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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
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LAKE EYRE BASIN

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. L.W.K. Bignell:

That this house—

(a) recognises the significance of Lake Eyre to South Australia's Aboriginal, pastoral and tourism communities and its dependence on water flows from the Cooper Creek, Diamantina and Georgina rivers;

(b) expresses concern that the Queensland Government has continued to refuse to consult with South Australia and other affected states regarding their plans to remove the legislative environmental protections of the Lake Eyre Basin rivers;

(c) calls on the Queensland Government to maintain the current quantity and quality of water flows from the Lake Eyre Basin rivers into South Australia's rivers flood plains and wetlands in the Lake Eyre Basin; and

(d) calls on the Queensland Government to formally consult with South Australia, as a co-signatory to the Lake Eyre Basin Intergovernmental Agreement, regarding any proposal which has the potential to impact flows into our state.

(Continued from 16 October 2013.)

Ms CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:45): I rise to speak on the motion before us that was presented and passed in another place. The Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation moved the original motion on 26 September:

That this house—

(a) recognises the significance of Lake Eyre to South Australia's Aboriginal, pastoral and tourism communities and its dependence on water flows from the Cooper Creek, Diamantina and Georgina rivers;

(b) expresses concern that the Queensland Government has continued to refuse to consult with South Australia and other affected states regarding their plans to remove the legislative environmental protections of the Lake Eyre Basin rivers;

(c) calls on the Queensland Government to maintain the current quantity and quality of water flows from the Lake Eyre Basin rivers into South Australia's rivers flood plains and wetlands in the Lake Eyre Basin; and

(d) calls on the Queensland Government to formally consult with South Australia, as a co-signatory to the Lake Eyre Basin Intergovernmental Agreement, regarding any proposal which has the potential to impact flows into our state.

Members may recall that the Hon. Graham Gunn, who was the member for Stuart representing those people in this chamber for nearly 40 years, had himself moved a motion that was supported, and I quote:

That this house calls on the Queensland government not to permit further irrigation from the Cooper Creek or allow existing water licences to be activated and that this motion be sent to the Speaker of the Queensland Legislative Assembly by the Speaker of the House of Assembly.

That was some four years ago—ever vigilant in representing his constituency, which is a very large part of South Australia. In fact, over his nearly 40 years I think he has represented most of the people who have resided from the Western Australian border, across the Northern Territory border, to Queensland and New South Wales. Where they have spanned the vast part of our state, he has been their representative, so he has been very familiar with the significance of water to that region, and he is ably succeeded by the current member for Stuart, who has taken up this issue with some vigilance. I know that he has also said that he wishes to take a position and has done so on behalf of the people that he represents in the electorate of Stuart when he says:

I am completely opposed to any irrigation upstream in any of these rivers. You never have a situation where irrigation just works for one small operation and I think if you put one pump into any of these rivers so that irrigation can take place, you really will open the floodgates.

It is so long ago I cannot remember the preceding representative for the member for Stuart for the then seat of Eyre. It was almost before I was born. No, not quite that far. That would be misrepresenting the house, but in any event—

Mr Gardner interjecting:

Ms CHAPMAN: Yes, it is long before the member for Morialta was born and possibly even our leader, although I think our leader would have been about two. He was born in 1968 and the then member for Stuart, the Hon. Graham Gunn, I think came into the parliament in 1970, so our current leader of the opposition would have still been in nappies, although he is such a forward thinking person, he was probably out of nappies. He was probably speaking and well toilet-trained by that stage.

In any event—I digress—what has been clear is that on this side of the house, as the proud representatives for the seat of Eyre then Stuart, these members have been consistent in their desire to protect the rivers of origin—the water sources for Lake Eyre—and have fought consistently for that. Interestingly, in 2005, the then Queensland government—I think, ultimately, Anna Bligh took responsibility for this, although in fairness to her I do not think she was the premier who actually originated the legislation on it—established the Wild Rivers Act, which prohibits irrigation from rivers, including Cooper Creek and the Diamantina and Georgina rivers that feed the Lake Eyre Basin, as well as various other activities.

During the 2012 Queensland election campaign, the Liberal National Party gave a commitment to repeal the wild river declarations for Cape York Peninsula and to work on appropriate environmental protections for the western rivers. The Queensland Minister for Natural Resources and Mines, Andrew Cripps, formed the Western Rivers Advisory Panel in November 2012 to seek community input on the potential expansion of small-scale irrigation in the Lake Eyre Basin. That panel handed down a final report, which included the following recommendation:

Recommendation 7.0: In regard to 'small scale irrigation', the WRAP recognises the diversity of views held by stakeholders and producers within the Basin, and that reaching a consensus view was not possible. However in recognition of fragility and unique natural assets of the Basin, the WRAP takes the view that:-

there should be no further take over and above that which exists in current water plans for irrigation development in the Cooper Creek catchment and Lake Eyre Basin.

there should be no increase in the reserves of unallocated water for irrigation in the existing Water Resource Plans for the Basin.

any future water trading regime in the Basin should consider robust modelling of the location and quantity of water that can potentially be taken by existing licences.

if water licences in the Basin were to be transferred upstream, the volumes of extraction must be reduced and the extraction thresholds must be increased.

The Queensland government have indicated that they support small-scale irrigation; however, there does not seem to be any clear definition of what size water licence should be classified as small. The minister (the Hon. Ian Hunter) has expressed concern with the proposal by the Queensland government, stating that any such change would drastically impact the flows across the border into South Australia.

Minister Hunter has stated that any such action requires consultation under the tripartite agreement, that is, the Lake Eyre Basin Intergovernmental Agreement signed by federal Queensland, South Australian and Northern Territory governments regarding the management of the Lake Eyre Basin and the rivers that feed into it. No consultation has apparently taken place. According to the government's website:

The Agreement provides for the sustainable management of the water and related natural resources associated with cross-border river systems in the Lake Eyre Basin to avoid downstream impacts on associated environmental, economic and social values.

Whilst it is four years after the member for Stuart had already raised the question of concern, it seems a little unusual that the minister would raise this again; however, I am not going to be critical of the minister for raising the motion. We are quite happy to support it; it is consistent with the sentiment that has previously been expressed on this side of the house. The minister clearly has a responsibility to continue to monitor this to ensure that the agreements are adhered to and that there is adequate protection of the water sources that feed this important Lake Eyre Basin catchment.

As members know, this basin does not always have water, but when it does it is a very important body of water that provides for the nourishment and refreshment of an enormous, ecologically diverse number of species. They rely on it for propagation and reproduction. We, on this side of the house, recognise the importance of that.

Unfortunately, with the floods that come and with the accumulation of this mass of water, quite often there is a very significant amount of destruction of infrastructure, particularly roads and washed out bridges and floodway crossings, etc. That frequently causes major inconvenience to people who reside in those areas, to those who are touring or travelling through the areas, and to those who are providing the logistics and transport of stock and product into and out of these areas. It is an enormous burden, not just to those who are suffering that significant inconvenience but also in terms of the cost of managing it and the cost to the overall tax base, from the state's revenues, to repair and rebuild infrastructure.

Nevertheless, on the water aspect I am a little disappointed to note that in recent times the honourable minister does not appear to have been as forthcoming in his protection for the rest of the river systems that feed into the Murray-Darling catchment. In particular, I recently heard of the minister's lack of commitment regarding the Adelaide desal plant, which was built at a cost—with accessories—of over $2 billion of taxpayers' money, mostly South Australian taxpayers. There has been no commitment from him to turn that on in the event of a drain in excess of what has been an allowable extraction from the River Murray for water supplies for Adelaide, irrigators and the like.

The culminating legacy of that would be a shortfall for Adelaide consumers and/or an impact on the environment and/or an impact on the irrigators, who are trying to produce food for Australia. Any one of those would be an unpleasant outcome, certainly, but I think most members here would understand that the government would not be turning off the tap in the metropolitan area. The big casualties of a failure to turn on the desal plant to provide water in the metropolitan area, to supplement that before imposing an intrusion into the allocations for the environment or irrigators, would be the environment and/or irrigators—probably the irrigators first. They would be severely impacted.

I do not have any negative comment to make on the minister making this statement. It is perhaps repetitious; our house has already considered this. What does concern me is that there seems to be some inconsistency on the minister's plaintive request for the parliament to recognise the importance of the Lake Eyre Basin rivers, and their significant impact on the ecology of the Lake Eyre Basin area if they are not protected and/or if intergovernmental agreements are not followed through, compared to his apparent lack of priority for the Murray River extraction process, and ensuring that we do not unfairly interrupt the extraction that has been secured, apparently, by agreements for irrigators and/or the environment, which would certainly be competing with city consumers should there be another severe drought.

So, I think the minister needs to be absolutely clear about what the trigger points would be under his government to turn on the pumps at the desalination plant. I think the people of South Australia are entitled to know under what circumstances and what the threshold tests will be that would prompt him to instruct and authorise SA Water to turn on the pumps, so that, at the very least, we would have some reassurance.

It may not be one particular threshold, it may not be a sustained period of drought, it may be the level that the reservoirs actually reach; whatever the trigger point is going to be, we think it is reasonable for South Australians to be informed of this and the minister to come clean on what would occur. At the moment, we leave in a perilous situation those who are fighting for the environment and, on a direct economic effect, those irrigators who may have to suffer restrictions or buybacks in the event that there is an extra draw required on the river, in those circumstances, if it were to impact on the previously agreed entitlements. With those few comments, we support the motion.

Mr GARDNER: Mr Acting Speaker, I draw your attention to the state of the house.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Sibbons): A quorum not being present, ring the bells.

A quorum having been formed:

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (16:03): I rise to support, with my colleagues, this motion that has come to us from the other house, namely:

That this house—

(a) recognises the significance of Lake Eyre to South Australia's Aboriginal, pastoral and tourism communities and its dependence on water flows from the Cooper Creek, Diamantina and Georgina rivers;

(b) expresses concern that the Queensland Government has continued to refuse to consult with South Australia and other affected States regarding their plans to remove the legislative environmental protections of the Lake Eyre Basin rivers;

(c) calls on the Queensland Government to maintain the current quantity and quality of water flows from the Lake Eyre Basin rivers into South Australia's rivers flood plains and wetlands in the Lake Eyre Basin; and

(d) calls on the Queensland Government to formally consult with South Australia as a co-signatory to the Lake Eyre Basin Intergovernmental Agreement, regarding any proposal which has the potential to impact flows into our State.

This is an exceptionally important issue to the electorate of Stuart, and I would say to the environment of our state as a whole. I would like to think that this house would know that the entire Lake Eyre Basin almost is in the electorate of Stuart. There is a small fraction of it near Coober Pedy that is actually in the electorate of Giles, but certainly all of the rivers that flow into Lake Eyre within South Australia and all of Lake Eyre are in the electorate of Stuart.

As the motion mentions, this is an important environmental issue. This is an important cultural issue, both with regard to Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. It is an important business issue and tourism issue. It is also very important to our cattle grazing industry. So, there are a lot of stakeholders, all of whom I hold to be extremely important people and extremely important players in this issue. I guess, first and foremost, it is an environmental issue because all of the people who are connected to this issue, their connection is through this very important and very special inland river system. It is not at all common in the world that you have a river system that flows inland, as opposed to out to sea. It is not the norm. It is extremely special and it needs to be looked after.

This is not a new issue that has come to us. I am grateful that this motion has come to this house, but back in February of this year I took exactly the same stand as this, very publicly, when I first became aware that the Queensland government was considering these moves. At that point in time, I was not aware that my predecessor, the Hon. Graham Gunn, back in 2009, had actually moved quite a similar motion in this house. That motion from 2009 was:

That this House calls on the Queensland government not to permit further irrigation from the Cooper Creek or allow existing water licences to be activated and that this motion be sent to the Speaker of the Queensland Legislative Assembly by the Speaker of the House of Assembly.

That motion was passed. Back in 2009, the Hon. Graham Gunn moved that motion and I am sure that today the motion from the government on the same topic will be passed as well. So, this is not a new issue and it is disappointing that the Queensland government—and it is important to point out, the Queensland Labor government and the Queensland Liberal government—is not fulfilling its responsibilities in this regard.

There is no spare water in the Lake Eyre Basin. As I said before, these rivers do not flow out to sea. There is no surplus water which goes out to sea. By that, I do not mean to say that any water that flows out to sea from the river is surplus because some of it does very important environmental work, and certainly if there is a surplus it also flows out to sea, but there is no surplus water flowing inland towards Lake Eyre, whether it reaches Lake Eyre or not.

Every single litre provides an environmental benefit to our state, whether the water reaches Lake Eyre or not. Certainly, if it reaches Lake Eyre it has a huge impact with regard to how much of the lake is covered, how high the water level rises, how many fish can breed, how many microorganisms can breed and how many birds can migrate to Lake Eyre to breed. Every little bit of life form that operates around Lake Eyre when the lake floods is benefited by a greater flood, but even if the water does not get to Lake Eyre, every 100 metres that the water flows down towards Lake Eyre makes a huge difference.

For tens of thousands of years Aboriginal people have known this very well, living in this inland river system, well upstream from Lake Eyre. They knew that every 100 metres, wherever the flood got to, was going to be a gigantic opportunity and every 100 metres that it flows further was a gigantic improvement, not only for the environment but for their life for the next few weeks, months or years, depending on where it got to and which significant waterholes it would reach.

None of that has changed, that importance has not changed, has not diminished at all; it is still the case. Typically, these inland rivers (two rivers and one creek, as they are named) are usually dry, other than some of the waterholes that hold water all the time. So, their only opportunity to fill up and to thrive from water comes from flows down (typically) from Queensland and most of it around inland of the Great Dividing Range near Longreach. It rains occasionally in these areas but the flooding does not occur from local rain. The flooding comes from inland Queensland rain that flows down into this area. It is water that has come a long way to do the environment the benefit that it does.

By definition, because they are typically dry creek and river beds, the only time that you could harvest water from them is the only time that the water is doing its environmental benefit, and cultural, tourism and grazing benefit and all those other sorts of things. You cannot unfortunately identify a time of surplus water and say we have extra, so we will harvest now for the benefit of mining or irrigation or some other opportunity. It just does not work.

The other very important thing that I would like this house and those further afield, particularly in Queensland, to understand is that if water is harvested and if it is used for mining or irrigation, if it works in a small way, it will work in a large way because generally there is a fairly linear demand for water for those sorts of industries. The more you have, the more you can use it and the more you can benefit. I understand there would be significant economic benefits, but to my mind they are miniscule compared to the cost of taking this water.

Any argument that says it is only a tiny amount of water, that it will not make a big difference, number one, I see to be incorrect but, number two, to be an attempt at just a foot in the door because then if it is done and it is successful, then the next argument will be that we just want a little bit more and then just a little bit more and then just a little more and on and on to the point where it will not just be a small amount of water. For me, every single litre counts. Even for those people who think that perhaps a small amount might be okay, incorrectly, this would be the foot in the door and it means that even their view will lead to much more significant difficulties down the track.

This is not a Liberal versus Labor issue. This is not a South Australia versus Queensland issue. This is essentially an upstream versus downstream issue. I was at the National Lake Eyre Basin Conference that was held a few months ago in September in Port Augusta. Port Augusta was very pleased to host that conference. There were people from all walks of life. A few hundred people attended that conference and you could look around the room and, in a way in which we all do when we enter a room, you could see that there were all sorts of people there. I know there were people there from all over Australia. There were Western Australians, those from the ACT, not to mention the locals from South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory much closer to the Lake Eyre Basin.

There were people from all over Australia, from all walks of life—men, women, young, old, Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal, other cultures, scientists, business people, tourism operators, government staff members, members of parliament, minister Hunter was there. There was a whole range of people there. The people who attended that conference were united in their objection to what Queensland is considering doing. They were united in their objection, so much so that a petition was put forward. There was a motion to develop a petition at that conference that was unanimously supported. I do not know the number of signatures but there were hundreds of people at the conference and I am sure there were hundreds of signatures on the petition too.

For me, there is no politics in this. This is not Liberal versus Labor. It is not South Australia versus Queensland. It is about the people who further upstream would like to harvest the water versus the people downstream (Queenslanders included) who do not want the water to be harvested because they recognise how incredibly important this water is. I commend the government for moving this motion. I wholeheartedly join the opposition in supporting this motion. I thank both the minister and the shadow minister for their work together in this endeavour and I implore the house to support it because it is exceptionally important for an incredibly wide range of people and our environment. It is a pivotal issue to the electorate of Stuart and it is a critical issue to our state.

Motion carried.

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