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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-03-29 Daily Xml
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MURRAY-DARLING BASIN

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:25): Yesterday I asked a question of the Minister for the River Murray about suspending water trading into South Australia, yet the minister can carry over 180 gigalitres of water for the third year in a row. The question was not answered yesterday and today I am taking the opportunity to put this into a grieve so that perhaps the minister will show some transparency to the South Australian public as to how he is about to manage the carryover of that water for the third year in a row.

While the government has the capacity to carry water over, South Australian irrigators and consumers do not have the privilege. Up until last year, irrigators who did have water that they thought they were going to carry over made an investment in their businesses (at great cost to them) to carry that water over, and with the tick of a pen the minister has now said, 'No carryover water.' That was an investment by the irrigation industry to give security to their businesses, which they eventually had to let go down the river as an environmental flow.

While we do need environmental flows, the river was in flood and the eastern seaboard was underwater. The South Australian irrigators were restricted to 67 per cent, which was absolutely outrageous. I am sure the member for Hammond would agree with me that, while the local economy suffers, the minister has one rule for himself and another rule for others. Again, he claimed that this water was used through this precedent drought, yet we had a flood on the eastern seaboard. It was not through the drought; that water was not even used. At a cost to taxpayers of nearly $60 million that water was not used, it was carried over again, as I said, for the third year.

That water was at a cost, and it was not just a cost to taxpayers; it was a cost to every South Australian. For that premium of water (that nearly $60 million) the government decided to pay almost 21 per cent above market value. That is outstanding. Why would they do that? The multiplier effect on paying that sort of premium on the water market drove up the price of water for every commercial consumer in this state.

All of a sudden, irrigators in the water market are trying to keep their businesses alive on 67 per cent and, yet, the government, with their deep pockets—taxpayer funded pockets—are able to go into the water market and drive up the price of water, making it even more difficult for the irrigators, for the food producers of this state, to exist. It is just outrageous.

The minister also claimed that he worked with irrigators to have that carryover rule implemented. I say that the minister, while he is working with irrigators, is behind the scenes just making those rules to suit his government. Why wasn't the minister looking at the nearly 40 gigalitres of commonwealth environmental water that came into this state? Did he really have his eye on the ball? That is the question I would ask. Again, I say that it is outrageous that the government could negotiate South Australia's carryover into a federal agreement, and it is the first to spill.

For people who might not understand, we have a large bucket of water—we have New South Wales, we have Victoria's carryover water sitting nice and tight on the bottom, and we have the commonwealth environmental water holder sitting on top of that. Then we have South Australia's irrigators' investment sitting on top of that. The government is using the irrigators' investment as a cash cow for the environment.

The minister and his department should have negotiated better when they went to the table. They should have negotiated environmental water to sit on top, to be the first to spill. The first spill would mean that that environmental water would have had an environmental benefit, not using the irrigators' water as a cash cow for environmental benefit.

Again, it is using an investment at the cost of the communities, at the cost of food producers, to prop up an environmental flow. The river was a high flow river in South Australia, and on the eastern seaboard we were in flood. We have seen it again this year, and yet we have an investment in storage used as a cash cow for the environment. It is absolutely outrageous. I call on the minister to make these decisions transparent and for him to have a better understanding of the impact it has on the food producers of South Australia.

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