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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2007-11-22 Daily Xml
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MURRAY RIVER

The Hon. M. PARNELL (14:47): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Police, representing the Premier, a question about federal Labor's election policy commitments on the River Murray.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Six months ago, Labor's water spokesman, Albert Albanese, stated in federal parliament:

Water programs are needed now, not in three years, and action is needed now to deal with the problem of over-allocated water licences.

In South Australia, the Rann government's election manifesto for the 2006 state election stated:

We brokered an agreement with the Murray-Darling Basin states and the commonwealth to spend $500 million on River Murray water initiatives and to return environmental flows by 2008.

Premier Rann backed that up with statements this year about the urgency of the dire situation facing the River Murray, including a statement he made in May, when he said:

As the downstream state, it is in South Australia's interest to ensure that this deal goes ahead as quickly as possible.

Just last week, the Premier said:

It is deeply disappointing that the Howard government is yet to spend one cent of the $10 billion it has allocated for River Murray projects.

On Tuesday, Labor released its federal election policy platform on the River Murray. Members would be surprised to hear that, instead of urgent action now, Labor committed itself to increase Murray River spending on buying back irrigation entitlements, modernising infrastructure and improving water saving by only 4 per cent in the next term of government. Even worse, Labor's commitment to return 1,500 billion litres by 2017 is weaker than the commitment it took to the 2004 election.

In 2004, Labor formally committed to return 1,500 gigalitres to environmental flows by 2014. It now seems that Labor wants to delay that return by an additional three years to 2017, despite the river's health declining dramatically at that time, making the need for increased environmental flows more, not less, urgent.

According to the Australian Conservation Foundation, the River Murray is in a crisis which requires any future federal government to immediately roll out half of the $3 billion already committed by the commonwealth government over the next three years. Experts such as Associate Professor David Paton, Head of Ecology at the University of Adelaide, have expressed their views on this matter. Indeed, referring to the Coorong, which is South Australia's Kakadu, Professor Paton states:

Time has run out—we need commitments for action, not more promises. One or two more years without environmental flows will make full recovery of the Coorong costly, if not impossible. Birds like the fairy tern will become extinct because of a lack of water.

The PRESIDENT: Order! I remind the member that we are not dealing with a matter of interest; it is question time.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Thank you, sir. I have one more sentence of explanation and then I will ask my question. The quote continues:

Already its numbers have dropped by 80 per cent in the Coorong, and they have failed to breed for the last four to five years.

My questions of the minister are:

1. In light of the Rann government's strong public statements about the importance of restoring the health of the River Murray, is he comfortable that the election policy that federal Labor is taking to the election on Saturday is weaker than the one that it put to the Australian people in 2004?

2. Does the Rann government support the federal Labour commitment to fund only 15 per cent of the commonwealth's $10 billion River Murray plan in the first three years of a Rudd government, leaving the vast bulk—85 per cent—until after 2011?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Police, Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning) (14:51): What should concern all South Australians in relation to the River Murray is that, even though the current Prime Minister promised $10 billion to purchase water, not a single cent of that money has been spent in almost 12 months. It is a bit like the intervention in the Northern Territory, where not a single person has been arrested. Police were sent to the Northern Territory because of all the alleged problems of sexual abuse in that state, and there has not been a single arrest in six months and, similarly, not a single cent of the promised $10 billion has been spent over the year—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY: Is the member suggesting that there are no reasonable projects on which some of that $10 billion could not have been spent in the past 12 months, at a time when we have experienced the worst drought in 100 years? They are the reasons why I believe that there will be a change of government in this country on Saturday. Certainly, it is needed—and it is vitally needed for South Australia—so we can get a government that will start to address these matters. What is the good of promising multi billions of dollars if you do not spend it?

Of course, this is the hallmark of the Howard government. It keeps throwing money around but, after the election (if it wins), when we read the fine print we will discover that, although it promised billions, it was, in fact, subject to a whole lot of conditions that it did not tell people about before the election, and very little of the money, if any, will be spent. Nothing could illustrate that better than the $10 billion promise to fix the River Murray system, of which not a cent has been spent.

In addition, the Hon. Mark Parnell would be well aware that, after the Prime Minister made that announcement, the other states that do not have the River Murray on their border (Tasmania and Western Australia) complained that some of that money got sidetracked into those areas as well—at least, the money did not, but the promises got sidetracked. Of course, the money, as we know, has not come at all.

What this country desperately needs is a government that will start tackling the issues, and I am sure that that is what will happen after a Rudd government is elected on Saturday. As for the particular promises, if at the 2004 election the Labor Party promised a 10-year plan, not surprisingly, it would end in 2014. However, as it is now three years later—2007—it is not surprising that a 10-year program would end in 2017.

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