UPPER SOUTH EAST DRYLAND SALINITY AND FLOOD MANAGEMENT (POSTPONEMENT OF EXPIRY) AMENDMENT BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 31 October 2012.)

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (17:23): I inform the house that I will be the lead speaker for the opposition on this matter. This is an interesting piece of legislation. I am not too sure, but at the time it first went through it was not treated as a hybrid bill, but I can inform the house that the application of the bill has only been in one small part of the state, namely, in my electorate. Its application has been restricted to just that electorate.

The bill has had an interesting history, but I will not detain the house for too long this evening. There is another bill pertaining to drainage in the South-East, which I believe we will debate at a later date and on which I will be more fulsome in my remarks, but there are a number of matters I want to bring to the house's attention in regard to the government's bill before us, which is basically to extend the life of this piece of legislation. I will say from the start that the opposition opposes that extension, and I will come back to that later on in my remarks and explain why the opposition is opposing the extension.

I will give a little background. The Upper South-East of the state has had a significant drainage scheme implemented over it in recent years, probably in the last almost 15 years now. It is not a part of the state that becomes inundated with floodwaters these days, although, historically, significant parts of it would have been very, very wet. When we talk about the Upper South-East of the state, we are talking between Salt Creek, at the bottom end of the Coorong, across to probably almost Naracoorte in the east and almost to Kingston in the south and extending in the north almost to Keith, on the Dukes Highway. It is the drainage scheme in that area that the principal act pertains to.

I do not think that anyone would describe the area that was cleared as prime agriculture land. There is a lot of good grazing land in there, and parts of it has significant irrigation, and there is some cropping done in that country, too, these days. Principally, it was cleared relatively late in the history of the state's development because of the quality of the land and it was used for grazing. The mallee scrub, the native eucalypt and tea tree scrub were cleared and replaced with lucerne pastures to graze livestock on, both sheep and cattle, and it was quite productive country for that purpose.

In the mid to late 1970s, two insect pests arrived in that district, and they were pests that particularly impacted the lucerne. With the pressure of the pests and the grazing on the lucerne, we saw the destruction of huge areas of lucerne right across the Upper South-East. This was referred to as dryland lucerne, so it was not non-irrigated. Just the stress of the stocking rates on it and insects destroyed those stands of lucerne.

With respect to the impact that had on the local environment, the original native vegetation was deep-rooted perennial plants, mallee scrub, tea tree scrub and a variety of other native plants, which basically utilised all of the rainfall that fell across the landscape. When that was cleared and replaced with lucerne, the water balance did not change. The lucerne had basically the same impact; it was using pretty well all of the rainfall that occurred across the landscape in that area.

When the lucerne stands were decimated, the local farmers could not replace the lucerne at that time because of these insect pests. They replaced it with annual grasses to graze their livestock on, and that impacted greatly the stocking rates or the carrying capacity and obviously the productivity and thus the profitability of grazing across those lands. It had a significant impact on the water balance in so much as the annual grasses did not use anywhere near as much water. Once the natural rainfall had percolated through the soil profile down to a depth beyond the roots of those annual grasses, the water kept going down and eventually reached the watertable.

Over a period of years—and it was only a few short years—after the decimation of the lucerne stands, we saw that the watertable rose dramatically in that area. In fact, it rose so dramatically that it basically came to the surface over large areas and, because a lot of the watertables were saline, it was bringing saline water to the surface, and that is what we refer to as dryland salinity, and caused the destruction of then second grade pastures that were being grown on that area. By the mid-1980s, this had become quite common and was quite worrying to the local communities. There was significant talk about what might be done to address this, and one of the options put forward was to provide a drainage scheme to lower the groundwater, to lower the watertable.

An environmental impact study was done across the area, and out of that work, it was proposed that yes, we would go ahead with the drainage scheme, and the Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Scheme was proposed. One of the keys to promulgating that scheme was then to set up a funding arrangement. It was perceived in those days that the scheme would cost some $24 million, and the agreement was that the state would contribute $9 million, the commonwealth would contribute $9 million, and the balance of $6 million was levied from local landowners.

We are getting to around the mid-1990s by this stage. The scheme was promulgated and got underway, and we started digging drains. The scheme has had its ups and downs; there has been continuing debate over where drains should go. Some landowners argued that they should be on the eastern side of the flats, some argued that it should be on the western side of the flats, and some argued they should have been down the centre of the flats. Some farmers said that they should be deep drains, whereas some argued that they should have been shallow drains.

As it turned out, we have a variety of solutions across the landscape. One of the interesting things that occurred is that, whilst a lot of these arguments were going on, some landowners became quite frustrated. One landowner in particular, Tom Brinkworth, who was a very significant landowner in the area, and by far the largest landowner in the area—in fact, he may have owned the majority of the land in the area—started digging drains himself, I think to the chagrin of the department.

He caused more frustrations, both in some of the work that he did and where he delivered water, and there was a lot of ongoing debate about that and the influence that Tom Brinkworth was having. I have always argued that, if it were not for Tom Brinkworth, we might still be arguing about where we are going to build the drains instead of having dug them. That went on for some time, and Tom Brinkworth kept buying properties and building new drains on new properties.

One of the problems that we encountered very early on was that the logical outlet to get this water into the Coorong would have been through the Messent Conservation Park. That was one of the first stumbling blocks—permission to build a drain through the Messent Conservation Park. It was certainly not something that was supported by the department of environment, and was seen to be almost impossible to achieve.

The next option was to go to the next property south of Messent Conservation Park, a property called Currawong, and the owner of that property was just as adamant that he did not want a drain running through his property. As luck would have it, it was a relatively long and narrow property and the drain would have traversed through the middle of the property, along the length of the property, and basically split it in half. There were ongoing negotiations to try to get access through that property.

Eventually, the northern outlet was constructed by Tom Brinkworth on land which he had owned and then donated to an environmental trust—the wetlands and wildlife—that he had set up. The northern outlet was constructed by Tom Brinkworth and became part of the scheme, and it gave the scheme the ultimate outlet to allow water through the range into the Coorong.

Prior to that, the then Liberal government, wanting to keep faith with the local community which they had already started levying to pay for the drains, started digging further south in scheme. The first drain to be constructed was the Fairview Drain, which starts not far to the west of the town of Naracoorte, and eventually runs out and empties its waters into the Blackford Drain, which discharges into the sea just north of the town of Kingston.

I recall that it would have been in the mid-1990s because at that stage I was an elected landholder member of the South Eastern Water Conservation and Drainage Board. I remember that when we were putting the cutting through at Keilira we had a debate within the drainage board on why we would discharge all the water generated in the Fairview Drain into the sea. We came up with the concept of diverting a significant portion of that water northwards before it went through the cutting at Keilira, up the old Bakers Range Watercourse and through the G Cutting, and that allowed us to shift that water northwards.

That gave us the option of shifting high quality fresh water from the winter rainfall to the north and back into wetlands between Keilira and all those lands to the north. The poorer quality water, which was generated more generally at the end of summer and into the autumn—quite saline groundwater—could then continue through the cutting to be built at Keilira and into the Blackford Drain and out to sea.

One of the things that it allowed us to do was scale down the size of the cutting at Keilira quite considerably, saving a considerable amount of money to the scheme. I remember that it was fairly hard rock in that cutting at the time; it was a fairly costly exercise digging that cutting and, from memory, we saved quite a bit of money as well as getting a much better environmental outcome by diverting that water. I remember the debates in the drainage board quite vividly, and I happened to be one of the ones who agreed with the alternative proposal to send water northwards, and today some of that water will eventually flow into the Coorong.

With the scheme at that point, when the Fairview Drain was completed, we still did not have the northern outlet—that came a few years later. Eventually, the scheme continued to slowly move forward. When there was a change of government, the now Minister for Health, John Hill (member for Kaurna), was the minister for environment and took carriage of the scheme. He took it upon himself and decided that he could make things happen much more quickly, and he brought legislation to the parliament: the Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Bill.

I remember the legislation went through the upper house first (and I cannot remember why that was the case), and we debated it in this house on the last day of sitting in 2002. In fact, it was 5 December 2002, and it was late in the afternoon. I think at the time I spoke for a couple of hours on the bill, and I would have gone for a fair bit longer but for the fact that all my colleagues on both sides of the chamber were anxious to get out of here on the last day of sitting and get home.

The bill did eventually go through. I have gone back and picked up the Hansard and reviewed the contributions made by the minister in introducing the bill back in 2002. It was introduced on 4 December and we completed the debate on 5 December, the bill having already been through the upper house, which in itself is unusual, but the minister was anxious to get it through.

One of the interesting things about the original legislation was that it had a sunset clause in it of four years, and the minister was adamant that with this measure he would be able to complete the project very quickly and certainly within the four-year life of the legislation. He said:

Certainty of alignment will enable the drainage component of the scheme to be completed quickly.

One of the things the bill did was give the government the ability to compulsorily acquire land on which to construct the drain. That is one of the things I opposed. I have always opposed the notion, notwithstanding that the South Australian constitution allows the state to compulsorily acquire property from citizens without compensation (the federal constitution does not), and that is what this piece of legislation does. The minister went on to say:

All of these alignments are to be acquired at no cost by force of the legislation...

That is one of the things that the principal act does and the minister went on to say, as I have just quoted:

Certainty of alignment will enable the drainage component for the scheme to be completed quickly.

He went on to say that the government considers it vital that this legislation be put in place to provide clarity and underpin rapid progress. Then he said:

The bill has a scheduled review date in four years from the date of proclamation. At this time it is expected the drainage works will be complete...

On 4 December 2002, the minister told the house that he expected the project would be completed within four years. The act came into operation on 19 December 2002, so the minister told the house that he expected the construction of the drainage to be completed by 19 December 2006. He got that a little wrong.

Interestingly, I did note in my contribution that there were a lot of other things the minister needed to do and I could not understand why he needed this legislation because he had plenty of other things to do that were holding up the construction and he should get on with doing those things. I did not think he needed this piece of legislation to expedite the drains. I said:

I do not think the minister needs the powers. I doubt whether given these powers the minister will progress this scheme very quickly.

How prophetic were those words from Thursday 5 December 2002, because the scheme was not completed by 19 December 2006. In fact, the scheme was not completed until 2011, and twice previously the government has come to the parliament and asked for an extension. In 2006 the parliament extended the legislation for a further three years and then in 2009 it was extended for a further three years. It is due to expire on 19 December this year and the government is now asking for a further extension, this time for another four years.

I also noted in my contribution way back then in 2002 that I thought the powers were very draconian, they were unnecessary and this was a bad piece of legislation. I noted that I thought that, if the house did accept the notion that we should allow the government to compulsorily acquire without compensation land from farmers in the South-East, the bureaucracy would urge ministers into the future to retain those powers, not just in that area.

I suggested at that time that it might be suggested to governments in the future that, once the precedent had been set, these powers might be used in other instances where the government was struggling by reasonable negotiation to get access to assets of members of the community to build projects on. I argued against the legislation in 2002. I have continued to argue against the extension of it. I have never thought it was necessary and it is draconian.

One of the other reasons why I argued against the legislation was the transfer of the power to raise these levies from the South Eastern Water Conservation and Drainage Board to the minister. I thought that was a retrograde step, too, and I still think it is a retrograde step. This was a bad piece of legislation when it was brought to the parliament back in 2002. It remains a bad piece of legislation, but in reality it is no longer needed because the drainage scheme has been completed. I think that is a very important thing to note.

I have read through the minister's second reading explanation and I have to say to the house that it is full of claims and statements that are, by way of fact, wrong. In his opening paragraph the minister said, 'This act has not only provided for the initiation and implementation of works'—well, the Fairview Drain was completed before this act was brought to the parliament, so this legislation certainly did not provide for the initiation of the scheme.

This act was designed to allow the minister to ride roughshod over the communities in the South-East. Those are the additional powers that the parliament gave to the minister then, but certainly the scheme was underway and certainly there were negotiations. Various governments in South Australia have been digging drains in the South-East for 150 years without the powers that were granted by this legislation. I argued that at the time and it is still the case: we did not need those powers, in my opinion, to complete the scheme.

In his second reading explanation the minister also said that in June 2011, after its completion, the South-East drainage system moved from construction to operational phase:

In order to enable this management to continue, the expiration date of the Upper South East Dryland Salinity and Flood Management Act 2002 needs to be extended.

Again, I have to tell the house that that is just plain wrong. It was always envisaged by the principal act that once the construction was completed this principal act would expire and the ongoing management would be transferred to the South Eastern Water Conservation and Drainage Board. The South Eastern Water Conservation and Drainage Board has been managing the rest of the drainage scheme in the South-East—the drains that were dug between the 1860s and the 1970s—for years.

Section 45 of the principal act deals with the expiry of the act, and a series of subsections specifically indicate that it was always the intention that this act would expire and that the ongoing management would be transferred to the South Eastern Water Conservation and Drainage Board. Indeed, it specifically makes provision that any agreements, easements, leases or any other matters which are the subject of arrangements between the minister through this act and landholders in the South-East would be transferred automatically to be the same arrangement between the South Eastern Water Conservation and Drainage Board and those same landholders. It is an absolute nonsense to suggest that we need the continuation of this act for the ongoing maintenance of the Upper South East Drainage Scheme. That is just plain wrong and I do not know why the minister comes into the house and suggests that be the case.

The minister did acknowledge that one of the reasons for retaining the act might be that it 'could serve as a vehicle for potential future infrastructure works, such as the proposed South East Flows Restoration Project'. I would argue that that is the principal reason that the government wants to retain this. The government has a plan to dig another drain in the South-East to transfer water from the Mid South-East, and maybe even down as far as the Lower South-East, back up adjacent to the coastline and into the Coorong.

As I have said publicly, I do not have a problem with the principle. I have some serious concerns about some of the aspects. The principal concern I have is the amount of water that the government believes that it can transfer through such works. I know that the government want to maximise the amount of water from the South-East to move northwards and into the Coorong because every gigalitre of water that we can generate through that process is a gigalitre of water that South Australia contributes to its obligations under the upcoming Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The Coorong being part of the Murray-Darling Basin, if we can shift water out of the South-East into the Coorong, that means there is less water we need to find elsewhere within the Murray-Darling Basin system as part of our contribution.

That is fantastic, and I support the principle, but I certainly do not support any transfer of water out of the South-East which is going to have a detrimental effect on the South-East or have a detrimental effect on landowners in the South-East to achieve that other outcome. I think the first priority for water in the South-East should be to protect the integrity of the South-East and the environmental assets there and to protect the integrity of the landholders.

I could go on at length about this. I believe that in the Lower South-East I can see evidence, even during my lifetime, that it has been overdrained, and successive governments have done very little to address that. I have with me an environmental impact study dated June 1980 about the effect of drainage in the South-East of South Australia; that is over 30 years ago. It was recognised then that there were potentially issues with overdrainage in the South-East but very little has been done to address that.

If we go ahead with the project to shift huge amounts of water out of the South-East into the Coorong, that will not be reversible into the future because it will be part of our sign-off to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, so I think we need to be very careful in robbing Peter to pay Paul that we do not attempt to fix one environmental disaster by creating another one. That is why we need to be very careful as we step forward in this. That is another reason why I believe we should allow this piece of legislation to expire because then the government of the day (whoever it is), as they move forward on any proposal to move water from the South-East into the Coorong, will have to do it with the agreement of the local population in the South-East, the local landholders and the local communities. If they can achieve that, I think we will achieve a win-win situation. We will achieve a win for the Coorong and the River Murray system in South Australia without causing detriment to the landholders, the environment and the communities in the South-East. That is a compelling reason why we should not allow a further extension of this piece of legislation which gives powers to the minister of the day to ride roughshod over local communities.

There is no reason for it. We have already completed the drainage scheme. We do not need it for the ongoing management. It will only give the minister these compulsory acquisition powers so that he does not have to negotiate with local communities. I am fully aware that the government has the numbers in this house and will no doubt use its numbers to have its way on this measure, but it may not be if my argument along those in the other place is persuasive enough. I hope that I can stop the government from proceeding down this path.

I am aware that my colleague the member for Mount Gambier also has some concerns. He suggests that we address this in a different manner than I am proposing. I am more than happy that we support his proposal because I think that will to some extent curtail the government's excesses. I do not think it goes far enough, but it might be an acceptable halfway house for the government in this place. I will still be lobbying our colleagues in the other place to insist that we allow this piece of legislation, which was draconian in its conception and which remains draconian and unnecessary, to expire. If the government comes up with a good proposal to shift water from the South-East to the Coorong, let it make its argument and let it come back to the house if it needs specific legislation to achieve that outcome.

I do not believe—as I did not believe back in 2002—that the government needs these specific powers to achieve the outcomes of the Upper South-East scheme. I do not believe that we need these draconian powers to achieve those outcomes for the Coorong. Indeed, I think by leaving these powers on the statute books we increase the risk of getting it wrong once again. What we are trying to do with regard to the Murray-Darling Basin is come up with something that we have not been able to achieve in well over 100 years.

Let us not repeat the sort of mistakes that we have made in this country over water over a long, long time. Let us look at the South-East as a very important part of this state, not just agriculturally but environmentally too. We have changed the environmental landscape of the South-East dramatically since white settlement, but let us not rush forward by allowing the minister to continue to hold powers which in a modern society he should not exercise, because I think that increases the risk of making serious mistakes again.

I will conclude my remarks there, but I urge the house to take on board what I have said and I urge the minister to reconsider his position, notwithstanding the advice he is getting from his department. I accept that, but I urge the minister to reconsider his position and allow this legislation to expire, as was promised to the house back in 2002, again in 2006 and again in 2009. How many times are we going to be told that the government's intent is to let this legislation expire, only to have successive ministers come back and urge the house and use its numbers to push it out for another three years, and in this case four? It will be a sad day for the South-East if this bill gets through the parliament.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Pegler.

At 17:57 the house adjourned until Tuesday 27 November 2012 at 11:00.