Minister for Environment and Water

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (15:36): It is often said that we live in the driest state in the driest inhabited continent, and as a result the fundamental importance of the River Murray cannot be underestimated. It is literally our lifeblood.

I am somebody from a regional community that is almost entirely dependent upon the River Murray—something that often does not get a mention. The river to those regional communities that are not primary-industry based but industrially based is just so fundamental to our way of life and our economic wellbeing. I get up in the morning when I am in Whyalla and have the benefit of drinking a glass of water that has come the whole 379 kilometres from the River Murray.

Not only does Whyalla depends upon the River Murray; so does Port Augusta, so does Port Pirie, so does a whole series of smaller communities. Indeed, to a lesser degree even Eyre Peninsula, as a result of an extension of the pipeline from Iron Knob to Kimba, now has some dependence on the River Murray, so I cannot underestimate its incredible importance.

We heard the Premier refer to T.S. Eliot and The Hollow Men. Well, the name of another T.S. Eliot poem comes to mind, and it is the title that is relevant: The Waste Land.

The Hon. J.A.W. Gardner: You've been reading Tom Richardson's tweets.

Mr HUGHES: I don't read Tom Richardson. The Waste Land comes to mind because, if you do not secure adequate environmental flows, that is what we are going to end up with in parts of our state, and especially in some of the more vulnerable areas dependent upon the river, such as that magnificent environment down at the Coorong and around the mouth of the river. It is incredibly important that we secure those environmental flows.

I know that people have said that they saw the naive minister coming, that Victoria and New South Wales were in a position to get an agreement that will not be to the long-term benefit of our state. Despite all the words said on the other side, as a result of what has been signed up to there is absolutely nothing that is going to guarantee any additional environmental flow here in South Australia.

It has not been the Labor Party, it has not been the opposition, that has made the attack on the minister: it has been the words of the royal commission. It has been said, 'Well, these are just seven sentences.' Seven sentences—a mere flesh wound for the member for Black, who reminds me of the black knight in that great movie the search for the Holy Grail. The black knight is down on his knees because he has already been chopped off below the legs, the arms have gone and there he was. The black knight wanted to fight on, saying, 'It's only a flesh wound.' Well, that is what the minister has got: he has a flesh wound.

He is seriously the black knight of this parliament. That flesh wound was not given by the state opposition: it was courtesy of a royal commission. It is probably worth repeating yet again, even though the member for Kaurna has repeated these words, the words of the royal commission:

The South Australian Government's agreement to the changes to the socio-economic criteria for efficiency measures should not merely be described as ill-advised. It is nothing short of capitulation to the interests of the current Commonwealth Government, and those of Victoria and New South Wales. It is so contrary to the interests of South Australians that the decision by the Minister responsible is almost certainly a breach of at least cl 2.5 of the South Australian Ministerial Code of Conduct in that no Minister acting reasonably could consider these changes to the criteria to be anything but totally antipathetic to the interests of South Australia, and the South Australian environment. South Australia's agreement to these changes should be immediately reversed.

Once again, these are not our words but the words of the royal commissioner. This minister has sold out regional South Australia and South Australia as a whole.

The words from David Papps were just as interesting when he mentioned that we had been set up by the other states. He called that in relation to the minister. He said the minister was the 'absolute definition of a turkey voting for Christmas'. I am not calling the minister a turkey because that would be unparliamentary language. I would not dream of doing that, but David Papps is, and David Papps is somebody who knows a lot about water, given his previous role as the commonwealth environmental water holder.