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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2008-10-15 Daily Xml
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MURRAY-DARLING BASIN BILL

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 23 September 2008. Page 119.)

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (22:06): I am not the lead speaker on this bill. I rise briefly to speak to this bill. I note that in the title it says:

An act to facilitate the operation of an agreement entered into between the commonwealth, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory to promote and coordinate effective planning and management for the equitable, efficient and sustainable use of the water and other natural resources of the Murray-Darling Basin; to make related amendments...

I really hope that in the future we can get this right because obviously it has not been right for probably 150 years. I think the biggest issue (in my mind, anyway) is the fact that we manage only half of the basin. We do not manage above Menindee Lakes, and I think that is where the process is really flawed. I think that we should have proper management of inflows. We have seen the almost unrestricted building of diversions and the building of storages in the eastern states (in southern Queensland and in northern New South Wales). The New South Wales government has actually documented illegal diversions in the Macquarie Marshes, and it looked as though it was going to rubber stamp diversions until recently, and then enforce its legislation.

We have not got it right for a long time. Too many deals have been done, caps have not been related to properly, and there has been an almost unrestricted free for all, especially in the northern basin. Then we see other states flex their muscles and, for whatever reason, they seem to—in times of drought and tough times, as we are in at the minute—get higher water allocations. People can argue that it is only for a certain amount of water, but it is still hundreds of gigalitres of high security water being allocated at rates of around 80 per cent and 95 per cent in areas throughout the basin when South Australia at the moment, until today, was struggling along at 11 per cent (now 15 per cent).

I think that, if there was more equity in the whole system, we would not have seen the need for the state government to go ahead with its rushed plan to aid irrigators to keep their permanent plantings alive. If this government had the temerity and had the brazenness of the Bracks and now the Brumby government and had put forward the rights of this state, I think we would have had better outcomes in achieving water to keep not only permanent plantings but also to keep our horticulture and our dairies and, at the bottom end of the river, the lakes, in a situation so that they would not be in the drastic state that they are in now. This legislation and the legislation that we have just passed is certainly historic legislation.

I hope that the new Murray-Darling Basin Authority, when it comes into play, does manage the basin well because things just have not happened for us until now. We certainly support the bill, as it is essentially the framework for the operation of the referral of powers (which we have just debated). I note that several other bills, including the groundwater control act and the Natural Resources Management Act—and others—will be amended. I commend the bill to the house. We support the bill, but let us get it right, not only for South Australia but also for the country.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (22:10): I intended to say that I hope we can pass this legislation with the speed of a parliamentarian's pay rise.

Members interjecting:

Mr WILLIAMS: No; there has not been one for a while. We will not be here for long. This bill is consequential to the bill we have debated over the past couple of days. It is a piece of machinery to recognise what is in the other bill and machinery to allow us to continue to work into the future under the new governance regime. The transfer of the operations from the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority—the authority which will now be responsible to the federal minister rather than the ministerial council—will make the Murray-Darling Basin Act 1993 redundant. Some of the functions under that act will need to remain as functions under the state minister, and this bill enables that to occur and amends a number of other state acts to recognise the changed governance arrangements of the Murray-Darling Basin.

The bill repeals the Murray-Darling Basin Act 1993 and transfers the necessary powers which need to be retained from that act into the new act—which will be a consequence of this bill. It will give the state minister the power to appoint a person as a member of the Basin Officials Committee—a committee established under the commonwealth act. It empowers the state minister to act on behalf of the state as a contract in government under the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement. It authorises the construction, maintenance and operation of works within the state. It authorises the minister to acquire and dispose of land, to pay compensation and to act as a constructing authority. Authorisation is also given to enter and occupy land for the purpose of this act or the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement.

It exempts any works or land held by the contracting government from taxes and charges, and obligates the minister to table each annual report of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority within 15 sitting days after the report is received—which reminds me of one of the complaints I had in relation to the commonwealth act, where there are obligations to report but there is no annual reporting obligation or an obligation to table the report. Also, it empowers the minister to delegate their authority and it creates an offence for a person without lawful excuse destroying or damaging any works constructed under the act or agreement. Obviously, it makes a number of consequential amendments to the Development Act 1993, the Ground Water (Qualco-Sunlands) Control Act 2000, the Natural Resources Management Act 2004, the River Murray Act 2003 and the Waterworks Act 1932.

I point out that this is a consequential bill which provides the machinery to fulfil what is provided for in the bill we debated earlier. I follow-up what the member for Hammond said previously. As this act will give the minister the powers and the authority to continue to operate the structures on the river, I want to state, again, our opposition to the construction of a new weir at Wellington (or thereabouts) and the subsequent flooding of the Lower Lakes with sea water. The member for Hammond made a point about the lack of control of the waters above Menindee Lakes under the current regime. I certainly hope that the new plan will address that.

One of the reasons why we have a problem in South Australia and why our irrigators are still on 15 per cent and the irrigators in the Lower Darling are on 100 per cent and the irrigators in New South Wales, the Murrumbidgee, the Murray Valley and the upstream reaches in New South Wales are on 95 per cent of their allocation is the lack of flows into the Darling and into South Australia. The old timers to whom I have talked up and down the river have been telling me that they believe, historically, about 20 per cent of the water that flows into South Australia came through the Darling.

We know that the flows of the Darling were quite irregular. The flows of the Murray and its tributaries are somewhat more regular, but, from time to time, we have droughts. The reality is that, historically, quite often when we had a drought in the southern basin there were still flows in the northern basin, and obviously vice versa. At the moment, we have this very calendar year seen circumstances where we have had extremely low flows now for a number of years in the southern part of the basin, in the Murray system and its tributaries, other than the Darling, and that has given us very low flows into South Australia and the subsequent degradation in the Lower Lakes.

When we had floods in Queensland, the reality that none or very little of that flood water reached below Menindee Lakes, and what did come below went into Lake Victoria—and there are some interesting questions about that—is one of the reasons why we have no water for the Lower Lakes. Under normal circumstances, in previous times, a substantial amount of that water would have come down the Darling, past both Menindee Lakes and Lake Victoria, flowed on down through South Australia and ended up in the Lower Lakes. That is why the Lower Lakes are in a situation now that they have certainly never been in the history of European settlement of this state. We do need to get it right, as the member for Hammond said, regarding the Darling. We do need it to be operated as one.

In informing the house that the opposition also supports this piece of legislation, I implore the minister to do whatever she and her government can, because I note that the federal legislation (which we have just passed) does oblige the new authority particularly to look after (and names) Ramsar sites, which the Lower Lakes and Coorong are. The pity is that there is still some confusion as to whether that obligation extends to this current circumstance.

It is a pity if it does not, because it would be a great pity if we lost the environment in and around those Lower Lakes from not having the capacity to have enough water to guarantee them for three, four or five years hence. Certainly, at one of the public meetings which I attended recently at Meningie, the minister's departmental officer said that, in his opinion, if the Lower Lakes were flooded with sea water, they would probably be irrecoverable. That would be a great pity. The opposition supports the matter before the house, and I indicate that we will not need to go into committee.

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD (Chaffey—Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water Security) (22:19): I do thank very much the opposition for its support for this legislation which is consequential to the previous bill. The member mentioned the Wellington weir. For the record, it is important that I do make some comments about the weir. The South Australian government does not support the construction of a weir near Wellington. We have actually never wanted to build a weir at Wellington, but it is part of the contingency planning we have had to undertake as a consequence of this continuing extreme drought and the low inflows that continue throughout the River Murray and the basin in general.

I would like to put this on the record, because there were a number of contributions in the previous debate in regard to the Wellington weir and there was an extraordinary rewriting of history. I will quote from the transcript of the press conference following the meeting in November 2006 that the member for MacKillop referred to. Premier Rann is quoted as saying:

On the other issues that have been discussed, of course we in South Australia will immediately proceed to start planning work on a weir at Wellington, a weir that we hope will never have to be used but one that we believe it is imperative to start work on.

There is also the statement that was made in the house on Tuesday 14 November 2006 by the Premier when he made reference to the weir again. His words in the ministerial statement to this house were:

A weir is not something that this government wants to build and we hope we will never have to build it but, if it is required, the planning and preparation will have to have been completed in order to guarantee water supply to Adelaide, the Riverland and the vast majority of South Australians who depend on the River Murray for their water.

They were the statements made by the Premier following those meetings. The spin and the confusion have come from the opposition, not from the statements that have been made—

Mr Williams interjecting:

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD: I just did. I just quoted from the transcript, and I encourage you to read it, also. There has been a lot of spin and a lot of rewriting of history in regard to the Wellington weir.

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD: No, I have the transcript here and I think that tells us your memory is not as good as you think it is.

The other thing that is really important to note in relation to the weir is that the planning is continuing. We do not want to build a weir, and we are also very adamant that South Australia wants to see a freshwater solution to the Lower Lakes—as do members of this house, I am sure.

Bill read a second time and taken through its remaining stages.

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