Lower Darling Water Release

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:31): I rise today with concern, after listening to the Deputy Premier's answers to questions that I posed to her today about the 50 gigalitres of water—environmental flush it is being called—coming out of the Lower Darling, out of the Darling (Baaka) River, that will flow into the River Murray through the 500 kilometres of the South Australian reach of the river, without a real answer from the Deputy Premier. I am gobsmacked that she made light of my asking these questions, saying that I sounded upset. Well, yes, I am upset. My river communities have been put in a trial while this minister, an inept minister when it comes to the River Murray, is giving this diatribe of an answer. I gave her four opportunities to give credence around the water that is coming into South Australia.

Now the 50 gigalitres of black water, infested with blue-green algae, is headed South Australia's way, and by all calculations it should be at the border around about now. We have to remember that the current allocation of water coming into South Australia is between three and five gigalitres of water. There is an environmental component as part of that, but what are the impacts that it is going to have on South Australians?

I did notice that every government member laughed when the Deputy Premier made some snide remark, but I can assure you that every person in this chamber is going to drink some of that water that is coming down the river. It will go through a treatment plant, yes, but what is the risk to South Australian river communities? What is the risk to the irrigation communities? What is the risk to livestock? What is the risk to the off-target impacts, whether it be birds or native animals? We just don't know and yet we had a Deputy Premier making light of an issue that is of paramount importance. There is a reason that she has a water commissioner, there is a reason that she cannot answer a straight question because she is just so out of her depth when it comes to the reality of what the River Murray is.

The River Murray is complex. The River Murray has lots of facets, lots of issues and lots of management tools that we need to better understand. Today we learned that the New South Wales Water Minister Jackson has made a release. She gave health warnings in relation to both humans and animals. She gave health warnings to the river communities in connection with the water, the stench, the black water, the component of blue-green algae and all the risks that come with this 50 gigalitres.

The minister then went on to say that they would look at some dilution flow. Well, minister, when you signed off on that agreement, you did not look at what it meant. The dilution flow, the fresh flow that is coming in after the 50-gigalitre release, is going to be kept by the New South Wales government. It is going to be put into the Menindee Lakes. It is going to be there to keep the Menindee Lakes topped up with fresh water while they release a 50-gigalitre slug of sludge, coming down the river headed our way.

I must say that we will see off-target impacts, we will see depleted oxygen levels, we will see fish potentially at risk; and that blackwater, that blue-green algae, tends to clog up the gills of fish. They cannot breathe, they die, they float upside down, and it becomes a news story. Yet the Deputy Premier today has again made light of this. I would say that the minister has capitulated to New South Wales. New South Wales had an agreement with South Australia—that is fine. But the South Australian minister for the River Murray has not put safeguards in place—not a word to a river community about the risks that will be posed to the communities including the irrigation community, the livestock producers, the tourists who come to our towns and create an economy; not a word. Nothing has been put in to the press, nothing has been put out there to make people aware that she has okayed a management tool, and it just beggars belief.

Is it any wonder that New South Wales has said that they appreciate the support of South Australia? But the New South Wales government also said that, 'It is not guaranteed that the flush will work as there is no silver bullet in dealing with an event of this size'. Yet the South Australian water minister, the minister for the River Murray, has put every river community at risk and to make light of that today is just gobsmackingly outrageous.

I say to the media outlets that we all love the River Murray, no-one more than I do, but I must say that the minister for the River Murray is good at using the River Murray as a political tool. She walks out of here today giggling and laughing, making light of an issue that is of paramount importance to every South Australian.