Private Irrigation Infrastructure Program SA

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:33): I take note that the previous water minister does show an interest in what water quality we have and in putting some pressure on government to invest in infrastructure, unlike the current water minister.

I rise today to talk about a pool of funding aimed at benefitting irrigators that has sat untouched by this South Australian government in commonwealth government coffers for nearly five years. The Private Irrigation Infrastructure Program for South Australia was established in 2009 with $110 million allocated as part of the 2008 intergovernmental agreement on the Murray-Darling Basin Reform.

The aim of the funding was to share the water savings achieved from projects under the PIIPSA to be used for environmental water purposes. Essentially it is classed as an irrigation industry renewal/modernisation initiative. The commonwealth government ran two rounds of PIIPSA distributing about $14.4 million and there was lower than anticipated uptake due to irrigators at the time being less familiar with the way such programs work and the benefits of participating in those programs.

So the South Australian government and the commonwealth government under then minister Burke MP determined not to run a third round and asked the state government to put forward proposals that would achieve greater irrigation water use efficiency.

The commonwealth department then wrote to the relevant South Australian agency on 31 July 2012 seeking to ascertain whether South Australia would be supportive of another round of PIIPSA being conducted. A written response was not provided by the South Australian government to this letter. Last week, I called on the Minister for Water and the River Murray to put forward a tangible business case for South Australia to access the $90 million. The minister replies via a media release, in which he claims to have struck a deal with the parliamentary secretary for environment, the Hon. Bob Baldwin MP, last November, when in actual fact Mr Baldwin was not even a shadow minister or a parliamentary secretary at that time. He was not even on the front bench. The Minister for Water here in South Australia has stuffed it up and he needs to get his facts right.

What actually happened is that junior minister Baldwin was shuffled out of that portfolio in September—13 September, as a matter of fact. Then the minister this morning announces, in an article in The Advertiser, that he struck an agreement to access $3 million of funding to develop further proposals to access the $90 million. This has taken nearly five years and we still do not have funding available on the ground to irrigators and water users. In that time, we have seen the price of permanent water rise twofold. We have seen it rise from $1,300 or $1,400 up to nearly $3,000. We have seen temporary water go from $30 to $300. What sort of an impact do you think that is having on the capability and the efficiencies of business models, particularly in irrigation districts in South Australia?

The minister will now develop more cases to put to the commonwealth, no doubt eating up part of this money with bureaucratic fees. Why has it taken five years? Why do we not have another round of the PIIPSA funding opening immediately? How long will this project drag on for? The state government has had ample opportunities to utilise the money over this five-year period. The minister is really good at playing political games with water, but he has no consideration for the end user and he has no consideration for South Australia's economy. He likes to play political games. He likes to play the blame game.

For the minister to put out two media releases bagging me is fine, but what it is doing is depriving South Australian irrigators the opportunity to access over $90 million. I think it is outrageous that he can sit back and pay homage to himself and a relationship he had with a junior minister, who was not a junior minister in November, like he claimed in his press release. What this means is that the projects, of course, have gone to the low-hanging fruit in New South Wales and Victoria. That was a quote by the minister.

I say to the minster that South Australia is waiting to be able to access that $90 million. Again, it has been reported in Senate estimates that the South Australian government and this South Australian water minister has no will or no want to access that money, because he is too lazy, sitting on his hands and doing nothing to promote water efficiencies in South Australia to achieve the 183 gigalitres towards the basin plan.