Murray-Darling Basin Plan

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (15:31): There is no matter of greater interest to our state, I think, than the future of the River Murray. It is the lifeblood of our state. It provides our drinking water, it supports our irrigated agriculture, it supports our environment and ecosystems, it creates opportunities for recreation and tourism and it is vital to our state's future. Because it is so crucial to South Australia, it is no surprise that the state at the end of the river system will fight for our fair share of water.

South Australians know that fight extremely well. We have survived more than a century of squabbles and struggles, fighting over water supplies, excessive consumption upstream and critical choke points which stop water from coming down the river system, choke points that have been put in place in some places artificially by regulation or otherwise by structures or natural river systems.

That is why, of course, the Labor government, after a century of struggle, came to a point where we had to accept a national agreement on the river, underpinned by the best available science, to restore the health of the Murray-Darling Basin and, importantly, to restore the environment of the Murray-Darling system. Those opposite, when they were in opposition, criticised us for holding firm and demanding the full 3,200 gigalitres of water that scientists told us was the bare minimum—the bare minimum—to protect the river, but our Labor government, led by Jay Weatherill, never backed down. In 2013, the former Premier, Mr Weatherill, informed the other place that:

The federal government committed to and passed legislation that established a $1.77 billion fund to recover an additional 450 gigalitres of environmental water for the basin and to address constraints that impede water delivery. Added to that is an extra couple of hundred million dollars for industry adjustment here in South Australia, so over $2 billion of resources have been made available to secure the health of the river and ensure that the benefits are shared in South Australia but that the burdens are not unfairly falling on South Australia. That is the measure of the success of this campaign, if you want to reduce it to dollar terms.

That is why when there were allegations on the ABC of systemic rorting, corruption and capitulation, we established the royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

I do not have the time in the brief matters of interest to go through the full litany of failures, the illegal and moral incompetent decisions that commissioner Bret Walker SC found, so I am just going to pick up on a couple. The commissioner found the MDBA had shown itself to be unwilling or incapable of delivering its own legislation, the Water Act, and the Murray-Darling Basin Plan; that the MDBA's decision to reject CSIRO science advice and not consider the recent climate of the past 10 to 20 years and climate change projections of the future amounts to negligence and maladministration; and that deferring to a later date or asserting that climate change risk is shared between the environment and licence holders by yearly allocations based on water availability is nonsensical policy as well as being unlawful.

I never expected the Eastern States or a federal Liberal/National government to fight for South Australia's interests. They never have. But never in our darkest days would I or any other South Australian think that a South Australian state government, elected by South Australians, would so disgracefully and inexcusably capitulate against the interests of every single person who calls our state home.

The harshest words from the entire report were reserved for the member for Black in the other place, Mr David Speirs. The commissioner stated:

The South Australian Government's agreement to changes to the socio-economic criteria for efficiency measures should not merely be described as ill-advised. It is nothing short of a 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 clause 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 Australians and the South Australian environment.

The enhanced environmental outcomes set out in schedule 5 of the plan, that is the 450 gigalitres of water, must be delivered back to the system. That is the position our former state government took and that we thought the current state government would stand for but has not.

How can this happen when a government, led by this Premier and minister Speirs, has allowed the Eastern States to replace the original schedule 5 criteria that allowed willing sellers to sell their water back to the commonwealth with this new atrocious socio-economic test which will guarantee not one drop of water will come down the river over the border into South Australia. I noted last night that the Premier said this is about compulsory water buybacks. It never was. It is about willing sellers, and this government has sold it out.

The Hon. J.M.A. Lensink interjecting:

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Hon. T.T. Ngo): Order!

Time expired.