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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Third Session (51-3)
2009-09-24 Daily Xml
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WATER SECURITY MINISTER

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (14:49): My question is to the Minister for Water Security. Does the announcement today by the federal government that there are some 890 gigalitres of water available to purchase from New South Wales confirm that the minister is not across her portfolio and is this why her Labor colleagues want her out of the cabinet?

The minister has been telling South Australians for months that there is no water to purchase and that she cannot make it rain. Last week, the minister, being critical of the opposition, said:

They are trying to pull wool over the eyes of our community when we are doing it really tough…they are calling for upstream states to give up water and give it to the Lower Lakes…

Yet today we have an announcement from the federal government stating that there are significant amounts of water available to purchase.

The Hon. K.A. MAYWALD (Chaffey—Minister for the River Murray, Minister for Water Security) (14:50): A lesson in water for the shadow water security minister again. He is well and truly out of his depth. The announcement today is that the New South Wales government will buy water entitlements. Those entitlements to water will have, seasonally adjusted according to how much water is in the system, allocations appointed to them. If we look at it from South Australia's perspective, we currently have about 570 gigalitres of entitlements issued to our irrigators. About 16 per cent of that is available. If you were to buy the full entitlement, what is available in actual water at the moment is only 16 per cent, if you are buying for South Australia. The same applies in New South Wales. What the federal government is doing is buying water entitlements so that when it rains there will be fewer people taking water out of the river and more water for the environment, which is a good thing.

Members interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Order!

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