Murray-Darling Basin Plan

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Climate Change) (14:24): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement on the subject of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Leave granted.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: The River Murray is critical to our state's future. We rely on it for our drinking water and it is the backbone of our agricultural and industrial sectors. What we have learned from the millennium drought is that we need to develop a comprehensive plan to ensure the River Murray has a healthy and sustainable future.

We need a plan for the River Murray because we know that from 2001 to 2009 South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales faced the most severe drought ever recorded. As record low inflows into the Murray piled up year after year, we saw our dam capacity in capital cities plummet. Across the Murray-Darling Basin, reservoirs were down to an extremely dangerous 8 per cent of active capacity by April 2007.

For farmers, the drought was an unimaginable disaster. Despite more than $4.5 billion in drought relief funding, plus additional loans, we saw almost 6,000 jobs lost to the Murray region and a huge reduction in agricultural output right across the basin. During the peak of the drought in South Australia we saw water flow down the river reduce from an average of 5,400 gigalitres in a good year to just 960 gigalitres by 2007-08.

I know, with the current conditions we are experiencing following severe rains and storms, that it can be difficult to remember how dire the circumstances were just a few years ago. At the time, Adelaide residents were placed on level 3 water restrictions, which included banning the use of sprinklers and concerns that we might be forced to use bottled water for drinking purposes.

The Murray Mouth faced the very real prospect of drying up, even with significant dredging efforts—dredging efforts that continue to this day. The Coorong struggled for survival due to the extreme level of salinity, and we saw Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert reach their lowest points in a thousand years, with Lake Alexandrina falling to an incredible 1.1 metres below sea level. South Australian irrigators started 2007-08 and 2008-09 with just 2 per cent of their normal water allocation, the lowest on record.

That is the backdrop on why the South Australian community, led by the state government, fought every step of the way for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan to ensure the health of the river was restored. We knew what the science said. The science told us it was essential to return 3,200 gigalitres to the Murray, that we needed this water to prevent the River Murray from drying from the mouth up. While the Liberal Party was telling us we could not achieve it, we managed to strike a national agreement to deliver all 3,200 gigalitres.

That is why we were worried when the Prime Minister appointed Barnaby Joyce as the federal Minister for Water, someone who has consistently ignored South Australia and the lower regions of the Murray. We sought, and received, assurances from the Prime Minister that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan agreement would not be destabilised by Mr Joyce. Now we know the truth: Mr Joyce wants to raid $1.77 billion that was allocated to enable recovery of a vital 450 gigalitres for the River Murray's long-term health.

This would be a disaster for South Australia. Communities in the Riverland will be put at risk so that cotton and rice growers upstream can take more than their fair share of water. Our irrigators and communities need the plan delivered as promised, on time and in full. That means 3,200 gigalitres of water, as outlined in the Water Act 2007, Basin Plan 2012. We cannot have a federal government, that should be leading delivery of this plan, joining with upstream Eastern States to dud us on our agreement.

I recently wrote to the Deputy Prime Minister and Senator Anne Ruston to make clear my apologies for the strong language I used at the ministerial dinner and any offence that may have been caused to them or their staff in attendance.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER: However, in my letter I also made it incredibly clear that I, and indeed South Australians, will not accept any reduction in water flows to the Murray. After 100 years of our state being dudded by the Eastern States, we are not going to let the MDBP fall apart because of Barnaby Joyce.

South Australia is doing its fair share of the hard work to identify what needs to be done to return the 3,200 gigalitres of water to the river system. South Australia takes just 7 per cent of the surface water from the Murray, while upstream states take 93 per cent. At the same time, we lead the country, and are on track to meet our basin plan targets to return around 180 gigalitres of water to the river—as we promised—on time and in full.

We want the other states to also keep to their commitment, and we want the commonwealth to keep its promises. It is not good enough that the other states want to renege on a plan they all agreed on just because they say that returning water to the system is too hard. The plan can only be implemented if we have a prime minister who is prepared to take responsibility for his government's implementation of this critically important plan for our state's future. We can no longer trust minister Barnaby Joyce to be in control of water in this country.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The minister has the floor.