Motions

Murray-Darling Basin Plan

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (15:42): I move:

That this house calls on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to stand up to protect the integrity of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and honour his commitment to delivering the plan on time and in full, by—

(a) commissioning a fully independent judicial inquiry into the allegations raised on Four Corners to ensure the integrity of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan;

(b) putting the river, and all those who rely on it, ahead of the profits of a minority of large landholders in New South Wales; and

(c) complying with the legislative requirement to appoint independent experts to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: I move:

That the time allotted for the debate be one hour.

Motion carried.

The events of the past week or so in relation to water policy, or the commitment or lack of it to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, should cause very significant alarm for not only our state but also for the nation. This is without doubt one of the most significant public policy issues that I have had to grapple with in my time in this office. Indeed, within weeks of assuming this role we commenced the campaign for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which was a critical issue that was facing us at that point and had been the subject of very significant debate and contention between the upstream and the downstream states.

The truth is that this state has always played a critically important role as the national guardian of this river for obvious reasons. Our interests are directly connected with it because we are the downstream state. But the way in which we have sought to prosecute our protection of the river has been to be the moral exemplar: capping what we took from the river in 1969, not taking an additional drop since and in fact cooperating in all the reductions that have occurred in our take from the river.

Despite that, in a period when the river was under pressure environmentally, we have seen significant overallocation of this resource. The millennial drought obviously drew the circumstances of the river to the attention of the broader community and it did provide the opportunity for us to act. Credit needs to be given to prime minister Howard who, together with the present Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, did pledge a very substantial amount of money to respond to that agenda.

But it was something that the South Australian government had already put on the agenda through its early contribution through establishing the River Murray levy, which gave us a sum of money which allowed us to commit to the Living Murray Initiative, which was the precursor to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This was a very important public policy agenda that was powerfully advocated for by premier Rann. He made a signal speech at the National Press Club when he decided to launch the campaign to save this great river. The future of the River Murray has been a source of bipartisan support here in this state ever since, and I am pleased to say it continues to be.

But what we saw in the last week or so is alarming, starting with the revelations on the ABC Four Corners program, and we have now witnessed a series of other disturbing developments. We have heard suggestions that the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries is actually helping local people in New South Wales evade their responsibilities under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, in other words, assist them to break the law. More recently, we have seen newspaper reports revealing that within the New South Wales cabinet no less, not just within the bureaucracy, a minister is seeking to undermine and subvert the plan. Specifically, in yesterday's Daily Telegraph the following was reported:

A Nationals Minister is pushing Cabinet colleagues to change irrigation laws to retrospectively justify a decision by his department to give a major political donor and cotton farmer more rights over the precious Barwon-Darling River.

Who can forget also the troubling and embarrassing remarks by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, at a pub in Shepparton last Friday, that he had put responsibility for water policy back into the Nationals' agriculture portfolio to 'make sure we don't have the greenies running the show'. Of course, we are included amongst the greenies here—the downstream states and, indeed, other irrigators within New South Wales. This is a very alarming concession by Barnaby Joyce, the Deputy Prime Minister.

I must say it begins to I think reveal some of the Faustian pact that was reached by the Prime Minister to become Prime Minister of this country. If the deal was that to become prime minister he had to give water to the Nationals, and the Nationals full-well knew that they were going to use the water portfolio to undermine the Murray-Darling Basin agreement, this is an alarming state of affairs and something that simply must be exposed.

Last year, during the ministerial council meeting here in Adelaide, the Deputy Prime Minister laid the groundwork to walk away from the provision of the final 450 gigalitres of water to the river, mandated under the plan. You will recall that was the meeting where our local Minister for Water, the Hon. Ian Hunter, used some slightly less honourable remarks in his prosecution of the case. Anyway, his sentiments—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: It was passion.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: His sentiments were certainly correct.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: He was colourful.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I remind members—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am standing up. I remind members that the bases appear to be loaded from question time and I would hate them to miss the remainder of this debate. All members are entitled to be heard in silence. Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: I think it was blue gelato he was ordering. It was a fruity conversation, I think we can say. In the past couple of days, there have been other revelations of great concern. The Australian Financial Review today reported that Ms Perin Davey, a former lobbyist nominated by Mr Joyce to sit on the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, asked to withdraw that nomination after it came to light that she had attended a meeting at which the New South Wales government official was recorded offering her and other irrigators sensitive data.

Remember on Four Corners that we had that recording of this discussion between a New South Wales bureaucrat and the irrigators. They were seeking to collude in some way to assist the irrigator through this difficulty that had emerged. She was on that phone call and she is also the person who said that the delivery of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was impossible. Why on earth would you appoint to the expert independent body somebody who was a lobbyist for the irrigators and had declared themselves as being an opponent of the plan, unless of course you wanted to wreck the plan? These are decisions calculated to destroy the plan.

We know they resisted the plan. They did not want to put the plan in place, but plan B, when they could not stop the plan, is to wreck it now they are in government. This was all working fine while Labor was in government nationally, because they knew that they would hold the irrigators' feet to the fire, but now they have essentially a federal government that is cooperating with them in this regard.

The GuardianAustralia reported yesterday that, according to farmers and water experts, rule changes approved by the New South Wales government could be causing more water loss to the Murray-Darling Basin than before the plan was put in place. You get some insight into New South Wales politics by going back to the rum corps: it is alive and well. The place is bent. They basically are not prepared to even obey the law.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Sure, and they belong in gaol. That is exactly where they belong, every single one of them. What all of this amounts to is a pattern of behaviour of people and organisations conniving, flouting the law and treating the downstream states and, indeed, all people who actually believe in a healthy river, with utter contempt.

We in this state have been working in good faith with other states and the commonwealth in relation to the basin plan. Our aim has always been to protect the river and to ensure basin communities, irrigators and all those who rely upon the river have a sustainable future. We had a real challenge when we sought to construct our response to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan because we had done all the heavy lifting. We had covered all the irrigation channels. Many of our irrigators were using drip irrigation. They were using the best technologies. They were not wasting water, so when we were asked to make a further contribution, it was hard.

That was why we negotiated that additional sum of money—the $250-odd million that was under the SARMS agreement—to actually assist our irrigators to go the extra yard to make the infrastructure changes so they could cough up the extra water. We did not actually say, 'We have done all that we need to do because we haven't taken any more out of the river.' We actually said, 'No, we are prepared to do more, but help us. We are in a different situation from the upstream states. Help us.'

Fortunately, the federal government, led on that occasion by Senator Wong, the then minister for water, gave us that accommodation, and our campaign for 3,200 gigalitres of water to be returned to the system ultimately was successful. It was a great victory and one that we should be proud of, but it is being undermined.

Mr Whetstone: That was Tony Burke.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: No, it was minister Wong. Tony Burke landed the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, but the fundamental agreement was reached with minister Wong because I negotiated it. In fact, the only jurisdiction that has ever truly stood up for the river has been South Australia.

The Four Corners program really has revealed what many South Australians have suspected for some time; that is, that the upstream states would use their control to undermine this agreement. What we need, of course, is to get to the bottom of this circumstance. We need to understand precisely what has happened here because the allegations, if they are true, strike at the heart of the integrity of the implementation of the plan because, by necessity, when the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was struck, it was impossible to have a federal authority entirely running every element of the system.

Because land and water management are so deeply insinuated into all the state institutions, you could not separate them out from the environmental or primary industries agencies in every state. We just could not do it. We would have liked to have done it, but it was impossible. By definition, you are at the mercy of the cooperation of the upstream states and their bureaucracies.

Now, of course, what they have done in New South Wales is they have really handed the implementation of the plan to their primary industries agency. That is problem number one. And of course there are people in there who just do not believe in it, and you have heard that on the telephone recording. They are basically saying, 'Look, we'll help you out. We'll help you through this little problem. We'll help you evade the law; if you break the law, we'll find a way of covering that up.'

This is a very deeply disturbing set of allegations and we need to know the truth of them because if they are true, it will form the basis for, I think, a greater level of commonwealth oversight in relation to the implementation of this plan because we simply cannot trust the upstream states and New South Wales in particular. Frankly, I think we would be naive to think that this was limited to New South Wales and we would be naive to think it was just confined to this one element of the basin.

Mr SPEIRS (Bright) (15:55): I move to amend the motion as follows:

Delete all the words after 'house' and substitute the following words:

believes that a healthy River Murray is vital to South Australia’s future and the basin plan must be delivered on time and in full. We as South Australian parliamentarians stand united for our river and in support for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. We call on the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to commission a fully independent judicial inquiry into allegations raised on Four Corners in order to be sure that the basin plan is not undermined and will continue to deliver our share of water to South Australia.

I have moved an amendment to the Premier’s motion because I believe that it is absolutely vital that South Australia puts forward a strong, united statement about the River Murray. The amendment I have outlined amends the Premier’s motion to align it with the motion that was passed yesterday by the Legislative Council.

That motion was supported by members of the government, the opposition, the Greens, Australian Conservatives, the Dignity Party and Mr Darley. It had cross-party support. We have already seen too many political games in relation to the River Murray. It is time we had a united, cross-party, bipartisan position, and aligned motions from the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly will send a strong message to Canberra and to the Prime Minister.

As the shadow minister with responsibility for the River Murray, I have been incredibly clear from the moment the ABC’s Four Corners program aired that the state Liberal Party will work with bipartisanship, alongside the government and any other political party or interest group interested in and committed to securing the Murray-Darling Basin Plan on time and in full.

Given our unequivocal statements on this matter, we were disappointed when the government chose not to include the state Liberal team in its cross-party press conference on Monday. I have heard many excuses on this point from both the Premier and minister Hunter, but the fact of the matter is that the government chose—as it has done too many times—to put politics above practical and pragmatic delivery for our River Murray.

Today, I am reiterating the state Liberal Party’s commitment and explicitly stating that this side of politics will not engage in political games at the expense of the River Murray. We have backed the government’s call for an inquiry. We did so yesterday in the urgency motion put to the Legislative Council and we are doing so again today. The South Australian Liberal Party has a proud history of backing the River Murray.

Our MPs have represented the river’s course for many years and those local MPs are unfailing voices for the river’s health and sustainability. The members for Chaffey, Hammond, Schubert, Stuart, MacKillop and Finniss have variously represented the river's course for many years, advocating for its environment, its economics and the many rural communities that rely on a healthy, vibrant river for their future. Our MPs stood with communities during horrors wrought by the Millennium Drought, and they know firsthand the importance of sustaining our river. Some of the river’s greatest champions sit in the state Liberal Party room.

The Murray-Darling system is 3,375 kilometres in length. It traverses some of the most productive landscapes in our country. It provides habitat to hundreds of species of birdlife, fish, mammals, reptiles and amphibians. It sustains agriculture, horticulture and viticulture, it provides a lifestyle and tourism destination and it is a huge economic artery giving life to thousands of businesses, creating tens of thousands of jobs in high-value industries, particularly in rural and regional Australia. The Murray-Darling basin contains 40 per cent of all Australia’s farms and 65 per cent of all farms that irrigate. It is a fundamental plank of our nation’s economy worth billions annually to our nation’s bottom line.

In South Australia, the River Murray underpins one of the great food bowls and export regions of our state, the Riverland, while towns from Renmark to Goolwa attract thousands of tourists who enjoy the recreational and social pursuits that life along the river provides. Australia's environment and economy needs the river to survive and thrive, and South Australia in particular, finding itself at the end of the river's long and meandering course, relies on a river that is still healthy and viable when it crosses our border.

We saw during the Millennium Drought just how vulnerable our river communities can be when the river's health starts to falter. Environmental, social and economic problems will quickly take hold, leaving scars that can take a generation to recover from. Yet, as is often the case in a time of crisis, the tragedy of the Millennium Drought inspired resilience and drove innovation the length of the river, especially in South Australia.

South Australian farmers and irrigators have always proudly led the nation in water efficiency practices, and drought drove us to redouble our efforts on this front. Further innovations were achieved, water usage was driven down and today the Riverland is an international leader in cutting-edge practices that deliver efficient and productive water use. We should be immensely proud of this.

Again, we should be proud of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, a compromise plan no doubt, a plan which has detractors and critics and which we all know is far from perfect, but this is a plan forged in the wake of doing the wrong thing for a century and it is a large and significant step in the right direction. We should also be proud that as a state we have been a driving force behind the plan and that our adherence to the plan and our commitment to fulfilling it is also nation leading.

While we should be proud, we should also be angry—very angry—when we see our hard work and our best practice adherence to the plan trampled over, ignored and taken for granted by other jurisdictions. When we see this behaviour, we should be able to stand up and let people know how we feel, as a government, as an opposition and as a state, working together to fight for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and for our river, the river that this plan aims to sustain.

Let's make no mistake: the allegations aired on Four Corners were damning. The theft of water from the river that was supposed to be given up for environmental gains is nothing short of abhorrent, and any rational person watching that program would be of the view that appropriate and detailed investigations must be undertaken by the appropriate authorities with the appropriate powers and the appropriate remedies to be able to hand down.

To date, the allegations are the subject of four separate inquiries and investigations: the NSW independent review led by Ken Matthews AO, former CEO of the National Water Commission, announced on 26 July; the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s review of compliance with state-based regulations governing water use announced by the Prime Minister on 30 July; the Australian National Audit Office’s review into the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources' efforts in monitoring water usage in NSW; and not least the referral to the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption. If the state government believes that a judicial inquiry should be added to this lengthy list, we support that call.

It is also worth stating that I believe that we have reached, perhaps unexpectedly, a critical juncture in the life of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. We stand at a precipice with regard to the viability of the plan going forward and, if goodwill is not maintained, relationships not restored and the plan not put back on an even keel, the whole thing—years of hard work, billions of dollars of investment and the attainment of genuine environmental and economic sustainability—will collapse. The impact of this will be devastating for the river and felt in the most pronounced way at the end of the system, here in South Australia.

The allegations on Four Corners should not be used to derail the Murray-Darling Basin Plan either for political or economic reasons, whether here in South Australia or by interstate interests. Make no mistake that there are irrigators in other jurisdictions who would like to see the plan fail. The very irrigators who are the subject of allegations raised in Four Corners are not champions of the plan. Its collapse serves their interests and we must not give them the pleasure of achieving this.

I join my parliamentary colleagues from both sides of this chamber in calling for the federal government to do all that is required to thoroughly investigate the allegations aired on Four Corners and also to put equal if not greater amounts of energy into securing the cross-jurisdictional relationships that must be in place to secure the viability of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. I also call on all jurisdictions in the Murray-Darling Basin to cooperate fully with any and all investigations and reviews that are undertaken, and for these to be completed as quickly and transparently as possible.

We must save the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. We must restore the goodwill that this plan has been founded on. We must confirm that environmental flows are doing just that: flowing for the benefit of our environment. Above all, we must engage with our colleagues across our political parties, and across the nation, to ensure that this happens. I commend the amended motion to the house.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (16:05): We have seen some form here, have we not? The Liberals opposite are kowtowing to Canberra once again, watering down a motion that deserves to be very, very harsh on the federal—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Stop the clock.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am on my feet. I need to remind members again that, on your behalf, I seek that all members be able to speak in silence and be heard in silence.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: The Liberal Party have form with the car industry. When the federal Coalition wanted to take the car industry away from South Australia, who stood up? The Labor government did. Where was the opposition? Nowhere to be seen. They were in bed with their federal counterparts. With the submarine project, when Tony Abbott—

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Excuse me, Deputy Speaker, the member for Chaffey just used the most vile words and unparliamentary language.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Stop the clock.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Did you have something to say, member for Adelaide?

Ms SANDERSON: Yes, point of order: we were accused of being in bed with the federal government. That is far more offensive than anything that has been said on this side of the house. Retract and apologise.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: However—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The minister has taken offence at something the member for Chaffey has said. I give the member for Chaffey the opportunity to—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! I just remind everybody that I have the book out. We are going to hear people in silence. The minister can continue.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: The Liberal members opposite have form in kowtowing to Canberra. With the submarine project, when Tony Abbott said that he was quite happy for all these submarines to be built over in Japan, the Premier came back and started a plan to make sure that South Australia would win that contract. When Nyrstar needed a guarantor, the federal government said, 'You can just rely on the South Australian government to do that.' It does not matter that they would have put that money up in other jurisdictions.

Of course, with energy, we have seen the Prime Minister of this country, the Deputy Prime Minister of this country and the federal energy minister come and kick South Australians in the guts in our time of absolute despair. When we had seven—

Mr Bell: Are we talking about the river, or are we talking about history?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Mount Gambier is warned for the second time.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: When we had seven tornadoes bear down on our state, including the only—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sit down. Stop the clock. We will be here all day if you do not remain silent.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, if we stay beyond six, that is entirely up to you.

Mr Marshall: Keep the class in.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is a possibility, isn't it?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: When we had seven tornadoes bear down on us last September and destroy energy infrastructure, we had the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the energy minister kicking the guts out of South Australians who were trying to get back on their feet. Now, today, they come in and want to water down a motion that is critical of their federal counterparts: the members of the Liberal Party and the National Party at the federal level.

South Australia has worked hard, and South Australians have worked hard since the 1960s. We have moved away from open and unlined channels, which still exist in other parts of Australia, but that movement started here in the 1960s. In the seventies, the eighties and the nineties, those efficiencies continued. The farmers in our Riverland and right along the River Murray in South Australia worked hard to eke out every little drop they possibly could. They did not want to waste a drop. Then, when the Premier came up with a plan—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: —to get more money—

Mr Bell: Who wrote this for you?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Mount Gambier, if he says one more thing, he will have to leave the chamber for half an hour, and his comrades will be very close behind if they keep speaking over the minister.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, it depends where you come from, doesn't it?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: When the Premier came up with a plan to fight for more money for these irrigators along the River Murray that would return more water to the River Murray, what did we hear from the member for MacKillop opposite? He wanted to go back to an earlier draft basin plan that just did not deliver for South Australia or for irrigators. Do you know what he said? He said, 'This is obviously not the Rolls-Royce, but it's a very good Mazda and we're quite happy to drive in the Mazda.' The member for Bright said that all these Liberal Party members opposite have done such a good job—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey is called to order. The member for Adelaide is warned for the first time.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: The member for Bright said that all his parliamentary colleagues have done such a great job sticking up for the River Murray and the irrigators, but they were happy to settle for a Mazda, not the Rolls-Royce that the Premier got for us. I have been up to the Riverland and I have spoken to irrigators and farmers there and they are very pleased with what the Premier did. They are very pleased with what the Premier did. They admire the fact that he stuck to his guns and stuck up for South Australia. And guess what? He stuck up for South Australia on submarines, he stuck up for South Australian on energy, he stuck up for South Australia on cars, he stuck up for South Australia on Nyrstar. Here we have a Premier—

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Unley is warned for the second time.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Here we have a political leader who will go in and stick up for the people he represents, the people here in South Australia, whether they live along the River Murray or in metropolitan Adelaide or somewhere else in South Australia, because that is what we do. We do not kowtow to Canberra. We are not owned by our political masters in Canberra. We fight for the people who elect us. We put people before party, and the rest of South Australia wants the Liberal Party of South Australia to do the same.

I saw the images on TV the other night of the Premier standing there with Nick Xenophon, with Cory Bernardi, with all these people from across the political divide. I saw no-one there from the state Liberals. I saw farmers there. We have been working hard to help our farmers, including the irrigators, along the River Murray. It is the engine room of South Australia's agribusiness sector, a sector that employs one in five working South Australians.

To see the Four Corners program a couple of weeks ago, it was an absolute disgrace when we know how hard our farmers work to make every little drop so productive. To see the water that is being wasted upstream by crooks, both out at the farm level and the crooks in the New South Wales government—

Mr Marshall: Alleged. Keep it alleged at this point.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Alright. There again, we want to water it down. We have the Leader of the Opposition wanting to water it down.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: So—

Mr Marshall: You're the judge and jury over there.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Well, for anyone who saw the Four Corners program, it was pretty poor behaviour.

Mr Williams interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop is called to order.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: As a journalist, I know that putting the word 'alleged' in does not help you much when you get to court. You are either accused of being crooks—

Mr Marshall: You've already pronounced them crooks.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Well, they are crooks.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Anyone who steals water is not a law-abiding citizen, and those people who may have aided and abetted in that theft should also suffer the consequences of the law. I join with our Premier and our side of the house in calling on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to stand up to protect the integrity of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and to honour his commitment to deliver the plan on time and in full. What does he have to hide by not having a full and open inquiry into this? Who is he trying to protect in his own party or his own Coalition or the donors that they have for the Nationals and the federal Liberal Party?

If they have nothing to hide, why would they not just come out and have a full inquiry into the allegations that have been raised? This is meant to be a system that crosses state borders, and we should all be treated fairly. South Australians have been treated unfairly and that is something that the Liberal Party in Canberra do not seem to care about. As I have mentioned before, when it comes to the car industry, when it comes to energy, when it comes to Nyrstar, when it comes to water and the Murray-Darling, the federal Liberals and the federal Nationals just do not care for South Australians.

That has not been lost on the people of South Australia. Look at the recent poll results about how well the Liberal Party is going in South Australia; look at what happened to Mayo. We are going to see that played out again at the next state election and the next federal election because the people of South Australia hate being put down by people from outside this state, and that is all we have seen from the federal Coalition. When each of you opposite do not stand up against those people, the people of South Australia take notice. I stand with our side of the house in commending the Premier for bringing this motion before the house, and I support it.

Mr MARSHALL (Dunstan—Leader of the Opposition) (16:16): I rise to support the amended motion, which I think was put in a very credible way by the shadow minister for the environment, the member for Bright. We on this side of the chamber support an independent judicial review into allegations of the theft of water from the Murray-Darling Basin for one simple reason: the importance of the Murray to South Australia demands that the health and the future of the river should remain matters above party politics.

We made our position clear immediately when these allegations became public. Those comments were made directly by the shadow minister, they were repeated by me and nothing has been put forward that makes us move away from the position that we held immediately after the allegations were aired on the Four Corners program. The Liberal Party in this parliament has a proud history when it comes to the River Murray—unlike the Labor Party. After all, it was a Liberal premier who put his government on the line after the future of the River Murray was put in doubt in 1970 while Labor again played politics with the health of this river.

Steele Hall, premier of South Australia at the time, took the view that the Dartmouth Dam should be built as South Australia's best guarantee of future water supplies from the Murray. His view was based on sound engineering and on sound environmental advice. There was serious concern that an alternative dam at Chowilla would be more costly and would cause increased salinity downstream. That would have been disastrous for South Australia's horticulture industry in particular, but Labor, led by Don Dunstan, was not interested in any of that at the time.

As a result, an election was called when Labor would not support the Dartmouth Dam project but, within a year of that election, Labor did a complete somersault on this issue. Labor supported the agreement to build Dartmouth Dam, which Steele Hall had negotiated with the commonwealth and the governments of Victoria and New South Wales and which Labor in this parliament had opposed. History shows that Steele Hall's politically selfless action to insist that Dartmouth Dam be built saved the economy of the lower reaches of the river in South Australia. Without it, a Murray-Darling Basin Plan would not have been necessary because Labor's decision to put politics before the interests of our state would have killed the lower reaches of the river there and then.

In the history of the Murray, the next significant government action was the $10 billion plan announced by Liberal prime minister John Howard in 2007. This required the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to develop the basin plan. The adoption of that basin plan received bipartisan support in the federal parliament in November 2012. It is important that all basin communities, and indeed all Australians, have confidence that the rules to support fair and lawful water use throughout the basin are being followed. There must be no doubt about this.

For that reason, we believe that an independent judicial review is justified, and we support this call because this matter needs to remain above party politics. For the same reason, the South Australian government should agree to the independent basin-wide review into compliance with state-based regulations governing water use proposed by the Prime Minister, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull.

This review will require the cooperation of all basin states to look beyond the part of the river system where illegal practices have been alleged. We need to know that all parties to the basin plan are playing their full part in ensuring the maintenance of strong compliance regimes. The South Australian environment minister, the Hon. Ian Hunter, has called this proposal 'a toothless review'. That just goes to show that, when it comes to the Murray, Labor is still only interested in politics and not in doing what is right for South Australia and the nation. Yet again, we are seeing this this afternoon.

Earlier, we heard the Minister for Agriculture give his pronouncement declaring that the government would not be supporting the Liberal Party's amendment to the motion put forward by the Premier. In fact, we heard quite clearly on this side of the chamber that the Premier issued his instructions to his minister before the amendment was even fully read out. This just shows that this government has no interest in anything other than playing politics with this matter.

Our amendment captures each and every element of the urgency motion moved in the other place yesterday and supported by all members of that house—all members—including members representing the Australian Labor Party. Its acceptance by this house would be the strongest possible demonstration by this parliament of support for the health and future of our River Murray and, surely, that is what we are all after: the strongest possible message to Canberra, the strongest possible message to those states and those interests upstream. It would be a united demonstration of our determination to ensure nothing is done to undermine the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

The government's refusal to support this amendment shows the Premier is not interested in the River Murray, not interested in South Australia's future. He is only interested in setting up fake fights that do nothing to advance the cause of South Australia or the communities that live and depend on the River Murray.

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton) (16:22): I rise to support the original motion. We have heard how hardworking people are on that side, but their attention to detail is somewhat lacking. For your information, the motion that was put by the Greens was not supported, moved or carried yesterday: it was withdrawn. You want to have a look, when you say 'voted upon and supported by all in the other place', because that is not the case.

What we are seeing here today is a rewriting of history, and that was exemplified by the leader in his contribution. What we are after is bipartisan support. The motion that should be supported is that which has been put by the Premier. I remind those people opposite, especially those who were not here from 2006 through to 2014, that the opposition had to be dragged kicking and screaming to support the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and the number of gigalitres that were required. You palmed it off as being a pipedream, that we would not be able to get that level of water. Well, you are rewriting—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. P. CAICA: You made your contribution earlier. Previously, you said that you were not even at school at that stage, and you were not hanging around too much in 2006, when these matters were progressing. Be that as it may—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. CAICA: From 2006 to 2014.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. CAICA: No; the person who was making up fake news was the Leader of the Opposition. I recall in 2012 being in a ministerial council meeting that was a defining moment in the quantum of water that was going to be delivered into the system.

Mr Marshall: What about the motion? Why don't you guys address your own motion?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leader!

The Hon. P. CAICA: At that meeting, Tony Burke pushed everyone out of the room, except for the ministers and one adviser. We were having a bit of a blue because South Australia at that stage would not agree, and this is my point, on a quantum of water that was only going to deliver most of the river system to a poor level of health. Peter, the minister from Victoria—

An honourable member: What is his name?

The Hon. P. CAICA: Peter Walsh, a decent man and one of the best people from the National Party I have met, had asked, 'What number is required? What number?' I said, 'I don't know. I don't know.'

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Leader! You will have to leave the room for seven minutes if you say another word.

The Hon. P. CAICA: He is rather rude, Madam Deputy Speaker. Be that as it may, it was a defining moment. The point I am making is that the National Party member who cared about the river, cared about the security of the river, cared about the people he represented, supported there being 3,200 gigalitres, (2,750 gigalitres with an extra 450 gigalitres to come from savings) because we know upstream the savings could be found and found far more easily than they could down here.

Those who went through the Millennium Drought will realise what dire circumstances we were in, and I am pleased that the government of the day decided to provide, quite rightly so, water that was necessary to keep permanent plantings alive in the Riverland. That is why the Riverland remains today one of the outstanding areas in the world with respect to what we were able to do to save that location and that region.

We are talking about a bipartisan approach to this. The fact that a motion was moved to amend shows they are not really interested. The fact that the leader started to talk about what it is that the people on this side are really interested in shows the people who are playing politics: it is not us. I was shocked, like everyone, to see that Four Corners report. To me, what occurred is absolutely corrupt, and the only thing that can remedy that is a full judicial inquiry. Am I surprised?

Mr Marshall: We're supporting that.

The Hon. P. CAICA: No, you moved a motion, which is not different in the intent. You said, 'Our motion has all the necessary elements.' Well, this original motion has all the elements of that and more.

The reality is I was shocked by that like everyone else, but did it come as a surprise? Not really. What came as a surprise was the audacity of the bureaucracy in New South Wales deciding to do what it did to try to circumvent the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to allow for the theft of water, and for what? For $10,000. That seems a pretty cheap contribution to the National Party to get over a billion litres of water and more. It is just outrageous and I think we all agree on that.

This original motion needs to be supported and will be supported. We are the custodians of the river, and it is South Australia that has on all occasions ensured that we have engaged in such a way that we looked at the welfare and the wellbeing of the river system as a whole, not just South Australia, because it is not mutually exclusive to having an effective working river and a proper environment in which to work that water in the most effective way.

We have seen some terrible things. I do not want to return back to the days of the drought but, as the Premier quite rightly said, on the information that has been provided at the moment it is quite likely that we will get less water into the system than we are going to get under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan because of the actions of those people upstream. I do not believe that all people upstream are like that, but I believe that there is certainly a very, very corrupt undercurrent that is to a very great extent condoned by the Deputy Prime Minister, and aided and abetted by the bureaucracy of New South Wales, either to circumvent the plan as best they can and as effectively as they can or to jettison the plan right out of the system.

This motion is about making sure that we as a state and we as a nation compel—and I say compel—the Prime Minister to make sure that an independent judicial inquiry is set up and that we return to a plan that is going to be properly administered, not an inquiry by the Murray-Darling Basin. That is like Caesar judging Caesar—you have to be joking. They are the people who are supposed to be on top of—

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. P. CAICA: Well, you play politics, mate. You are amending it. It is a bit of grandstanding.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The Hon. P. CAICA: Well, they did not pass it, Steven: it was withdrawn.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The deputy leader will have to leave for three minutes. The deputy leader needs to leave for three minutes under the sessional order.

The Hon. P. CAICA: Deputy Speaker, I commend—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Stop the clock. You need to leave for three minutes.

Mr Marshall: You said three times, 'The deputy leader has got to leave.' There is no deputy leader here.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, the leader then.

Mr Marshall interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, you can come back in the vote, can't you? Off we go.

The honourable member for Dunstan having withdrawn from the chamber:

The Hon. P. CAICA: I commend this motion. I support the original motion. We as a state need to continue to fight for the River Murray.

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:29): I rise to support the amended motion. When every state in the nation signed the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 2012 it was an iconic moment, a critical moment in our water management and a partisan agreement, the likes of which may never happen again. The Murray-Darling Basin drains one-seventh of the Australian continent and represents one-third of its agricultural production, being more than 3,000 kilometres long. More than three million people live and work within the basin and it is home to 16 Ramsar-listed wetlands.

Challenges around water sharing through the implementation of the basin plan are some of the most complicated policy issues this nation has ever faced. As part of the basin plan implementation, South Australian irrigators, and particularly those in the Riverland, have led the way in water efficiencies in order to work towards meeting the plan's water savings targets. So I can tell you that, upon the airing of the Four Corners program on 24 July, there was widespread anger at the allegations of water theft, water meters being tampered with and Public Service corruption in New South Wales. More specifically, the accusations are around water being illegally taken from the Barwon-Darling.

In South Australia, we have thousands of irrigators with world's best practice in order to comply with the historic partisan Murray-Darling Basin Plan and upstream some are rorting the system. I want to make it clear that these allegations are not about whether the basin plan is working; this is about the law and those who uphold that law. As an irrigator for almost three decades, and as the member for Chaffey, representing a wide cohort of people on the land who rely on Murray water to survive, to say these allegations made my blood boil would be an understatement.

If these allegations are found to be true, I want the book thrown at those doing the wrong thing, and if the book does not work the kitchen sink will do. This is not only illegal, but it is undermining the very foundations of the basin plan, which all states agreed to. The last thing we can afford to see is any state walk away from this basin plan. In my view, these allegations cannot be left solely to New South Wales to investigate. The federal government must intervene. They must come down hard on those acting illegally, if these allegations are true. Anything less will severely impact confidence in the basin plan and undermine its implementation.

A press conference held this week to announce joint support, across a number of parties, for a judicial inquiry was missing any South Australian Liberal Party members. We were not invited. Why did they not invite the South Australian Liberals to be part of this announcement? I will tell you why. It was all about the Premier playing politics, once again, with the River Murray. We require a swift resolution to these allegations, as the last thing we need is for any state to consider abandoning their part in the basin plan.

One of the key issues that was missing out of the ABC's story was the water shepherding. No-one has talked about water shepherding and no-one is talking about flood plain harvesting. These are issues that need to be addressed. Again, I am calling on a national audit for compliance, a national audit for metering within the Murray-Darling Basin extraction. Under the basin plan, it is initiated that the 2,750 gigalitres be returned to the environment by 2019. Progress of the plan is underpinned by irrigators', and their communities', determination to make a difference, to do more with less water.

To date, the South Australian government has performed no action—none at all. SA Water has made no contribution. There are no efficiency gains or environmental outcomes below Lock 1. The Lower Lakes Scoping Study is an example; it is gathering dust on the minister's desk. That is an example of where an inquiry should be—an inquiry into why nothing has happened during that scoping study and an inquiry into the minister's behaviour. There have been no environmental works and measures below Lock 1.

What happens in the time of drought and low flows? About every 18 years we have a drought in the Murray-Darling Basin. That drought is getting closer, yet the South Australian government is missing in action. A further 450 gigalitres by 2024 and South Australia's contribution will be an extra 38 gigalitres. That is taking all of the Renmark Irrigation Trust out of production. That is a further burden on the South Australian economy, yet we do not see the Premier, the minister or any of the South Australian government standing up and being accounted for. They have not found one efficiency gain to contribute one drop of water to the Murray-Darling Basin. Environmental outcomes are what the basin plan is all about. We look at Chowilla, which is a great achievement; we look at the Pike flood plain; we look at Katarapko flood plains; they are all environmental achievements which underpin this basin plan.

In Chaffey, the Riverland's economy is growing after dealing with the Millennium Drought, and after contributing most of South Australia's 183 gigalitres of SDL as part of that basin plan commitment. A new paradigm with new plantings and water-use efficiencies is bearing fruit. The Riverland is starting to show green shoots once again. Remember that Adelaide does not only rely on the River Murray for its critical water. Adelaide relies on the River Murray to put food on the table three times a day, 365 days of the year, every year for every decade, and that is something that every South Australian needs to understand.

South Australians need a healthy working river and without this our economic activity is not sustainable. The River Murray not only underpins Australia's food demands but provides safe food to the world. As of the end of June 2017, just over 2,080 gigalitres have been recovered through a mix of government purchases of water licences and funded infrastructure improvements, in return for farmers becoming more water efficient and surrendering the water saved to the commonwealth.

I commend irrigators and their communities for their dedication and tireless work to achieve South Australia's SDLs. Not one drop has been delivered from the South Australian government's efficiency projects—not one drop. The South Australian Labor Party is only in it for the politics. The health of the river should always remain above politics.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (16:36): I rise to support the amended motion, to make sure that we do have a fresh healthy River Murray. It has always been my stand since coming into this place in 2006. In 2006, we saw the start of the Millennium Drought, and we are well aware of the meeting on Melbourne Cup day with John Howard and ministers talking about plans to keep the river in good condition. But guess what, Madam Deputy Speaker? We have people trying to give us history lessons here today. I am going to talk about a little bit of history.

Guess what the Rann Labor government were going to do? The Rann Labor government were going to build a weir at Wellington with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of rocks that were going to sink into the sediment, as would the pylons that would have gone into a weir that was proposed back in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Hon. J.W. Weatherill interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: That is exactly what was going to happen, and the Premier was here, the member for Colton was here and the member for Mawson was here. This motion, and even the amended motion, is about supporting all who rely on the River Murray. But, no, the Labor government were quite keen to sacrifice thousands of people and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of production annually below Wellington. That is exactly what was going to happen, and it did not happen. I really thank the resilience of those people of the River Lakes Coorong Action Group, people like Henry Jones—and God rest his soul, what a champion of the river—for the work that they did.

I was stunned when I had meetings with the former member for Chaffey, who was the water minister at the time, because all the concern was about getting water to Adelaide. Sure, we had to have water to Adelaide, but we had to have water for other offtakes as well. The head of SA Water was there with the water minister of the time when I said, 'Just lower the pumps at Murray Bridge and Mannum. Just lower the pumps,' but they said, 'No, it couldn't happen.' That was the conversation I had, and guess what? Yes, in the end they did. They built the cofferdams. They built the cofferdams and lowered the pumps, but that was only after I was told it could not happen. How ridiculous!

It was an engineering solution that was that simple it was crazy. That is what happened in the end, and I certainly salute those people on the lower reaches of the river and those people around the lakes. I salute the people who own Wellington Lodge and the upper stations, who were put through hell and threatened with compulsory acquisition of their land. Roads were built to the weir, and they went through the Public Works Committee, and there was that threat of the river being blocked at Wellington. It would have destroyed the lifeblood of the lower reaches of the river in South Australia.

So I for one on this side of the house, will not be lectured by this Labor government because the member for Colton, the Premier and the member for Mawson were all there, and all they were going to do was cut people off. We need those freshwater flows. I was so pleased that, when I pushed for a freshwater recovery in our party room, the party room came my way and we pushed for a 50-gigalitre desal plant that would have been more than enough, seeing that now there has been a 100-gigalitre desal plant built there that is just a white elephant about to have another white elephant put next to it, namely, a diesel generator.

What has gone on is just disgusting, the threats and the things that this Labor government did to those people. Apart from the weir that was going to be built at Wellington, there were bunds built at Clayton, Currency Creek and Narrung, cutting off communities, splitting up the river and destroying those communities, getting into the hearts and minds of those communities. So, yes, we all need to be angry about the allegations of water theft in the northern basin. I have toured through the northern basin and I have toured through the southern basin, and I have seen what goes on up there. There is still plenty of room for improvement, but we just need to be—

An honourable member interjecting:

Mr PEDERICK: Yes. We all need to be proactive and push for a freshwater relief of the river and make sure that critical water needs, environmental needs and irrigating needs are met, but I will not be lectured to by a government that cut off our river communities and threatened to cut off the bottom of the river.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (16:40): Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for MacKillop has the floor.

The Hon. P. Caica interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Colton, the member for MacKillop has the floor. You have had a turn.

Mr WILLIAMS: Madam Deputy Speaker, the clock kept going for that half minute.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, if you do not start you will miss out altogether, won't you?

Mr WILLIAMS: It galls me to come here and learn that the Labor Party in South Australia do not want the river fixed. They do not want it fixed because it presents them with a political opportunity. When I heard the nonsense coming from the mouth of the member for Mawson (the Minister for Agriculture), who demonstrated that he knows nothing about the river, it was crystal clear to me that this government see this as a political opportunity, just as they did in 2006 when John Howard called together the premiers of the river states and put $10 billion on the table.

The Labor states made sure that nothing happened to the river until post the 2007 federal election because they saw a political opportunity. Labor has played politics with this nonstop. It galls me that this exercise here today has fallen down to base political opportunism, when the future of South Australia is at stake.

Is the basin plan flawed? If it is, it is the product of this state Labor government and a federal Labor government. Is it flawed? Was it sensible to leave the administration to the individual jurisdictions? We do not trust New South Wales, apparently, according to the Premier, yet he and his government, in cohort with a federal Labor government, built this plan, and this plan is what they put down and put through the various parliaments.

This is a Labor document; is it flawed? The Premier would have us believe that it is flawed. Maybe it is. One of the flaws that might be in this plan is that we do not have strong enough sanctions against people who steal from the taxpayers of Australia. I came into this place because of matters of water management, and I have a great deal of passion. When you have something like rainfall, which has such a huge value, and water flowing down our creeks and streams and into our aquifers, which have huge value, and we do not have regimes that mean that they can be protected properly, we have flaws. We have flaws in the systems, and it appears that we have a flaw in this system.

If I were writing the water plan for the Murray-Darling Basin and somebody with a water licence stole from the basin, the way I would write it they would lose their licence. They would not be fined, they would not be sanctioned, but they would lose their licence. I think theft from the basin would stop very quickly, but the Labor Party that drew up this plan did not go that far. Now they are arguing that it is the Coalition government in Canberra that is at fault. Give me a break. If the plan is flawed it is the Labor Party's fault, because they drew it up.

I do not know whether it is flawed or not, but if I am asked to vote in this place to support an amendment to the plan which sees that people who cheat lose their licence and lose any entitlements they have, I would vote for it. Even though their hands are somewhat tied by this plan because the administration remains with the states, I call on the federal government to have a judicial inquiry to get to the bottom of this. It is so important, not just to this state but to this nation. Let's stop playing politics and let's get fair dinkum and sort it out.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (16:45): I thank all members for their contribution, the burden of which is, at the very least, to support the sentiments in the motion if not the words. However, I cannot for the life of me understand why those opposite are seeking to promote an amendment. There is absolutely nothing offensive or political in the original proposition. It simply calls on the Prime Minister to protect the integrity of the plan, to commission an independent judicial inquiry, to put the river ahead of people who seek to profit from the river, and to comply with the legislative requirements to appoint independent experts.

It is a completely unexceptional and non-inflammatory proposition. It can only be the case that those who are seeking to amend it are seeking to play politics with it. I cannot for the life of me understand why the opposition would not offer full and bipartisan support for a resolution. It is strongly worded, but it is not inflammatory in any sense of the word.

Those opposite seem to be suggesting that this has been an act of political opportunism. We did not put Four Corners to air. We did not seek to flout the appointment process by putting some lobbyist on the independent expert panel, and we did not go to Shepparton and have a drink and get half tanked and actually give the game away about what our intentions were about evading the responsibilities of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. That was all the work of the Liberal Coalition. It was not the work of the Labor Party, and it certainly was not the work of the Labor Party in this state.

These circumstances have not been brought into existence by us. They have been brought into existence by those we are now charging with the responsibility for remedying the situation. If there is to be a criticism of the way in which we have constructed the plan—and it is not the plan but, in fact, its enforcement—I suppose we could be criticised for expecting people to comply with the law. We expected that people would obey the law.

I thought much of what the member for MacKillop promoted was absolute nonsense, but one thing he did say, which I think is worthy of consideration, was to think about a new and different regime of penalty for people who do actually engage in water theft. Perhaps it is time to consider the cancellation of water licences for people who engage in water theft. It is certainly something I may be prepared to promote nationally. It might be called the MacKillop amendment, or even the Mitch amendment.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: He is trading up for a Mazda; maybe he wants to get inside the Rolls-Royce.

Amendment negatived; motion carried.