HANSARD
SITTING CALENDAR
SEARCH
LIVE BROADCAST
Hansard Dynamic Member Index
House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-03-16 Daily Xml
Contents
Pdf Xml

Bills

Landscape South Australia (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading (resumed on motion).

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (16:08): I will continue my remarks. I touched on open delivery and some of the open channels and open waterways in the Eastern States. As I was saying, the sealed delivery systems in South Australia are world class. We continue to look to our Eastern States to get with the program. I think it is pertinent that I should say that in some of the warmer climates—the Riverland climate, Riverina Sunraysia and some of those irrigation or food producing areas—those open waterways lose about two metres of water a year. We are often ridiculed for having our large water spaces at the lower end of the river.

We must remember that in South Australia we are the delta of the Murray-Darling Basin. From Euston down is shallow waters. We have high evaporation, but we also have a lot of open space and a lot of open environmental assets. Yes, there are high losses, but that is part of a river system. I would like to think that, while we are implementing a Murray-Darling Basin Plan, sadly we are not seeing on-farm efficiency money on the table now. The commonwealth government has taken that away.

We now have to reflect on how we can make gains and savings with off farm, how we can make savings and gains with environmental works and measures that will contribute a significant amount of money because by and large these environmental assets are going unaccounted. There are large numbers of waterways that should be improved, and there are ways. Whether we put automation on the barrages or whether we have the connection out of Lake Albert into the Coorong, these are ways that we can create environmental flow and reduce salinity. Again, it is making our environment a better working environment with an economic river running right through the centre of it.

It is also important to understand some of the new measures that have been put in place due to having all the states' ministers sitting around a table and dealing with some of the accusations that have been slung around. Mud continues to fly high and fast, with the states pointing the finger at one another, but for a long, long time we have seen lack of accountability in harvesting water in some of those faraway places in Queensland, in New South Wales and to a lesser degree in Victoria.

Flood plain harvesting is one of the absolute worst pieces of management we can see in our land. Some of that flood plain harvesting is done, and it looks very innocent when you are driving along a road and it has a little levee bank either side, but it is there for a reason: it is there to divert water off the flood plains and into their catchment areas, but those catchment areas are unregulated waterways.

What happens is that, when those creeks and rivers reach a certain height, they can then harvest that water. They harvest the water and put it into their turkey dams. Once they have it in their turkey dams, they can then use it for irrigation and food production. When they have diverted all that water, we are not seeing any of it come down south into the southern basin. That is why we are seeing significant water reductions on the Darling. We are seeing significant water reductions into a lot of those catchments and into the tributaries that then flow off into the Murray.

I think we need to have a much clearer picture of exactly how that is done. Satellite imagery is playing a big part in holding to account a lot of those harvesters, irrigators and farmers in that high country or in that top end of the basin. They can now even measure the depth of water with satellite imagery. I think it is important that we continue to do that. Every water diverter in the country should have an electric mag meter.

Gone should be the days when water is allocated to a sparse area of land and it is taken as a given. In today's world, that is not how it should be. We know that some of those perpetrators are irrigating two crops per year and getting away with it. If everyone has a meter, everyone is accountable. If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it, as some would say. It is also important to understand that the delivery systems right across the nation should also have their meters on that point of extraction out of the main channel.

For too long we have seen allocations of water distributed to those districts and they are not accounted for, they are not metered, until they get to the farm gate. In some cases, there are 100 or 150 kilometres of open channel as a delivery mechanism to get water to that farm, yet any loss of water in those channels goes unanswered. Whether it be to wet up the channel, whether it be seepage or whether it be just evaporation, no-one is accountable for that water because that water is diverted. Normally, if it is through a sluicegate or some form of mechanical pump to put water into those channels, it then travels a long way, so there is significant unaccountability in those instances.

If we get back to the basin plan and back to what this bill is all about, it is about accountability. It is about making sure that our food producers are accountable for their water. Since the basin plan has been introduced, we are seeing a large amount of water that has been converted out of production, efficiency gains and some buyback. Most of that has been handed over to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder (CEWH), which has now called on all states to be compliant. If irrigators are diverting water that has not been accounted for, it is potentially the commonwealth environmental water that has been used for food production that is unaccounted.

We are now seeing quarterly accounting come into play. Since time began, people would have to reconcile their books on 1 July. Everyone was happy and those who did not reconcile their books received a penalty. Now we are seeing quarterly accounting, so every three months people have to have their meter read and have to have their books balanced. They are putting water into their account, onto their licence, and that allocation is then justified to be able to divert water into a farm to create food, drive an economy, create jobs and be part of a healthy, working river.

It is also important to note—I will use the Riverland as an example—the great work that has been undertaken since the inception of the negotiations around a basin plan. I am glad the deputy leader is here because for a long time there have been unanswered questions. It is all theory about how much water should be put back into the environmental waters for a healthy, working river. It is not about the quantity of water; it is about what is achieved with that quantity of water.

We need overbank flows. We need to water our wetlands. We need to make sure we have different stages of wetlands. Close to the river, we normally have what we call red gum forests. Then, behind the red gum forests, we have lignums and we have other native plants. Then, to the furthest extreme, we see our black boxes. Black box trees are very resilient. They can go years without a good watering. What we need is overbank flows that actually water these environmental assets.

What we are seeing in the Riverland is agreements with the commonwealth government, with the state government and with environmental organisations to be allocated water, to manage that environmental water, to water the trees, to water the environment, to make sure wetlands are healthy, to make sure that we have those assets that need water on an intermittent basis and to make sure that we continue to have healthy wetlands. These then support a healthy, working river and create great opportunities for people to come and visit and for people to go out and have a look at some of the great assets.

To do that, we need to put some structures in place. The Challa regulator is one and the Margaret Dowling is another, then Pike River and Katarapko. Every lock and every weir in South Australia has a bypass mechanism and has a creek network around it: Banrock at lock 3, we have a creek network at lock 2 and, of course, we have another little community right next to Blanchetown at lock 1. That is there supporting a healthy working river.

I support the bill. It has been highlighted that we need a healthy, working river, we need accountability and we need to make sure that every water user, whether they be commercial or environmental, is accountable. That is why it is so important that this bill gets through today.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Does the Deputy Premier wish to speak to this?

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN (Bragg—Deputy Premier, Attorney-General, Minister for Planning and Local Government) (16:18): I certainly am motivated by that powerful contribution to make a contribution on the Landscape South Australia (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2020. I was reminded, when I reviewed this bill, of something that former Premier the Hon. Dean Brown said to me back in the 1990s. He said, 'The three biggest things I think your generation is going to face in the 21st century are obesity, mental health and water larceny.'

Interestingly, subsequent to that—and it stuck in my mind—we have had the sort of 10-year drought in South Australia. Starting from the base position of being the driest state in the driest continent in the world, it is a double whammy, of course, if we are to experience a drought. Already a large part of our state relies on what I would call introduced water; that is, if there is not sufficient rain, if there is not sufficient underground water to be able to be generous with its use and application, only small parts of our state would have been able to survive, frankly, if it had not been for the distribution from the River Murray. For example, towns in the Deputy Speaker's electorate just would not exist without pipeline water.

We have to be accountable in our state in having responsible regulation and effective enforcement. It is very clear that in introducing the landscape miscellaneous bill to deal with a new regime of the assessment for the purposes of regulating and charging for water, and in particular penalising for where there has been a breach of compliance, is very critical, and we need to get it right, as well as the principal administrative amendments to bring the policies in line with the original policy intent of a new application.

I am advised that, in short, the main change is to provide clarity of interpretation regarding an accounting period for the purposes of declaring a penalty charge for unauthorised or unlawful water use, and will enable the government to implement the most appropriate compliance approaches across the state. This change will reflect the original policy intention of the act. A failure to make this legislative change may have implications in relation to the quarterly compliance arrangements within the River Murray prescribed water course, which commenced on 1 July 2019.

This amendment is necessary to apply, even retrospectively, to preserve those arrangements, which had previously been intended, but also to comply with our responsibilities to the protection of the water resource in question. I thank the minister for water and the environment—

Dr Close: Environment and water.

The Hon. V.A. CHAPMAN: Sorry, environment and water. I am just thinking of his other role. It gets rather complicated. The member for Port Adelaide has been most helpful, thank you. This is a role which I think has changed in title many times even in the time I have been here. I remember we used to have a Minister for the River Murray. I think it was the Hon. Karlene Maywald actually. She was touted as being the first Minister for the River Murray, I think, and it was to take precedence over many other positions in the then Rann administration, much to the chagrin, I think, of other ministers who were not very happy about that at the time.

In any event, we were in a drought, and huge attention was given to how we might ensure the future prescription of water and the enforcement against any noncompliance and/or water larceny to be effective. The arrangements were put in place. They were not perfect. They needed to be changed, and that is what we are doing on this occasion.

I thank the Minister for Environment and Water for acknowledging the importance of the balance in this regard and introducing legislation to ensure that it occurs. I might mention that the only time I am aware of water larceny occurring as a stealing other than from our current resource was a case I had in my own electorate, which I reported to the then Premier, Premier Rann, and asked him about whether there was going to be any action taken. It related to a neighbour in an urban suburb within my electorate whose hose had gone under the fence and they were using their neighbour's tap to water their garden.

During the drought this was a fairly desperate stage. People were under restrictions. They had to water their garden within certain hours. They could only use a bucket on occasions and no sprinklers, etc., but this was a circumstance where they were clearly using their neighbour's water to water their own garden and there was quite a flurry of attention given to how this situation could be dealt with.

Clearly, the water that was being consumed was being charged to someone else who was therefore paying for the benefit of that water in the neighbouring property, so I think it is a classic case of water larceny. I think we need to be vigilant against it, whether it is in a domestic backyard or whether it is a significant draw against a valuable resource, such as the River Murray, and we need to be fair in its application.

I think we have set a good standard in South Australia as to the application of our water theft strategy in trying to make sure that we deter it from occurring and, where it does occur, that there is an appropriate and measured response to it that is effective. Again, I thank the minister for bringing this to the attention of the house.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Dr Harvey): The member for Flinders.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (16:26): Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. I appreciate you taking the chair while I make a contribution to the Landscape South Australia (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2020. Of course, a big commitment from the Marshall Liberal government when coming to power was to revamp natural resources management in South Australia. The Minister for Environment and Water's introduction of the Landscape South Australia Bill was significant legislation. It took a long time to draft. It made some significant changes to natural resources management, both within the administration and practically on the ground, throughout the state. I think it has been a good result and people have welcomed the changes.

Of course, the structure of our boards has changed slightly within natural resources management areas. I have to declare an interest here. For a short time—one session at least—I served on the Eyre Peninsula Natural Resources Management Board, and enjoyed that immensely. We are moving towards elections now for part of the board membership and that was part of our commitment. Certainly, from my interaction with the current board on Eyre Peninsula, they seem to be doing a particularly good job.

What this particular bill looks to do is make some amendments to the way water is managed within that Landscape South Australia Act. The Landscape South Australia Act itself, as well as being the framework for the entire natural resources management structure in the state, is the framework for the management of the state's water resources.

As we heard through a number of contributions thus far, South Australia is considered a leader in water management and, as part of this, a leader in water compliance and enforcement. Recent advice has identified a potential anomaly within the current act that may limit the ability to adapt the period in which compliance action can be taken for any unauthorised or unlawful water use. This, for example, may have implications on our government's increased focus on compliance within the River Murray prescribed watercourse that commenced in reality on 1 July 2019. We have heard our minister and also other members talk about the importance of compliance.

I have to say that I always listen with interest to the member for Chaffey—always, in fact—but particularly when he is talking about water because, as a former irrigator, he understands full well the importance of compliance and the importance of the sustainability of the resource within the River Murray. I will talk more fully about our resources here in South Australia as we go on.

We intend to make two minor administrative amendments to bring the act in line with its original intent. The main change will provide clarity of interpretation regarding an accounting period for the purposes of declaring a penalty charge for the unauthorised or unlawful water use and enable the government to implement the most appropriate compliance approaches across the state. This change will reflect the original intention of the act. A failure on our part to make this legislative change may have implications for the government's quarterly compliance arrangements within the River Murray prescribed watercourse.

The amendment, which will retrospectively be applied to the start of the current water year, will not only preserve the quarterly compliance arrangements for the River Murray and the state's reputation with other Murray-Darling Basin jurisdictions but it will also enable the government to implement more appropriate compliance approaches for the unauthorised or unlawful water use across the state to better suit the respective water resources and how they operate.

Of course, it is critical, as just one state jurisdiction as part of a broader River Murray basin and catchment distribution system—and as we know only too well we are at the bottom end of the River Murray and very little of the River Murray catchment is within South Australia, but of course its delivery into the Southern Ocean is through South Australia—that we are able to argue our case effectively against the Eastern States, those states with catchment and water flows, and also set an example with these particular arrangements.

The bill will also remove schedule 4 and section10 of the act, which has not commenced and made redundant through the new Landscape South Australia (Water Register) Regulations 2020, which provide for the state's new contemporary water register, giving customers increased lending opportunities against their water assets. So it is a critical amendment that allows equity to be realised and the best use of assets and finances for businesses to operate and/or expand their businesses.

This will be consistent with South Australia's longstanding commitment to water compliance and response to the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission. Quarterly compliance was introduced in the South Australian River Murray Prescribed Watercourse in 2019-20. South Australian water users are renowned for doing the right thing, and we need to ensure that we continue with that and are seen to be continuing with that. We have been particular about remaining within our available water allocation at all times, as required by the Landscape South Australia Act and former NRM Act.

We sometimes forget that the biggest allocation of all goes to SA Water, and they in turn distribute the resource not just to metropolitan Adelaide but to vast areas of this quite dry state. The Deputy Premier, the member for Bragg, made the point that some of our inland towns in South Australia simply would not exist without this reticulated supply. But, at the same time, we have also seen our irrigators here in South Australia, primarily in the Riverland but through the Mallee and other areas as well, really modernise their irrigation systems so that water is used efficiently, effectively and without losses.

Significantly, there is also a lot of water distributed for stock and domestic purposes from the River Murray, all those sheep in the beautiful sheep country of the Mid North and the even better sheep country of the Murray Mallee, although sometimes I know that is drawn from underground, and our farming and agribusinesses are reliant on this as well.

The bill proposes a minor yet essential amendment that will ensure we maintain our strong reputation as a leader in water compliance across the Murray-Darling Basin and at the broader national level. This proposed amendment reflects the intention of the current Landscape South Australia Act and the former NRM Act by enabling compliance action be undertaken within a time frame that best suits the retrospective water resource without any doubt.

In the South Australian portion of the River Murray, this amendment will help ensure that water can be reliably delivered to all water users, including the environment. A portion of the river flow is quarantined for environmental flows, and that will ensure that we are able to best deliver environmental water as intended, manage delivery constraints, inhibit market manipulation and respond to drought conditions, especially if conditions similar to the Millennium Drought were to be revisited.

In her contribution, the member for Bragg reminded us that the member for Chaffey at the time, the Hon. Karlene Maywald, was the first ever Minister for the River Murray. That position was effectively created at the height of what has become known as the Millennium Drought way back in 2002. Of course, slowly but surely conditions improved, and at this current point in time we are seeing reasonable river flows thanks particularly to good rains in all the Eastern States—Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria—that recharge our rivers and ultimately lead to good flows here in South Australia.

But we can never be complacent about these things because the next drought could be just around the corner, as could the next flood. We live in a highly variable climate and, by my rough calculations, the River Murray tends to see flooding flows about every 10 or 11 years, which probably means that we are due again sometime soon. Who knows? We cannot predict these things. As a long-time primary producer, I have never held much store in long-range weather forecasts but, anyway, that was garnered over time.

The one thing I did learn and have learned over 40 years in agricultural production is that every season is different. That is the one take-home message: just when you think you have got it sorted, you get thrown a curly one. Our landscapes underpin our communities, our economy, our wellbeing and our way of life, which is why we all have the responsibility to protect and manage our state's landscapes and water for the enjoyment of all South Australians.

The Department for Environment and Water works in partnership with the eight regional Landscape South Australia boards, which are responsible for administering the act and, as a result of the Landscape South Australia Act this parliament passed a little while ago now, a new entity known as Green Adelaide also brings an integrated approach to managing Adelaide's urban environment.

The key priority of the landscape boards is to support local communities and landowners to be directly responsible for sustainably managing their region's landscapes, with an emphasis on land and water management, pest, animal and plant control, and biodiversity—always challenging tasks. Communication, and the fact that these boards are an active part of our community and readily available to the community, is a really important part of this model. It will include providing greater funding and partnership opportunities with local community organisations to deliver on-ground works and projects.

I would like to take a moment, as I have on numerous occasions prior to this, to talk about the water situation on Eyre Peninsula. Given that the bill we are considering now makes changes to the way water is managed in South Australia, I think it is important to give a local perspective as well. Of course, the previous member for Flinders, Liz Penfold, who held the seat from 1993 to 2010, also spoke much about water supply on Eyre Peninsula.

A lot of our inland areas in this state were not settled until relatively late because of the lack of a reliable water supply. It was highlighted on Eyre Peninsula right back when Matthew Flinders first charted the coastline in South Australia. He stopped off at Port Lincoln, or what became known as Port Lincoln, to refresh his water supplies and found it particularly difficult to source a potable supply of water. He eventually did so and was able to continue on.

Port Lincoln was touted as one of the possible sites for the new state capital, but quite wisely it was decided against, primarily because of the lack of water. A settlement that was to grow into the capital of a colony and ultimately a state needed a water supply, so we saw the settlement on Eyre Peninsula hug the coast, particularly over the West Coast where underground water was available. The inland was not settled until the railway began to be built in 1907, ultimately reaching the top end, both on eastern Eyre Peninsula and the far west in Penong and Buckleboo in the 1920s.

What settlers found was mallee country that was admirably suited to the growing of wheat, but it had very little surface water and any underground water they might have found was of poor quality. Following hot on the heels of the development of the railway was the development of the Tod River Reservoir and distribution scheme. A reservoir was built, essentially by men with shovels and horses dragging sledges, and it captured the waters that were within the Koppio Hills and based around the Tod Reservoir.

A pipe distribution system was constructed which, after being pumped to the top of Knott's Hill adjacent to the Tod Reservoir, gravitated north. I am not sure if that is possible, but anyway it did. It gravitated north, up the map as far as Ceduna, and at the time it was the longest gravitational water reticulation scheme in the world.

I only have a few minutes left, so I will rush along. It was an extraordinary engineering feat. By the time we got to the postwar years of the late 1940s and early 1950s, it was obvious that the Tod Reservoir was not going to be able to keep up with the demand of Eyre Peninsula. Of course, the population was increasing at that stage, industry was developing, sheep numbers were increasing, towns were growing, all those things.

There are a number of shallow underground basins to the west and south of Port Lincoln. They began to be tapped into. Some beautiful water was found. It was high in calcium, but it was certainly good quality, and that supplemented the reticulated supply on Eyre Peninsula. At the same time or within a few years, the Polda Basin west of Lock and east of Elliston and the Robinson Basin at Streaky Bay were also tapped into. Those basins ultimately collapsed. There is an ongoing debate as to whether that was through overextraction or the lack of recharge through drier seasons. Some might call it climate change. Regardless of that, it does not really matter, those particular basins are not available as a source anymore.

We were hooked into the River Murray as a supply source in the early 2000s. The latest information I have is that the River Murray supplies as much as 25 per cent of Eyre Peninsula's water, coming from Iron Knob down to Lock and then heading west. A significant improvement that has brought about is an improvement in the water quality. There are not the calcium issues in the far west of the state that there once were.

The pressure remains on our southern basins through years of lower recharge, not that our extraction or demand is as high as it once was. It is about eight gigalitres in total a year, not counting that which is used in Whyalla. I am essentially talking about the agricultural areas of Eyre Peninsula. It is about eight gigalitres a year which is significantly less than it once was.

This government and Minister Speirs have announced a commitment to build a desalination plant on Eyre Peninsula. I, for one, welcome this. It is finally looking like it might come about. I wholeheartedly support the building of a desal plant. Obviously, there will be environmental issues to consider and there will be native title considerations as well, but ultimately we cannot have a significant area of the state running out of water, one of our major regional towns running out of water or all that productive wheat belt country on Eyre Peninsula running short of water.

The plan, as I understand it, is for the desal plant to provide about four gigalitres of water per year. That essentially is 50 per cent of our current usage. It is not ever intended to be a replacement for the underground supply, but it will certainly supplement that. That is a good thing. Once again, it will probably improve the quality of the water that is delivered across Eyre Peninsula. It will also allow a reduction in extraction from our underground basins and enable the preservation of the existing resource. All of us here in this place who are on a quest for sustainability, and I as a farmer and land manager who has been involved with Landcare, Streamcare and NRM, know how critically important that is.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (16:46): I rise to speak to the Landscape South Australia (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2020. Obviously, issues of water significantly affect the seat of Hammond, being at the bottom of the Murray-Darling Basin. Before I go on, my wife previously worked for natural resources management, a few years ago now, as an environmental scientist.

What we are looking at here are vital amendments to work with the new process of quarterly accounting that has come in recently in 2019-20 as a new way of managing allocations across the board for landholders throughout South Australia. This is to get a better management plan in managing people's allocations through the season instead of doing some form of tidy up at the end of the season and trying to tie that in with carryover water and that kind of thing.

It has been difficult for some growers to get their heads around this. I have farmed for a while myself. Sometimes you hate change, but in the water game, especially in the last few years since the Millennium Drought of the mid-2000s—it really started hitting in 2006—we have really had to take notice, with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan right across the basin, whether it is through Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria or South Australia, of how we manage our water.

To say it was challenging in the period 2006 to 2010 would have to be the understatement of the century or the millennium, seeing as it was the Millennium Drought in that period. There was that now infamous meeting—not just famous but infamous, I think—that John Howard called on Melbourne Cup Day in 2006. I only came into this place on 18 March 2006, so it has been just short of 15 years now. The meeting took place between Prime Minister Howard and the states, their water ministers and Premiers, to say, 'We have a significant problem.'

I can say as a dryland farmer at Coomandook that 2006 was a significantly dry year in dryland farming terms as well. As the member for Flinders just indicated, when you have the rains they are welcome, and that happened recently up in the northern reaches of the basin in Queensland, New South Wales, even down through Victoria, and there has been a little bit of rain in South Australia, but most of the inflows have come from the Eastern States.

It was a difficult, difficult time. I will certainly never forget that time and how difficult it was. I was privileged to be the shadow parliamentary secretary for the River Murray. I think that came on in about 2007, and soon after that, I think it might have been in 2008—someone will correct me somewhere down the track—I became the shadow minister for the River Murray, and it was a pretty tough gig. I was seeking some answers for my electorate because the government of the day, with the water minister at the time, the former member for Chaffey, Karlene Maywald, were going to instigate some pretty draconian measures, especially with regard to the impact on my electorate.

As flows literally dried up and the rains did not come, the River Murray dropped about two metres. There were significant issues at the bottom of my electorate. The interesting thing was that in my first term I represented Strathalbyn, Langhorne Creek, Clayton and Milang, so getting down very close to the mouth of the River Murray. Just outside was the town of Goolwa, which did not come in until the redistribution in 2010. That was extremely significant because I was fighting for the freshwater recovery.

From the history I have read about the River Murray, I believe it has been predominantly fresh 95 per cent of the time. And, yes, it is true: it has become quite dry. I have seen the photos of the Riverland where people had Sunday picnics on the bed of the river in certain places. I remember, during the Millennium Drought, we were up towards Swan Reach and landing helicopters on the riverbed—not on the bank, on the bed. I do not think I bothered, but you could have walked directly across the river. You would have become a little bit wet in spots, obviously, and in one instance this had a major impact on getting houseboats and tourist vessels through, let alone ski boats and that kind of thing.

One of the issues with the river level dropping was that a lot of my houseboat operators operate in my electorate up around Mannum, a bit further north and all the way up the river. My boundary then went somewhere north of Nildottie. There was a significant impact below Lot 1 at Blanchetown where the water level could be managed. That was where the former government decided to build a weir at Wellington and to hell with the mouth of the River Murray. I did not agree with that and I dug my toes in. I can tell you that I was not sure where that argument would end.

As the member for Flinders indicated, you do not know when it is going to rain, and I did not know, but we were there for at least 3½, nearly four years, getting this outcome. I was on the local group, having monthly meetings, working out the processes that could happen. The government decided they wanted to build a weir out of stones at Wellington. It would have been a sinking structure that sat on the riverbed soils that have washed all the way down from Queensland, and it would have progressively sunk and needed more stone year by year. Some suggested it might have sunk about a metre a year.

Just as a matter for history's sake, when people were building the barrages at Goolwa and surrounding areas through to Tauwitchere, heading back towards Meningie, they put at least two piles together, maybe three, and just drove them in near the Wellington Lodge property and they just disappeared into that silt.

There was going to be a structure built way back then in the 1930s or 1940s for water management, but I am pleased that there was not a structure there because it would have been used by some as a management tool to cut off flows further south. It was nasty. We had acid sulfate soils and we had the lakes drying up. I remember going out on four-wheel motorbikes on Lake Albert with a fisher family down Meningie way across a dry lake bed. You would go out on Tauwitchere barrage and basically look out towards open bare country and the water was way, way away in the distance. It was a terrible time.

It was certainly very challenging coming into a new area like Goolwa in the 2010 election. The place was just enveloped in dust a lot of the time with any wind, because there was some water there heading through Goolwa under the Hindmarsh Island bridge and out towards the mouth, but not a lot. It was very much a lightning rod issue for everyone. There were different points of view, especially from some people in the Eastern States.

I do not really like getting into the Eastern States and South Australia argument, but I think you have to give a little bit of context around it because it is one basin and it needs to be managed as one basin. I know the states have management under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, but obviously the federal government has a lot of management on top of that. People were peddling all sorts of myths about how it was never fresh, it was this and that, and how much evaporation came off Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. Most of these numbers were fabricated or highly exaggerated.

I just thought, 'You've got to stand up for something,' and this was something that needed to be fought for because essentially half my electorate was going to be taken away from the opportunity to have not just environmental flows but vital flows to keep the River Murray fresh. I would hate to think what would have happened if that Wellington weir had been built, because I believe the powers that be right across the country would have just said, 'We'll just write off the mouth.' Well, guess what? Rivers die from the bottom up and, if that had happened, the squeeze would slowly go on right throughout the rest of South Australia.

There are three levels of water in the basin: environmental water, irrigation water and critical human needs water. There was nothing more essential during that Millennium Drought than the fact that Adelaide needed critical human needs water. You may think that is a strange thing to say about a city needing about 130 gigalitres a year as their allocation. Obviously, a lot of it was being pumped from the river. There were decisions being made around a desalination plant. We had a plan to build one of about 50 gigalitres per annum capacity, but there was one built for 100 gigalitres per annum and has never fired right up. I always thought the 50 was going to be big enough, but that is all history now.

The context of having Adelaide on the end of the river as critical human needs water was absolutely vital in the discussion that all the shadow ministers, being National Party members and Liberal Party members, had in New South Wales one day. We flew in in the morning: Mitch Williams as the shadow minister for water and me as the shadow minister for the River Murray. I cannot remember which seat John Cobb had, but he was based in Cobar, New South Wales. He was the federal shadow for water at the time and a really lovely man. I must catch up with him one day. I have not seen him for a long time. He came over our way and we entertained him and looked after him and gave him our views on how the River Murray should be managed.

We were sitting at this meeting with all the shadow ministers, all men at the table—not that that matters, but it is just who was there. I think Queensland was sitting opposite me, with Victoria next to them. New South Wales was there, with Mitch next to me, and John Cobb was sitting next to Mitch. As the federal shadow minister, John started the conversation by making a point (this was the very first comment of the meeting), saying, 'I think we need to wean Adelaide off the river.'

That immediately rang alarm bells in my head. I raised my hand and said, 'Hang on, John, before we go any further', and, good on him, he asked, 'Well, what's your view?' I said that I thought that could be a problem and that we should change the language to, 'We should ease Adelaide's reliance on the River Murray.' I said, 'It may not be when one of you fine gentlemen are sitting around this table, but what could happen if we say that we will wean Adelaide off the River Murray is that the other states will forget about environmental water and forget about production water for South Australia.'

I said at that meeting that a wall would be built at the Victorian border and no water would get past. I tell you what, when you talk about this interstate discussion around water, I saw enough half smiles and almost nods to know that I was on the money. That critical human need was the magnet to make sure we got water down the river, notwithstanding that we need the production water and the environmental water as well to make sure we get the right outcomes for the whole river system.

I was very proud to get through our party room, under the leader Iain Evans, that we would go against the building of the Wellington weir. Thankfully, that never happened. It got so close that there was compulsory acquisition of the roadways on either side: the Withers' property at Pomanda Point on one side and Wellington Lodge, the MacFarlane property, on the other side. They were tough negotiations, but in the end the compulsory acquisition (it might have been negotiated through, but I will have to check that) was right there amongst it in the debate because the government were determined to build the weir.

I must say that I went into the 2010 election with more than a hint of nervousness because plenty of people at Goolwa, and one or two councillors who will remain unnamed, saw me at meetings and events and said to me, 'What are you doing to our water?' It was in the media and a lot of people wanted barriers put up and wanted to float on anything. In fact, one bloke on the radio said he would float on raspberry cordial if he could just to get their boats—and their boats are very important to them in the Goolwa area. Bunds were put in at Narrung, Currency Creek and Clayton, and to this day not all those bunds have been pulled out of the river system and they have silted up those areas a bit.

I went into that election thinking, 'I have upset the houseboat owners, I have upset the flood plain dairy farmers at Murray Bridge, I have upset the new community of Goolwa. Well, that was a lovely one term in parliament.' Anyway, something must have gone right because I was re-elected and my margin went up 7 per cent, but I have not managed to get back there, so I was pleased to make that stand. In hindsight, it was the right thing to do because we have the right outcomes.

As much as the northern basin is the smaller amount of water that comes into the system—I think it is only about 300-plus gigalitres a year allocated if it is there—we have seen those dry times in the Darling River, with plenty of that portrayed on social media and on the television. The McBride properties up there, Robert McBride—what is his property, Nick?

Mr McBride: Tolarno.

Mr PEDERICK: Tolarno, up there on the Darling. We have seen fish kills, and in some way it is reflective of the dire conditions that happened at our end of the river. We went into the 2010 election and everything was dry, but then in September there was nothing better than to see that muddy water coming out of the Darling system, out of the northern basin, to refresh the river and basically save our bacon. It was such a pleasure. The River Murray can be dirty enough as it is, with all the carp in it, but that was just gold. It was just amazing to see the recovery. The rains kept coming in the southern basin, down through the Murrumbidgee and the top end of the Murray and we got that relief.

That story just explains why we have to manage the river appropriately. We have to get away from this carping about whether there is theft or alleged theft in other states, or where there is overuse here and people need to get on board with the quarterly accounting. You need to get on board because we have to manage it. Yes, we do manage it through the states, but we do have to manage it as one basin for the good for all, and get away from some of the petty arguments between the states, because if that happens the plan will fall to bits.

I am a full supporter that producers get on board. I am glad to see this legislation coming into being. May it progress through the parliament quickly and our growers get used to quarterly accounting because basically they will have to.

Mr KNOLL (Schubert) (17:06): I rise to make a contribution on this very important bill, the Landscape South Australia (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill introduced by the Minister for Environment and Water, and say that we are starting to see the first changes as we have switched from the NRM system to now this new landscape act and how that is starting to roll out in our regional communities.

It is a hot topic of contention, especially in the Barossa, where we have switched away from being part of the Adelaide Mount Lofty Ranges NRM board to now being part of a sort of Barossa/Yorke/Mid North type of landscape board. We have a fantastic representative on that board, Sarah Barrett, who very much represents the Barossa's interests as well as the broader interests. She is someone I know well as a great Angastonian, and I think she does a fantastic job, bringing a good balance of practical environmentalism coupled with how we are going to actually improve the landscape so that it can work as a working, agrarian landscape in harmony with the natural environment.

Can I say, though, like previous speakers, that water is a big issue in my community and never more so than at the moment. We have seen a couple of below average yielding years in the Barossa in terms of its wine harvest and wine grape harvest, and especially we have seen very little rainfall and very little run-off from any rainfall in the Eden Valley catchment area. It is an issue that is urgent and it is an issue that the government is seeking to take leadership on at the moment. I want to use this opportunity to flesh that out a little bit for those constituents who want to know where this is up to and what work has been progressed in this regard.

The Barossa has traditionally been a dry-grown area, as well as having limited groundwater supply for irrigation in and around the Barossa and the Eden valleys, and that very much contained the supply of wine grapes into the market. We did have a situation in the 1990s where we were starting to see increased salinity from the extraction and use of the groundwater and underwater sources.

At that time, a whole number of people—and I am sure that my predecessor, Ivan Venning, would have made many a speech in this chamber on this topic—and a group of grapegrowers got together to help push for one of the first and certainly the most successful third-party access water irrigation schemes in South Australia.

There is quite a story that gets told about how then Premier John Olsen had to push SA Water to come together with those local growers to develop a system that would deliver Murray water into the Barossa. That system has evolved since 2000 to where it is today—a system that now delivers 11 gigalitres worth of water into the Barossa system and that now represents up to 70 per cent of all water that gets used for irrigation purposes in the Barossa.

If you think about the iconic brand—the globally recognised brand—that the Barossa is, so much of that is now built off the success of Barossa Infrastructure Limited, a scheme that was privately funded and is privately owned by growers in the Barossa who have third-party access to SA Water's pipes, especially the Mannum to Adelaide pipeline, and the storage at Warren Reservoir, which at the moment is being opened up for greater recreational activities as we speak. In fact, I think next month starts a whole host of new activities in that area.

After some controversy early in the establishment of the scheme around whether we would see a flood of cheap grapes come into the Barossa, the Barossa community has accepted that this has been a way for us not to improve yields necessarily but to improve quality and underpin the best shiraz that is grown anywhere in the world.

But we do have an issue at the moment where, although that water source is pretty reliable, there are years where the Barossa does not get full allocation. Indeed, we are subject to all of the same constraints and the same allocations that other members of the basin are subject to, so in some years temporary water does need to be purchased to help top up that allocation, save and except when it is not available, and certainly there is a price that needs to be paid to get it delivered.

That scheme is phenomenally successful, but there is an opportunity at the moment to be able to get even higher security water into the Barossa, and by the Barossa I mean the Barossa Valley as well as Eden Valley. As I said earlier, Eden Valley has had a couple of very dry years, which has created quite an urgent situation for grapegrowers and some of the most iconic vineyards in Australia, such as the Hill of Grace vineyard. Low rainfalls have meant that vineyard owners across Eden Valley have had to take water from standpipes in Eden Valley to help keep their crops alive. Certainly, seeing those historic vines suffer is something that we need to address not only from an historical standpoint but also from an economic one.

I want to thank the federal government, as well as the Barossa Council, for the work they are doing at the moment to upgrade those standpipes at Springton, Eden Valley and Mount Pleasant to help improve access in the short term for those farmers who need to access that stock. This is not only grapegrowers but also livestock producers in Eden Valley. At the moment, they can take up to 1,000 litres of water and they pay full tote odds on the SA Water potable water price for that water. It is expensive water, but it is necessary to keep livestock and these very historic and famous vines alive.

There is an opportunity at the moment that the government is seeking to grapple with. The government and I, as a local member of parliament, are seeking to progress it with the greatest degree of urgency and that is to bring a new supply of treated water out from Bolivar, up through the pipeline to Two Wells and Korunye, and bring new water to the Barossa that is fit for purpose and can help to augment, if not potentially offset, some of the Murray water that is brought to the Barossa Valley to grow grapes.

Barossa shiraz and Eden Valley shiraz are two of the most high-value horticultural crops across Australia. The average price paid for Eden Valley shiraz at the moment is perhaps the highest average grape price in Australia. That shows that there is demand for this product and what we need to do is try to help unlock that economic value by providing water that will help to underpin the health of the vines and also improve the quality of the grapes that get produced there. At the moment, the primary industries department, in conjunction with Treasury and Finance, is going through the process of looking at a structure and a model for how we can bring that water out to the Barossa.

We also have SA Water undertaking some work at the moment to understand what capacity there is in the Mount Pleasant to Adelaide pipeline, as well as helping to define what the capital cost would be for that project, and essentially some further reverse osmosis desalination, I assume, somewhere around Two Wells/Korunye with a pipeline that then runs to the Barossa and, we would expect, hooks up with the existing Barossa Infrastructure Limited infrastructure so that we can help deliver, as cost effectively as possible, a water solution to the Barossa.

I know there is a lot of frustration in the local community regarding the time that these things take. I can certainly appreciate that frustration, especially for Eden Valley farmers and grapegrowers who have suffered for the last few years—their need is urgent—and for Barossa grapegrowers, even in a year such as last year, when more water could have been used to help underpin yields and help improve the crops and help improve the situation for some stressed vines across the Barossa Valley.

It is something that we are progressing, but we also know that Barossa Infrastructure themselves are very heavily involved in helping to bring this to fruition. I have to say that, as a local MP, I have absolutely no skin in the game in getting this water delivered, save and except that I know it is something that is going to improve the economic future of the broader Barossa for generations to come. The opportunity to have not only pretty good water security coming out of the Murray but also climate independent, 100 per cent secure water coming out of Bolivar year on year is a fantastic opportunity.

Behind the scenes I am doing everything I can, working with Barossa Infrastructure, working with grapegrowers in the Barossa Grape and Wine Association, working with ministers and SA Water, as well as PIRSA and DTF to help try to bring this together. However, I do think that there is quite a bit of work that needs to be done to get to a solution that is viable for grapegrowers and also viable for the government to support.

Certainly, in my community there is a lot of talk about getting access to federal government funds to help underpin this project and the potential for state government funds to underpin this project. Fundamentally, I believe that this is a commercial project that needs to be, to the greatest extent possible, commercial in its application. I think that that is possible, but what it needs is the support of all parties to come together and coalesce around a single solution.

In my mind, there are two priorities here. The first priority is to make sure that the Barossa Valley is able to get the water it needs to help augment and support its growth but also to underpin better average yields for its grapegrowers, and also to make sure that Eden Valley is part of the solution. Many Eden Valley grapegrowers have come to me a bit worried that they would be left out of the particular solution. That is certainly not the view of the government and it is certainly not my view as the local MP. In fact, as the climate does change, more and more Eden Valley is going to become an important component of Barossa shiraz and we need to make sure that we have the crop there to be able to support that underpinning and that growth.

I think what we need to realise here is that when we sell wine around the world it takes a lot of bums on seats on aeroplanes to get winemakers overseas to sell our fabulous product to the world. That takes time and effort and it takes a lot of hard work. Especially the amount of time, for instance, that was taken to build up the Chinese market, phenomenally successful though it was in the end in the pipeline for the broader Barossa for a long period of time.

Our export markets into the US have ebbed and flowed as have our export markets into Europe. All of those markets get built over time and what is frustrating for wine businesses is when they create those markets and then not have the product behind them, after they have done all that hard marketing effort, to be able to supply product consistently and that is something that is holding the Barossa back.

So the fact that we had smaller vintages, especially in 2018, 2019 and 2020, and all that marketing effort that goes on around the globe, not having the product to deliver on that promise is something that holds us back. The opportunity to have new water come in that is climate independent, that is 100 per cent secure, that is fit for purpose in its nutrient levels, its salinity and a whole host of other requirements gives us the opportunity to deliver on the promise that our Barossa winemakers and marketing people make overseas, and it will help to create jobs in the Barossa.

Some of those early forecasts suggest that there are hundreds and hundreds, in fact, potentially up to $300 million worth of new economic activity that could be underpinned by this, and I think it will help cement the Barossa as a place that can deliver the highest quality white and red wines around the globe.

It comes at a time when we are seeing some change in Europe, especially as their climate is changing. In famous regions like Burgundy, we have seen that the way in which their vintages operate is changing, especially with more fussy grapes like pinot noir. There is potential opportunity in the future that, as their climate changes and they need to adapt and potentially suffer from climate change, we are able to be ahead of the curve in adapting to climate change so that we can take advantage of those new opportunities in global markets.

I want to assure my community that this is a project that is of the highest priority for me. I have 12 months left in this job and helping to deliver this project is perhaps the highest priority that I have. It is going to be difficult and it is going to require the patience and compromise of all parties involved, but the potential opportunity is so great that I think that will bring everybody to the table in an honest, earnest and good faith way to help deliver a solution.

I would like to commend this bill to the house. I would like to commend bringing new water to the Barossa to this house, and I look forward to helping as soon as we humanly can to bring this project to fruition so that we can deliver more of what is globally recognised here in South Australia as perhaps the best red wine in the world delivered to more consumers, delivering more jobs and prosperity for South Australians.

Mr McBRIDE (MacKillop) (17:21): I stand to support the new Landscape South Australia (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2020 and commend the minister and the member for Black, David Speirs, for his efforts in looking at this consistent approach to managing our water resources right across the state.

In regard to MacKillop, my hometown electorate, we are right on the end of the River Murray system, we are dependent upon all water users playing their part in preserving the water and the river for a River Murray outlet, and all that is surrounded by what is the bottom end of the River Murray system. Without compliance across all the states, starting off in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and then obviously South Australia, we really do not have a Murray Mouth and we will not have a bottom estuarine system that is sustainable or, perhaps in other words, completely damaged without a good management system in place.

South Australia set a very early standard. All through the seventies, I believe, we brought in early management and a licence system for our water users. We were the first of all the states to licence water use and monitor water use. We have also been given probably one of the smallest shares of the whole Murray-Darling water system of all the states. The argument was, 'We are only getting the tail end and we don't provide any catchment to that system.' However, as we all know when we run out of water—like through the Millennium Drought, which is one of the reasons for looking at this—when the system dies, it dies from the bottom up first and, as a state in the Murray system, we suffer the most on the bottom end of the system rather than the top end.

We also took the longest to recover. It was not instant relief. I believe we are still seeing the results of the Millennium Drought in the southern lagoon, and perhaps even a bit in the northern lagoon system on the Coorong, where we have some really huge salinity levels. We have seen species of fish that have not returned and we are still trying to lower the water salinity levels in the southern lagoon left over from the Millennium Drought.

I was very privileged to be part of a business that had a citrus farm up between Loxton and Renmark on the Pike Creek. The Pike Creek was a little sensitive tributary that always sat around 300 to 400 milligrams of salt more than the main flow of the River Murray system itself because it was a backwater. It highlighted to me why the River Murray system needed very close and careful management, because when you have salinity levels getting up over 1,000 milligrams per litre then there are certain consequences for those sort of salt levels.

This is one of the reasons I think that the water system and the sustainable management of the whole River Murray system from Queensland all the way to South Australia are so important. The next point about that is, if it is so important, how do you police it? How do we manage it? What are the repercussions? As we are rightly seeing now, agriculture in Australia is flourishing. Primary produce sometimes is at record prices, particularly for some of the proteins. Dairy is on the recovery and the like.

I can tell you now that the citrus industry last year had some very good prices. We never saw those prices while we were part of a citrus farm on Pike Creek, as I explained, because we sold in 2015. But the prices that are now being received are even better than when I last saw them and I know that the returns per hectare would even be more advantageous for those who have invested in the horticulture and citrus industry.

This goes in hand with why the minister needs to have a strong system of management and also a system of repercussions, let's say, for those who wish to rort the system, maybe misuse the system, maybe think it is not a valued system that should be appreciated for all it is. That then leads to a sense of opportunity by some community players. I think the amendments that have been proposed in this landscape bill will be important to make sure that society absolutely values the water and that the users respect the system.

In contrast, as we saw in an ABC report looking into water use, particularly in New South Wales and Queensland, we saw large water users with meters that were not working. Perhaps they were not even in place. There was a suggestion that there were water cowboys on the system abusing the whole river system and its opportunities that were there. This is going to happen if the water has a high value and high return for some of these commodities that it can be used on—for instance, rice, cotton and other types of horticultural crops like citrus or vines.

The other crop that has come up recently, which has had a small downturn recently, is the almond industry which has seen massive plantings of almonds. This is because of the high returns on almonds. They got to nearly $8 a kilo. They have seen the price soften recently. But this all goes well for making sure that, firstly, the water is there to support these valuable crops and, secondly, that it is not being misused. If it is, what is the deterrent for those who potentially think the laws are weak or that there is an opportunity to misuse the system?

I am very much a believer that South Australia has played its key part in managing the system in its neck of the woods. We probably have led Australia in the allocation and licensing of water and then the management of that system through meters and the monitoring of those meters and recording it to make sure everyone plays their part.

Again, I will highlight the fact that the rest of Australia on the Murray-Darling system has probably been watching and saying, 'We need to tidy up our act. Water is valuable.' It is not necessarily that we are going to have the water and wet years to keep the Murray-Darling system flowing as we would like it every year. As we saw during the Millennium Drought, from memory, we saw water go to over $1,000 a megalitre on a lease basis in 2006-08.

We then saw it recover and go down to about $70, even $40, per year for lease water once the floods came. That tells you the difference, the fluctuations and the opportunities that are there with the water and what we have to be prepared for. So it is an inconsistent system and we need to make sure that that system is being well looked after.

Coming back to my electorate of MacKillop, we also use Murray water. It is piped to towns like Coonalpyn, Tintinara and Keith, and also little towns like Meningie and Salt Creek rely on the Tailem Bend filtration system.

Mr Pederick: And Coomandook.

Mr McBRIDE: And Coomandook in the member for Hammond's home area, his home town and school. The Murray plays a very important role in making sure our water is managed and looked after.

I also know that the Limestone Coast and the underground water system down there is fully prescribed, in the sense that there is no wells area that is not prescribed. It is also metered and managed, and it has a policing system in place or penalties for those who want to fall behind the law rather than stay in front of it. This is another reason why we need good laws that are transparent, that are out there and obvious and that are not hidden—in other words, making sure that the community is fully aware and that the recourses are substantial enough to be a deterrent for those who think the system is there to be rorted.

In regard to water in my region, we are seeing that all the water is being taken up wherever it can be, and there is not a lot of idle water on the Limestone Coast, certainly not as much as there used to be. This is based on the high return for commodity prices now. I can tell you that a lot of centre pivots are going in to grow grass for what used to be mainly dairy, but we are now seeing it to fatten beef and also lamb. That is because those two commodities, beef and lamb, are at nearly record prices. People can afford to spend $1 per megalitre or a lot on diesel and infrastructure to grow grass to put kilos on and then obviously sell afterwards.

It is also important that we look after this water—and obviously we have some dry years and some wet years—because when we have perennial plantings of crops we want them to be able to survive the dry years. To look after crops like vineyards, oranges, citrus, almonds and even the likes of pistachios, any perennial crop that needs water to be reliable, consistent and to get through even the driest of years, we are going to need the best of management systems in place.

Without further ado, I commend the bill. I thank the minister for his changes and amendments. I wish all water users all the best in their management and the opportunities the water resources of South Australia bring to our agricultural fraternity.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (17:31): I want to take a brief moment to thank so many of my colleagues for making a contribution on the Landscape South Australia (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill 2020. The extent and eclectic nature of the contributions certainly demonstrated how important water is to all aspects of life in all areas of our great state.

As I have mentioned a number of times in relation to this bill, it is highly administrative in nature. It seeks to make a small tweak to the Landscape South Australia Act in order to ensure that a compliance regime around water use can be appropriately administered in the 21st century. I would again like to thank my colleagues for their contributions. I thank the opposition for their support, and I commend this bill to the House of Assembly.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (17:33): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Bill read a third time and passed.

PARLIAMENTARY BUSINESS
MEMBERS
GET INVOLVED
ABOUT PARLIAMENT
VISIT
LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
CONTACT