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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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MURRAY-DARLING BASIN AUTHORITY

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:01): My question is to the Premier. Can the Premier explain why the government is so committed to cutting half of its contributions to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, being $14 million per annum, given that he was so committed to the Fight for the Murray advertising campaign, in which $2 million was spent?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier, Treasurer, Minister for State Development, Minister for the Public Sector, Minister for the Arts) (15:01): I am sure that the second half of the question doesn't flow from the first half, but we will do as best we can with the material. Let's start with the second half of the question: $2 million leveraged $2 billion. That rate of return, even—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The SPEAKER: Will the Premier be seated. I say to government ministers that I am not responsible that utterances from the opposition in question time are, in fact, questions. The member for Hammond is warned for the first time. The Premier.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Coming to that, they seek to make some point about $2 million in the campaign which leveraged this historic victory for South Australia. If you just for a moment want to look at the difference that South Australia made, just look at the plan. What is bolted onto it is the South Australian section. You don't actually need to look very far; you can see the money and the outcomes all bolted onto the plan. That is the measure of what South Australia has achieved in this historic struggle for a healthy river for the future of not only this state but the nation. So, let's dispense with the nonsense about the $2 million being poorly spent.

In relation to the first part, I notice they pick up the bleating from the head of the authority, Craig Knowles, the former New South Wales water minister, who then headed up the authority. Frankly, if we had been stuck with the initial plan that he sent down the line to us, we would be there with 2,750 gigalitres and our irrigators would be bearing the burden of the adjustment. So, when you adopt his criticism of me, remember who you are climbing into bed with. You are climbing into bed with a New South Wales water minister who happens to head up this authority at the moment and who produced the second-rate plan you said we should fold and accept.

Members interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Sorry: capitulate—meekly capitulate, accept a Mazda instead of a Rolls-Royce. However you want to put it, you wanted to simply march until they chopped your head off. That's exactly what you are prepared to do on behalf of this great state, and I wasn't going to have any of it. Going to the gravamen of the question, we are no more or less than contributing a fair proportion of the contribution to the running of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

Even with the reductions, which don't come into play this year but come into play substantially next year, we will be contributing 18 per cent of the costs of the Murray-Darling Basin, getting a meagre 7 per cent, of course, of the waters of the river. What is put against us—and don't buy into this; please don't buy into this—by Mr Knowles is that there are all these locks and barrages and works that need to happen down here.

This is one river. This is not the responsibility of South Australia just because we have lots of locks and barrages and degradation and work that needs to happen down here because those upstream have been taking too much for decades and decades. The burden of adjustment should not fall unfairly on this state. It will never happen while I am in this role, and if those opposite want to meekly capitulate to the upstream states, then go ahead!

The SPEAKER: I think that last question was a good illustration of how interjections can give the minister carte blanche to answer. The member for Morphett.

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