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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-07-23 Daily Xml
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MURRAY-DARLING BASIN

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Treasurer, Minister for Industry and Trade, Minister for Federal/State Relations) (16:20): I move:

That this house strongly supports the new national approach for the management of the Murray-Darling Basin, including the establishment of an independent authority to develop a basin-wide plan to deal with over-allocation of water and to get more water back into the river for a healthier river system.

Mr PEDERICK: Mr Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

A quorum having been formed:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I move:

That the time for the debate be 30 minutes with two speeches in support and two speeches in opposition.

Motion carried.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I do not intend to speak for long. The Minister for Water Security will be the lead speaker on this, or the main contributor. First, I say that we understand that the questions that have been read into Hansard today are questions that have been provided to the opposition from The Advertiser. We will take all of those questions on board and we will respond directly to The Advertiser, as that is where the questions have come from, and we will undertake to do that as soon as we are able to.

I think I put the position very clearly before that this was a political stunt, but more substantively I say that this highlights the Leader of the Opposition's approach to policy; that is, that he will say one thing one day and another thing another day. From memory (and I stand to be corrected), in April last year, he called on state Labor governments to sign the Howard deal. If we recall, the Howard deal, from my memory, did not have an independent body.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Williams: You're watering it down.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: You're embarrassing yourself, because the Howard plan did not have an independent authority.

The Hon. M.D. Rann: You asked me to sign it without that.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: The Premier—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: That was not the original position of the prime minister, was it? Am I wrong?

The Hon. M.D. Rann: I changed Howard's view.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Exactly. The first Howard announcement did not have an independent authority because the Premier made that the issue; that he would not sign unless he got an independent authority.

Mr Williams interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Now he's changing his position. Now you're changing your position. The original Howard position was not to have an independent document. That was the whole debate, you Wally. You are a goose, you are a foolish goose.

Mr Williams: At least I have read the documentation.

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: So, are you suggesting that the first Howard proposal had an independent authority?

Mr Williams interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! This is not a healthy way for the debate to proceed.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Well, sir—

The SPEAKER: Order! The Speaker is on his feet. This is not a healthy way for the debate to proceed. The member for MacKillop and the Leader of the Opposition will both have an opportunity to participate in the debate, to make criticisms of anything that they disagree with that the Deputy Premier has said. That is the time to do it, in the course of their speech, not now. The Deputy Premier.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I will let the Minister for Water Security elaborate, but I am more than relaxed and confident from my memory. I stand to be corrected, but my recollection quite clearly was that the then prime minister, John Howard, did not in his first proposal to the states include—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: That is what I just said. I said that from the beginning, that his first proposal—

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: You tell so many lies it's not funny.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Mr Speaker, this is ridiculous.

The SPEAKER: It's all right—

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I apologise.

The SPEAKER: The Deputy Premier must withdraw. He has withdrawn. The Deputy Premier.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: But it's true.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Mr Speaker—

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: No, about the Howard Government.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: No, Mr Speaker, he has just defied your ruling. He said, 'I apologise, but it's true.' Now, come on.

The Hon. K.O. Foley interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order! The Deputy Premier—

The Hon. K.O. Foley interjecting:

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: There he goes again, Mr Speaker. Look, he is just making a mockery of your ruling, sir. He just repeated it.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the Opposition will take his seat. The Deputy Premier has withdrawn the remark, and I am satisfied with that. That is all I can make him do. The Deputy Premier.

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: I apologise and withdraw if I overused the word 'lie' when it relates to you. The fact of the matter is that the Howard proposal had no independent authority at all. The Premier fought for it. The Leader of the Opposition said, 'Sign it.' Now he is having a go at us for signing something that he told us a year ago that we should sign. It really simply matters what day it is and what is the best position that he can take at any given point in time.

The Leader of the Opposition has no policy substance, quite frankly because I do not think that he understands most of the policy that he has to deal with as Leader of the Opposition. His positions are so obscure and so all over the shop that he clearly has a limited capacity to understand policy depth. How this man could ever aspire to be the alternate premier is beyond me. But anyway—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Give me a break; the way you guys go on about me?

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Mr Bean over there.

Mr Pengilly: That's all right, you can call me what you want. It is nothing personal. Don't worry about it, get back to the issue, talk about what the major issue is. No water in South Australia; that's the issue.

The SPEAKER: Order!

Mr Pengilly interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Mr Speaker—

The Hon. J.D. Lomax-Smith interjecting:

The Hon. K.O. FOLEY: Yes, it's just extraordinary. That is true. The great tragedy in this is that we are going through the most significant drought that this state and this nation has ever seen. It has put enormous stress and pressure on it and we are acting in good faith to the best of our ability. But as I said from the outset, if the leader were serious about a debate today, he would not have simply read in questions from The Advertiser. He would have put some substance into it and he would have done it at 2 o'clock. This is a sham debate, but if he wants it, he has got it.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (16:28): I will try to stay to the substance of the argument during my 10-minute contribution and ignore the insults from—oh, he's gone—the Treasurer. A man who dropped out of school in year 9—

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD: I rise on a point of order. The leader's comments relating to the Treasurer's position were out of order.

The SPEAKER: Yes, it is a discourtesy to refer a member's absence from the chamber. It is not strictly disorderly, but it is a discourtesy. The Leader of the Opposition.

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: Thank you, Mr Speaker. The opposition will be opposing this motion because it is fundamentally flawed. The COAG agreement is a nonsense—a plain and patent nonsense. The opposition understands that the Murray-Darling Basin is in crisis from its most northern extremities to the Murray Mouth and that only national control and management of the river can save it. A rescue will require strong leadership from Prime Minister Rudd and both federal and state Labor governments. The vested interest of the states must be overruled. The states must relinquish and refer their constitutional powers in respect of the river to the commonwealth, or the commonwealth must acquire them by whatever means available. Prime minister Hawke did this with the Franklin River in Tasmania. Why can't Prime Minister Rudd?

The states will squabble over the river irrespective of which political party governs in respective states. Hello, breaking news! I am here to tell you that, even if we get a Liberal government in New South Wales, or a National Party government in Victoria, they will stick up for New South Wales and Victorian irrigators and food producers ahead of South Australians. They will bat for their own people. This is a constitutional crisis.

Successive state governments have ruined the river and they will continue to do so. That is why a national approach, comprised of the referral of powers or their acquisition, the establishment of a strong independent authority to take control of the river, and a national plan, are vital. Our national government must provide for critical human needs, the river environment and the sustainability of the system, and the needs of irrigators and river uses. The house will not need reminding that 93 per cent of the river's water is used upstream of the South Australian border. We can only lose from the status quo. There must be change.

The Treasurer's pathetic contribution a moment ago, which had no substance and nothing but personal vitriol and abuse, accusing people of being liars, and personal invective—the pattern of this government—did not address the substance of the issue and failed to grasp that the national water initiative put forward by prime minister Howard did provide for a strong independent authority; in fact, there was considerable debate about it. The minute he was sprung in his own ignorance of the issues, he went back to words such as, 'Oh, well, the Prime Minister's first utterances of the matter didn't have a strong, independent authority.' He got caught out again. He has not done his homework, and, frankly, where was the Premier? I challenged the Premier to a debate on Adelaidenow. He refused, and he has run away from this debate, having made his party agree to it. That is how keen he is on the River Murray.

The states will fight over the rain when it comes. It will be held in storages such as Menindee, Lake Victoria and the Hume weir, and it will not be released to South Australians. The government's defence of, 'Well, we can't make it rain' will be exposed when it does rain, because this problem will not go away. There are diversions all the way up the river, as we heard a moment ago from the member for Hammond. This is a crisis of the federation. Labor's corporate federalism will not solve it. A new set of governance arrangements and a new plan are needed. Once set, there can be no going back.

In January 2007, the Howard Liberal government announced a national plan for water security to save the Murray-Darling. In March 2008, the Water Act 2007 was enacted. The act provided for the referral of state powers to the commonwealth and the establishment of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the very thing that the Treasurer a moment ago did not even realise was in the Howard plan. On the condition that the states—

The Hon. K.A. Maywald interjecting:

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: The Minister for Water Security will get her go in a minute. She came in here a few days ago and tabled 2,300 signatures complaining about her own health plan—that is how good she is. On the condition that the states gave up their powers, Howard said the commonwealth would act decisively. The Howard plan provided $10 billion. And, do you know what he did? The brilliance of that plan was this: he not only got every opposition and every Labor government around the country to agree, except Victoria. He harnessed the nation behind that plan but for Victoria. That was quite an achievement. Although an agreement was never signed by state premiers, except for Victoria they all agreed to sign up, even our Premier. The Liberal opposition criticised Premier Rann at the time for not doing enough to ensure that the Victorian Premier signed. Had he done so, there would now be rescue plans for the Murray in place and under way. There would now be a strong authority.

What is wrong with the MOU and the current COAG agreement signed by this government, for which this motion seeks our support? COAG meetings were held on 20 December 2007, 13 April 2007, 26 March 2008 and 3 July 2008. Water was put on the agenda only on the eve of the March 2008 meeting after intense public pressure and pressure from this side of the house—the state Liberals. In March 2008, COAG signed the Memorandum of Understanding on the Murray-Darling, which made significant changes to the Howard plan. In July 2008, the MOU became this COAG intergovernmental agreement. Labor's July COAG agreement weakens the Howard government proposal in several significant ways. Let me run through them. The states will no longer be required to refer their powers to the commonwealth. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority has been weakened as a result of the powers retained by the states through a ministerial council. This is the ignorance demonstrated by the Treasurer. He does not even realise that the Water Act passed by the previous Howard government established the very authority he said did not even exist. He has not even read up on the matter. He does not understand—

The Hon. K.A. Maywald interjecting:

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH: It did; it's a fact. The implementation of a national plan to manage the Murray was deferred in this COAG agreement until 2011, after respective state and federal elections. State water plans remain in place, in Victoria's case until 2019. COAG's agreement is not enforceable. There are stacks of problems with it, and I mentioned some of them earlier during grieves. Four things must be done. I can tell the house today that the state Liberals have posted their plan for the Murray-Darling Basin today, and I recommend that members opposite read it.

We need to tear up this agreement and start again. We need to ensure that the constitutional powers needed to take control are referred to the commonwealth. We need an independent authority then to use those powers to govern in the best interests of all; if states need to be overruled—whether they be Labor or Liberal governments, it does not matter—so be it. The state government needs to get on with stormwater, wastewater and desalination. I can tell you that no Victorian, Queensland or New South Wales politician of any political party will put us ahead of their own constituents. It must be done, and it needs to be done.

Earlier I read into Hansard questions from The Advertiser's Adelaidenow readers, such as that from Marilyn Williams of South Australia who asked when work will begin on the second ferry at Mannum. My colleagues have done the same. The fact is that these questions deserve answers.

The Murray is in crisis. This COAG agreement, however the Labor Party attempts to dress it up, is a status quo agreement. It is an agreement to disagree. It is an agreement for every state to do its own thing. It takes away the strong constitutional powers that will be needed to solve this crisis, and it leaves us, at the end of the river, with nowhere to go.

I urge this government: go back to the drawing board and start again—and this time get it right. You will be damned if you do not, because Riverland food producers (and they are the Minister for Water Security's constituents) deserve better.

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD (Chaffey—Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water Security, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Small Business, Minister Assisting the Minister for Industry and Trade) (16:39): I make quite clear that I am absolutely appalled by the closing statement made by the Leader of the Opposition in that he is now asking us to scrap the progress that has been made on the national plan in favour of another 100 years of negotiations. This has been debated for 100 years: it was the main issue of debate at Federation.

We have made substantial progress in getting a national approach to the management of the River Murray and the Murray-Darling Basin, but all the opposition wants to do is scrap it and go back to the drawing board. How much longer do you think the River Murray has? It does not have the time to put aside the progress we have made, wait, go back and renegotiate for another 100 years.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD: We simply do not have that time, and it is a nonsensical position for the opposition to take. The COAG agreement that was signed on 3 July was an historic agreement in that it actually brought together for the first time a truly national approach to the management of the Murray-Darling Basin system. It establishes for the first time an independent authority to manage the basin and a basin-wide plan that will set new caps on surface water and groundwater.

This plan will be developed by an independent authority with one minister responsible for the implementation of that plan—that is, the federal minister. I will compare that with what the Howard government proposed in January 2007. First, I need to say that I commend Malcolm Turnbull for the work he undertook to convince Howard that we needed to move on this issue. We needed leadership at the national level to deal with the Murray-Darling Basin issues; before that, we had no leadership federally in relation to this matter. The states' squabbling has resulted in the situation we face right now.

Malcolm Turnbull was the start of the process. Penny Wong is the conclusion to the process. We now have a truly national approach. I will correct what the leader said in regard to the Howard/Turnbull proposition. The National Plan for Water Security of 25 January 2007 states:

We propose to reconstitute the Murray-Darling Basin Commission as a Commonwealth Government agency, reporting to a single minister.

That was the new governance that was being proposed. We refused, quite rightly, to sign up to that. We hung out and said, 'We will not sign up to this unless there is an independent authority.' We made quite clear that we would not stand by and allow this issue to go from one set of politicians, with communities with a vested interest, to another bunch of politicians, with communities with a vested interest. We demanded an independent authority to manage the Murray-Darling Basin.

Our Premier went to Queensland and got its support. He went to New South Wales and got its support. He then went to Turnbull and got him to support it as well. Brumby supported an independent authority. Victoria has supported an independent authority. That was driven by this state. This state has achieved that, and it is absolutely substantial.

I can assure you that, when we were being called to sign up, and we were holding back, there was no agreement on the independent authority. I can assure you that, when those opposite were making their statements that we should just sign away South Australia to the whim of politicians at the federal level (which, I might add, has more politicians from Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria than from South Australia), you were sorely mistaken. We could not sell out South Australia, and we did not sell out South Australia.

What we have achieved is substantial reform. The alternative was to do nothing. The COAG agreement we have achieved provides for that independent authority to be established. I announce today that the acting chair and CEO of that authority until new legislation is introduced is Mr Robert Freeman. He is currently the Chief Executive of the Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation. Originally, he comes from Queensland, and he has a great depth of knowledge of the Murray-Darling Basin and, in particular, of the issues facing South Australia. This is an exceptional and excellent appointment.

I can also say that, had we a coalition government in place now, we would not have a South Australian minister for water. I can assure you of that, and I can also assure you that we would still be fighting the interests of Victoria and New South Wales in this regard. We now have a South Australian federal minister. We have driven home a negotiated position that gives us an independent authority and a new way forward in relation to the national management of the Murray-Darling Basin that we would never have had under the previous government.

The previous government negotiated. It negotiated with Victoria on a bilateral basis, and I will tell members what it agreed to during that process. It agreed to allow the Victorian plans to continue through to 2019. Malcolm Turnbull ticked off on that. He said to Victoria, 'Yes, we will agree to that. Your statewide shares can stay in place.' But guess what? Statewide shares do not mean volume of water; they mean share of available water. So, when the new plan comes into place and it is determined how much is sustainable to take out of the river, each state will have a share of that sustainable yield according to the existing sharing arrangements. It is not the same amount of water: it is a share of the available resource. It also includes for the first time groundwater.

The intergovernmental agreement also provides for the very first time critical human needs to be set aside as a priority. Critical human needs will be included in the basin-wide plan as a priority for supply. South Australia also achieved access to the storages of Hume and Dartmouth not only for critical human needs but also for private diversion carryover. That is a substantial step forward. Yes, there is a provision in there that says if the dams start to spill then the first water that would be spilling would be South Australia's. I can assure members that I would love to be in that position. Give me a spill any day. If it is spilling we do not have a problem here in South Australia.

We also have the opportunity to re-regulate that water into Lake Victoria where we can and also into the Mount Lofty Ranges. That is why it is crucial that, as part of our securing Adelaide's water supply for the future, we will be expanding the capacity in the Adelaide Hills, so we can have more flexibility in the management of our water.

I can assure members that this is what this government is about. It is about action now for the future. That is exactly what we are doing. We are not playing the blame game. We are not sitting here as a government and saying, 'Let's go back 20 years and try and say that they did it wrong.' We are looking at what is happening now and what we can do now and for the future. We have a four-way strategy for water security that includes desalination: a $1.1 billion desalination plant, interconnecting the pipelines between the north and the south of the system.

We are investing in stormwater reuse. We are investing in effluent treatment and reuse. We are leading the nation in these areas. We have established the stormwater authority, which will bring in local government, which has the responsibility for stormwater management, to work in partnership with the state government to ensure that we can fast-track and utilise stormwater where it is practically possible. We are working cooperatively in partnership with the federal government, the state government, local government and our communities to achieve that. That is what this state needs in this crisis.

We are in the most severe drought this nation has ever seen in recorded history. It deserves a bipartisan approach and that the opposition get together and work for our communities instead of against our communities. I believe it is an absolute disgrace that this parliament is used for crass political point scoring rather than undertaking the necessary work to ensure that we have an appropriate approach and a national approach.

Mr PEDERICK: Sir, I rise on a point of order. I note the time, and I believe our member has the five minutes that are left.

The SPEAKER: It is about 4½ minutes, I am told. But the minister should wind up.

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD: In conclusion, I would like to say that it is an absolute disgrace that this opposition would now be calling for the scrapping of the progress that has been made for a national approach to the River Murray. It is an absolute disgrace that they would send us back to 100 years of negotiations. The river does not have that time, they do not have that time and it is an absolute disgrace that they would even think that that is something this community deserves.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (16:48): I learnt from the Treasurer today what the problem is. The Treasurer said: 'This government is acting in good faith to the best of our abilities.' Hear, hear—and therein lies the problem: 'the best of our abilities'. In answer to what we have just heard from the minister, when she tried to suggest that we are going forward, if one reads the document that our Premier signed off on a couple of weeks ago, one will see that at page 41, appendix A it talks about the changes that will need to be made to the federal legislation. This legislation, the Water Act (and I invite all the backbenchers in the government to read this), which was passed by the Howard government, which is current law—

The Hon. K.A. Maywald interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: You had your chance. Point D, which occurs for the first time on page 41, states: 'There will be amending provisions relating to the development of the basin plan to provide for review by basin state ministers.' I might be a bit thick, but that says to me that we have got the politicians with their dirty, stinking fingers in it again, and we all know that South Australia will be the loser. So, when the minister said that we are going forward, actually, we are going backward.

Unfortunately, we have missed the one opportunity that we have had in over 100 years, when we have had the coming together of a number of factors. We have had a very severe drought; everyone understands that. We have the political will to do something positive about it, and we have $10 billion plus of federal funding, and yet our Premier and our water minister failed to take advantage of those three factors and obtain an agreement that would benefit South Australia. That is the problem we have, because they worked to the best of their ability and unfortunately, to be quite honest, their abilities are just not good enough.

I mentioned to the house a few minutes ago the sorts of things that have happened. They rolled over to John Brumby, and we see a new clause in the new agreement to say, 'Whoops, if the due diligence finds us out'—when Mike Young says that the Victorians are going to take 200 gigalitres of water out and put only 100 back, when we are found out by the due diligence, there is a new clause that says: 'What do we do? Oh, we go back and renegotiate.'

I will bet London to a brick that the Victorians will get their billion dollars and less water will flow down the river as a consequence. And the minister knows that, because she has been on radio expressing concern. She knows that what Mike Young has been saying about the Victorian plans is right. However, she is quite happy to stand up and suggest that we are playing politics. Minister, you have got this very wrong.

Can I give the minister some groundbreaking news—because I have heard her many times say, 'We can't make it rain.' Groundbreaking news, minister: in Queensland it rained once, twice, thrice. There were floodwaters in Queensland. How much of it came down the Darling? Not a drop. We are sitting down here waiting for a trigger to be achieved for 640 gigalitres in the Menindee Lakes. Do members know what? The Menindee Lakes, the two lakes that are being operated, will not even hold 640 gigalitres at surcharge. That is a fact. None of that water will ever come to South Australia. This is why we believe we need strong federal intervention to get the states together, to bang their heads together and to take over the management.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

The house divided on the motion:

AYES (21)

Atkinson, M.J. Bedford, F.E. Bignell, L.W.
Breuer, L.R. Caica, P. Foley, K.O. (teller)
Fox, C.C. Geraghty, R.K. Key, S.W.
Lomax-Smith, J.D. Maywald, K.A. McEwen, R.J.
O'Brien, M.F. Piccolo, T. Rankine, J.M.
Rann, M.D. Simmons, L.A. Stevens, L.
Thompson, M.G. White, P.L. Wright, M.J.

NOES (9)

Goldsworthy, M.R. Griffiths, S.P. Gunn, G.M.
Hamilton-Smith, M.L.J. Pederick, A.S. Penfold, E.M.
Pengilly, M. Redmond, I.M. Williams, M.R. (teller)

PAIRS (12)

Weatherill, J.W. Kerin, R.G.
Conlon, P.F. Evans, I.F.
Hill, J.D. Pisoni, D.G.
Kenyon, T.R. Venning, I.H.
Rau, J.R. McFetridge, D.
Ciccarello, V. Chapman, V.A.


Majority of 12 for the ayes.

Motion thus carried.


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