MURRAY-DARLING BASIN

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:38): I rise to today to speak about a meeting I attended in Renmark on Friday last week. I very proudly attended the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's community forum, and the turnout was absolutely outstanding. Earlier in the day it was touted that there was some concern the meeting may not be well attended, but as the morning progressed it was very evident that the fire was still in the belly of the community and the irrigators. These people were not just from the Riverland region; they were from all over the state. I guess it was an opportunity for anyone from anywhere in the state because it has an impact on people all over South Australia.

The commonwealth water minister Tony Burke was there with his team, and there were four presentations given to the minister and the authority. They were outstanding presentations that really gave a very balanced view. We had irrigators present, environmentalists present, and NRM committee or board members present, and it gave an overwhelming view that South Australia is in dire need of reform. South Australia is prepared to accept a plan that will embrace reform—something that has not been able to be achieved in more than 100 years.

The group that was the representative group for all of the South Australian communities and irrigators was made up of quite a wide spectrum of people. I would like to mention their names and their roles because they have given up a huge amount of time and energy to get the logistics of this meeting up and running. First of all is the local media—obviously, the print, the radio and the TV. They all did their job. They all gave free advertising to the group, and I just think it was worthy of mention.

The members of the South Australian River Communities included Gavin McMahon, who was the chairman of that group. Ben Haslett, a young irrigator from Murtho, was the spokesman. Other members were Chris Byrne from the Riverland Winegrape Growers Association and Tim Greger, Fresh Fruit of South Australia. We had Peter Duggan from the Renmark Irrigation Trust, Graham McGuinness from Qualco Irrigation Trust and Caren Martin from the South Australian Murray Irrigators, who put up a very good presentation as well.

Richard Reedy from the Lower Murray was there representing irrigators and their communities from below Lock 1. We had Mark Chown from Citrus Growers; Brendon Sidu, Almond Board of Australia; Tony Loffler, Dried Fruit; Mark Doecke from Sunlands Irrigation Trust; Rob Smyth, the chair of the CIT; and Chris Bennett who put in a lot of work there late in the scene as the organiser who had to put up with the logistical nightmare.

As the day progressed, a lot of questions were asked but, more so, people had seen the Premier of South Australia out there touting that we needed to have a particular number of gigalitres that needed to be achieved in order to get a healthy river, otherwise we are going to have a High Court challenge. The Premier was nowhere to be seen—very disappointing.

Through question time today, I asked both the Premier and the water minister why they were not in attendance, because this is possibly one of the decisions that will go down in the history making of South Australia, to get reform into the Murray-Darling. It really was very, very disappointing for them not to be there.

I would also like to make mention of Simon Birmingham, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Murray-Darling Basin. He had made the trip up. He did not need an invitation. He knew the importance of the meeting and what it meant to the communities and the food producers of South Australia.

Patrick Secker, the Opposition Whip, MP for Barker, was there, as was Mitch Williams, shadow spokesman for water and the River Murray and, of course, good friend and MP Steven Marshall was there as shadow for environment and conservation. He had good input and entertained the ladies from Loxton no end throughout the course of the day. Again, I just acknowledge those people on a job well done.

Again, this plan must be adopted. There must be a plan put in place so that we can have reform in the Murray-Darling Basin. We do not want to look at numbers. We do not need to be looking at High Court challenges. What we have to look at is the outcome. We have got to look at how we can reform the basin and how we are going to make savings. I think it is a matter of urgency that every South Australian get on board.