MURRAY RIVER WATER ALLOCATIONS

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton—Minister for Environment and Conservation, Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water) (14:16): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. P. CAICA: The 2010-11 River Murray Drought Water Allocation Decision Framework has been developed to share and allocate the limited River Murray water resources received in South Australia, during this extended and ongoing period of low water availability. The framework, which is effective from today, aims to optimise the allocation and use of River Murray water that progressively becomes available to South Australia during the water year, to meet our key objectives of:

securing South Australia's critical human needs for 2011-12;

providing sufficient water to the environment to, at a minimum, mitigate against further environmental degradation and, where possible, arrest the decline of environmentally significant sites along the River Murray, particularly Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert; and

providing the irrigation community a sufficient share of the available resources to enable them, as a minimum, to keep permanent plantings alive and, where possible, to produce viable crops.

Under previous approaches, all River Murray improvements received in South Australia to the end of September were allocated to irrigators. This new framework, I believe, will provide an effective balance in the current circumstances for meeting our key objectives, as allocations of improvements in River Murray inflows to South Australia are made throughout the water year.

Under the new framework, monthly water resource improvements will be shared between critical human water needs, irrigators and the environment from the start of the water year, in the following proportions:

50 per cent going towards critical human needs; and

of the remaining 50 per cent, 65 per cent going towards general allocations (principally irrigators), with the remainder being allocated for environmental purposes.

This will ensure that the water required for critical human water needs in 2011-12 is secured earlier from improvements during 2010-11 and that this government's commitment to securing a 170 gigalitres Lower Lakes Environmental Reserve for 2010-11 is achieved.

Notwithstanding the change to the framework for distributing available water, the opening allocation for 2010-11 for irrigators, as announced earlier today, is 21 per cent, which is substantially higher than the 4 per cent opening allocation for 2007-08 and the 2 per cent opening allocations for 2008-09 and 2009-10.

In addition, irrigators will have access to 100 per cent of carryover from 1 July 2010 and will continue to receive a share of the improvements according to the new framework until the end of November this year, at which point the framework will be reviewed in the light of the actual and likely availability of water for the remainder of the year. In implementing the new framework, I emphasise to all members that our overarching goal should be to return the river to a healthy state, as only a healthy river system can sustain the livelihoods of those who depend on it.