reasons for doing so and reveal that they are doing so in the federal parliament. That is what I argued last year; that is what I won from John Howard; and that is what we won last week.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!