MURRAY RIVER

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (14:45): My question is to the Premier. How many positions—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: —does his government now have on the River Murray and, in particular, on what date does he intend to deliver on his promise to make a constitutional appeal on the River Murray?

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) (14:45): I am very happy to answer this, because I remember when John Howard came out with his position—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. M.D. RANN: I will answer the question as I see fit to answer the question, and I will tell you everything that I am prepared to give the house honestly and truthfully, which is quite different from members opposite. Okay?

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: The answer to the question is this: you need to explore the hinterland of the question. The former prime minister, John Howard, announced a plan for the River Murray that did not involve an independent commission to run the River Murray. Members opposite, including the leaders of the opposition (it is always hard to remember who was who at the time), came out and said that I should sign straightaway. If I had signed straightaway it would have sold out the interests of the people of this state. But you put your party before your state. What we did is get on the phone and get on the planes and go around Australia to lobby to get support for an independent commission.

Ms Chapman: And you failed.

The SPEAKER: Order, the deputy leader!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: I know I had some fights with Malcolm Turnbull about that, but eventually we got John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, the governments of New South Wales and Queensland plus the government of South Australia to support an independent commission, but Victoria was intransigent in holding out, and still we kept going.

Ms Chapman: You sold us out.

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is warned.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: What happened is that when a new government came in and offered a $13 billion package we saw, of course, an agreement to establish an independent commission and we saw each of the states, including Victoria, refer their powers by way of legislation. That was an important breakthrough. So was getting $13 billion of funds allocated over time for a range of remediation infrastructure projects, including more than $600 million in this state plus, very importantly, what South Australia had lobbied for, which was more than $3 billion for the buyback of irrigation licences—because the problem has always been about two things: lack of rain and massive over-allocation of irrigation licences upstream.

We are now in the process of meeting with the Solicitor-General and the crown law office and also people like Mike Young and constitutional lawyers to mount a court challenge on what I regard as the major impediment to further progress, which is the Victorian cap. The Liberals and some other commentators believe that we should have mounted the legal challenge a year or two years ago. That would have been—

An honourable member: Why not?

The Hon. M.D. RANN: 'Why not', he says—the vibe of the constitution. If we had done that there would be no independent commission. Victoria would not have agreed to refer its powers. There would have been no $13 billion package.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: There would have been no $3.5 billion buyback scheme. That would have been the dopiest thing to do. It is about the difference between strategy and tactics. Apart from agreeing to a position early on that would have absolutely sabotaged South Australia's interests, the Liberals' position was that the Leader of the Opposition would have flown over to see his colleagues and put them in a headlock. That is his public policy—a great line: put them in a headlock—and he was then going to demonstrate how that would be done. He would fly off to Sydney and meet with his Liberal colleagues, thump the table, get a bit red-faced in doing so, and they would agree to succumb and hand over the powers. They told him to nick off; that was basically what happened. So, perhaps there is a real difference between leadership and saying whatever you think you can say on a day without remembering what you said the day before or the day before that.

We are in the process of preparing a court challenge. It will be the final part of the jigsaw in terms of a big portion of this. Of course, when we announced the challenge and we announced we were preparing for one, what was the initial response? 'It won't work. You should have done it before but it won't work now.' The constitution has not changed: it is the same constitution as back in the beginning of last century. It would have worked two years ago, but somehow the constitution has changed since. Then, of course, they said that it would cost too much money, and they joined with the Victorians in saying, 'Oh, okay; it will not put the money into the river but into lawyers' pockets.'

Where did I hear this before? I heard it when we mounted a challenge against the Howard government imposing a national radioactive waste dump on South Australia. I remember what the Liberals said: 'Waste of time; won't work; waste of money; will cost too much; the money will go in lawyers' fees'—

Mrs REDMOND: Mr Speaker, I rise on a point or order.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: —it will cost millions of dollars; and you haven't got a snowball's—

The SPEAKER: Order! The Premier will take his seat.

Mrs REDMOND: My point of order is relevance and debate, sir. The Premier has now strayed well away from the topic under discussion in the question.

The SPEAKER: Order! No, the question was about the government's challenge in the High Court. The Premier.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: And so what was the result? They said we would lose, because they are so keen to raise the white flag on South Australia's future—that is the thing—and we would not have—

Mr Hanna interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order, member for Mitchell!

The Hon. M.D. RANN: —got the independent commission or the $13 billion. It is not the vibe of the constitution. I have seen you in court, you did not even have your wig—you had to borrow it from the other side. The point is that the Liberals predicted that we were wasting our time, would lose the challenge and it would cost too much money and the whole thing was a publicity stunt, but we won three nil in the courts. Every single judge lifted their hand in support of us and it cost us nothing. We are always going to put the state's interests before a party's interest, and that is why we have the leader of another political party as our Minister for the River Murray.