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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-11-29 Daily Xml
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MURRAY-DARLING BASIN

Ms THOMPSON (Reynell) (17:24): I would like to put on record the contribution of previous occupiers of the office in parliament representing what is now Reynell in terms of the Murray-Darling Basin saga, as it can only be described. I am very pleased to have this connection with pioneers in action on the preservation of the Murray River. During the debate on the Murray River, it was identified clearly that South Australia took action in 1969 to cap the amount of water that could be extracted from the Murray River and was really leading the way in that, and that South Australia has invested heavily in infrastructure to replace open channel irrigation which has high levels of seepage and evaporation.

However, what was not mentioned at that time was the role played by the then member for Baudin, Don Hopgood, who led South Australia's mission to establish the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. Although this body has not delivered all that was hoped for, it did include environmental rather than just engineering matters in its responsibilities for the first time. As minister for the environment, Don also started the undergrounding of delivery channels, and this has not yet happened in many upstream areas of the river even today. In the late 1980s, Don successfully lobbied for the establishment of salt interception schemes as one of the first projects of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.

These projects provided considerable protection to our Riverland irrigators during the recent drought. Without them, much more land would have been affected in the dreadful way experienced by irrigators in the Lower Lakes. Then there is the former member for Mawson, Susan Lenehan, whose main constituency was what is now Reynell. Susan, as minister for the environment, is still talked about by some of the older Riverland irrigators as the pioneer in convincing them to use drip irrigation.

Eastern states have been slow to upgrade infrastructure to adopt drip irrigation but in my early days in parliament as a member of the Public Works Committee I went up to the Riverland to examine a planned irrigation upgrade. I was approached by one of the older irrigators who looked at my footwear and said, 'Well, at least you're wearing decent shoes. That other woman, she came up here in her high heels but she talked sense, you know. We didn't believe her at the time when she told us that we needed to move from open channels to drip irrigation. We didn't know what she was talking about'—or words to this effect—'but she put up the money so we decided to be in on it and it's the best thing we've ever done.'

Members who have represented the south have taken a leading role in the history of the River Murray and in the protection of the River Murray. I am very pleased and proud to be their successor. I would also like to acknowledge the words of the member for Frome who talked about the health of the river in a compelling way. My assistant, Annemarie O'Reilly, also explained this to my constituents in an article in the newsletter, which states:

To understand how this major river system works you could compare it to a human body. A human drinks water and the water travels through the body cleaning the kidneys that in turn clean the blood of toxins and is then expelled.

It is the same with the river system. A minimum flow of water is required to prevent toxins such as salt from building up and killing it and the wet-lands are like the human kidneys—the cleaners of the system.

The river will die the same way as a human will die if it is prevented from having access to enough water and is prevented from eliminating or flushing out the toxins. This is why it is vital to the whole river system that enough water is able to flow to keep the river mouth open and expel the salt.

It is a very simple analogy that I am sure helped my constituents understand why it was just so important that the Premier launched the fight for the River Murray.

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