South Australian River Murray Sustainability Irrigation Industry Improvement Program

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:04): My supplementary question is to the Premier. The Minister for Agriculture has just outlined the contribution that South Australia will put towards the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. What component of water will the state government be putting towards that 183 gigalitres of SDL?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (15:04): I will take that question on notice and ask the Minister for Water to bring back an answer, but we will be making our fair share of contribution remembering though, of course, that the South Australian community has already made its contribution. In 1969, we capped the level of water that we took from the River Murray and have not taken a drop more since 1969 to this point.

Indeed, the upstream states have overallocated the waters of the river. I think in the order of about 5,000 gigalitres of water have been extracted in addition since that period, at a time when we already knew that the river was under pressure. In fact, the whole burden about the approach we took in relation to getting extra water down the river (the 3,200 gigalitres of water down the river) was that South Australians should not bear the additional burden associated with putting that water back into our contribution of putting that water back in the river.

Despite the fact that we have always done the right thing, we also offered to do more, but I insisted that it not come out of the hides of our irrigators, and that's something that I negotiated directly with the Prime Minister of Australia. That is why we achieved the $240 million, the next stage of which was just announced by the Minister for Agriculture, so that our irrigators could make the adjustments necessary to put the water back in the river without affecting the viability of their businesses. That should be a matter, I think, of celebration for this state.

Implicit in the question from the member is that somehow the city is not pulling its fair share and that the country is doing all the work. The truth is that we negotiated to make sure that the irrigators did not bear the burden of adjustment here and neither should all other South Australians, remembering here that of the 6 per cent or 7 per cent or so that is taken from the River Murray by South Australians (93 per cent of it being taken by the upstream states), only 1 per cent is used in the broader metro area; 6 per cent of it is used by irrigators. So, of course, any additional adjustment to put some water from South Australia back into the river is going to have to come from our irrigation communities, but we have taken the step to ensure that the burden of adjustment does not unfairly fall on them.

I must say that I think this represents an incredibly exciting opportunity for the Riverland: $240 million plus $25 million, plus another $25 million, $290 million going in. Looking at the other funds that are going to have to go in to ensure that we get our 3,200 gigalitres of water, this represents a massive opportunity for our river communities to thrive. You cannot put $290-odd million into a river community, a relatively small set of communities up and down the river, without that having a very substantial positive economic impact. So, this should be a very exciting time for the river communities, and I invite all those opposite to get on board with us in celebrating that great success.

The SPEAKER: Just for the information of the member for Morialta, the correct expression is, 'Thank you, sir; may I have another.' The member for Chaffey again.