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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-05-30 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

MURRAY-DARLING BASIN PLAN

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:10): The Premier has been caught out. He has been playing a very dangerous political game trying to whip up some hysteria in South Australia but he is playing with the livelihoods of many, many South Australians and he is playing with the future of the River Murray. The Premier is playing this game in front of the media and making out that he is working diligently behind the scenes when he is not. There is plenty of evidence to show that the Premier has failed at every turn.

The Premier said in answer to a question today that this matter requires the cooperation of the MDBA. This Premier has done nothing but bag the MDBA, yet he stands in this place and says 'we need cooperation'. That is what the opposition has been arguing for a long time; that is, we should be cooperating, that we should be part of the solution, not part of the problem; and therein lies the problem for South Australia's future because this Premier has decided it is a lot better to be part of the problem than to be part of the solution. He has decided that politically he can gain more by having a fight than being constructive and working constructively and cooperatively.

The MDBA invited South Australia to embed two of our senior water bureaucrats within their organisation to help with the development of the plan. What was South Australia's response? 'No. Thanks, but no.' Why was that? Because we did not want to be part of the solution. This government had decided a long time ago that it did not want to be part of the solution; it wanted to play politics and continue to be part of the problem.

For 120 years the states have been bickering over the River Murray. It was this government that was the architect of the setting up of the Murray Darling Basin Authority and that claimed that it was a historic agreement and how wonderful it would be for South Australia to have an independent authority develop a plan, yet the very day that the draft plan was released the Premier started talking about a High Court challenge. That does not sound like cooperation to me; and ever since, the Premier has been threatening High Court challenges, and has been threatening other states. Now we have the Premier coming out and stating that the MDBA is playing footsies with the other states. Does that sound like cooperation? Does that sound like South Australia wants to be part of the solution? I think not.

The Premier was caught out when he was asked for copies of the correspondence between the MDBA and his office to back up his claims. What we do know is that the Premier has been busy. He has instructed solicitors to put us into a state of readiness for a High Court challenge. He has written to the federal water minister, Tony Burke, expressing his concerns about Mr Knowles, the Chairman of the MDBA and the Victorian modelling, but he has not written to the MDBA asking for access to the data.

He complains that the Victorian government has done some modelling of their own but he has not written and asked for the fundamental data which would allow him and this government to do the same thing here. If he is so desperate to get this information, why doesn't he pick up the phone? It is because he does not want to be part of the solution, he wants to continue to be part of the problem.

The government asked in its recommendations for further modelling to be done. This is what it asked: the MDBA must undertake, as a priority, further modelling including 3,200 gigs, 3,500 gigs and 4,000 gigs water recovered volumes where system constraints are relaxed or removed to determine a water recovery volume that meets key environmental outcomes. Removing system constraints? They are the very constraints that the head of the South Australian water department, Scott Ashby, wrote to the MDBA about only on 30 March this year saying please do not allow more than 60,000 megs of water per day to enter South Australia because it will flood out private property. They are the constraints we are facing; that is the problem we have, and this Premier continues to play politics.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Hon. M.J. Wright): The honourable member's time has expired. The ever popular member for Florey.

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