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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-04-09 Daily Xml
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IRRIGATION BUYBACK

Adjourned debate on motion of Hon. S.M. Kanck:

That this council—

1. Notes the crisis in the Murray-Darling Basin and calls on the Rudd Labor government to urgently commence the purchase of water from irrigators for environmental flows utilising the $3 billion allocated by the Howard government in 2007 for this purpose.

2. Directs the President to convey this resolution to the Prime Minister of Australia.

(Continued from 27 February 2008. Page 1849.)

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER (17:18): I move:

After paragraph 1 insert new paragraph—

2. Calls on the government to acknowledge the critical state that the Lower Lakes and Coorong now face, to further acknowledge that any action arising from the recent MOU will have no benefit to the region within the next three years, and take immediate action to acquire water to preserve this vital environmental and commercial asset.

The demise of the water flow to the Murray Mouth has been something of concern to environmentalists, irrigators and residents for many years now. But, in the past two years, the national drought has certainly exacerbated a crisis that has, in fact, been heading our way for a long time. It has been described as a tsunami which could have been averted.

It is tragic to travel along the River Murray within South Australia. I have not been, in recent times, outside of South Australia along the Murray Darling Basin. Within South Australia we have seen over the past couple of years the tragedy of piles and piles of citrus trees simply bulldozed into heaps. It is an industry that will have difficulty recovering in the foreseeable future. Similarly, one does not have to drive very far off the main highway to see grapevines which have simply been abandoned. And one does not have to look very hard to see river red gums, which are probably hundreds of years old, simply dying or dead through lack of water.

Fortunately, those in the upper reaches of the Murray are still receiving water. What little water they are receiving is of reasonably low salinity and is able to be used by the people and by the environment along the way; but that supply, as we all know, is diminishing rapidly and no one sees any real solution to this dreadful dilemma in which we now find ourselves. Interestingly, Professor Mike Young of Adelaide University claims that the time when allocations were set for the use of River Murray water is now considered by many scientists to have been the wettest 50 years in the history of this part of Australia. Therefore, perhaps no one can be blamed for the over allocation that has taken place, but someone has to take responsibility for reducing those allocations and for allowing the river to flow again. Undoubtedly there will be great human suffering and undoubtedly there will also be great environmental suffering before any real solution is found.

I concur with the motion of the Hon. Ms Kanck in that there is urgency in the commencement of the purchase of water and, sadly, most of that water will be purchased from irrigators. I am desperate, however, to see that those irrigators are willing sellers and that the water is purchased at market value.

We have already seen, in recent months, this government manipulate, if you like—either deliberately or otherwise—the market value of water. Irrigators were assured that they would have no more than 16 per cent of their allocations and many of them borrowed significant amounts of money to purchase water from upstream in order to keep their various crops alive, only to be told that, in fact, they could have 22 per cent of their allocation, and then I believe an additional allocation on top of that; I think now up to 32 per cent (however, I am not so sure of that), but certainly to 22 per cent of allocation.

So people who in good faith had purchased water at some $1,200 per megalitre, suddenly found that they did not need that water and the price of the water had, in fact, dropped to what I believe now is $300 a megalitre. So, not only had they purchased at $1,200 and locked in water that they now were allocated, if they sold it back onto the open market for others to use they were going to take a loss of some $900 per megalitre—and we are talking, in many cases, of borrowings in the vicinity of $100,000 to $200,000, so we are not talking about a minor amount of money for people who are already facing total destruction or partial destruction at best.

Whilst I agree that we are facing, I think, an unprecedented crisis for the supply of water to irrigators and the environment in this state and the fact that something must be done with urgency, I believe that the federal government and its Labor colleagues must address this in a commercial manner and pay people a decent independently valued market price for this water. However, I think anyone who has been to the Lower Lakes and the lower end of the Murray must be doubly concerned. I know that my colleague the member for Hammond (Mr Adrian Pederick) has continued to fight for the people in his electorate, and he notes in his most recent newsletter:

The drought is still with us and the situation with the river is worse than hoped—

he is talking about 12 months previously when he had described it as a crisis—

with the spectre of a weir at Wellington still hanging over our heads.

He said further:

The situation in the Lower Lakes is dramatically worse. The closing off of wetlands upstream and the exposure of thousands of square metres of lake bed downstream has exposed humans and the river itself to a new problem—acid sulphate soils. We must take this new peril into account before we allow the Lower Lakes to dry out as there is no guarantee that when rains return they will revert to normal.

He continued:

It should also be noted that the first concern of all these struggling people is that the river and lakes be returned to their normal state—a freshwater ecosystem thousands of years old. It has been brought to its knees by 150 years of greed and ignorance. Lower Lakes residents understand better than anybody the vital importance of a healthy river.

He went on to say:

Another symptom of the river's woes emerged recently as river banks below Mannum begin to slip into the falling river.

And he has a very graphic photo in his newsletter of the banks of the River Murray actually crumbling into what remains of the river. I travelled down there recently and it is, indeed, distressing to see Lake Albert and Lake Alexandrina being nothing more than stinking mud holes.

I also note a publication by the South Australian Murray Irrigators (SAMI) of March 2008. I will not read all of this because it is quite a long publication, but it refers to a number of case studies and how difficult life has become for these people with the demise of the River Murray. It begins:

The irrigators of the Lower Lakes are facing ruin. While they have struggled with limited allocations over the past five years, a growing number are now reaching the point where they cannot access usable water. Water levels continue to recede and salinity levels climb. Grape growers, graziers, dairy farmers and orchardists are struggling to survive, let alone to make money.

It goes on to talk about—as many of us have heard—the desperate efforts of the Langhorne Creek wine grape growers, who are looking at borrowing $70 million from their own limited resources to pipe water from Murray Bridge to Langhorne Creek, simply to continue with their industry.

There is a case study of Philip Shaw from Currency Creek. He established his vineyards at Currency Creek in 1994 and started Ballast Stone Winery in 2000. He has not been able to pump from the Lower Lakes since March last year and has been surviving on underground water and rainfall, where possible. He is using water until it exceeds 1,800 units EC in salt. Another story is entitled 'Dairy survivors in up to their necks', and there is a photo of a pump which formerly pumped water from the lakes to water cows and which is sitting high and dry on a sandhill. There is a story about Narrung graziers, Joe and Lorraine Leese, who have had to reduce their stock to such an extent that they are well below sustainable rates. The article states:

The Leese's quest for clean water is almost a daily ritual as they peer out across the vast mudflats that were once covered in water and teeming with bird life.

There is the story about John Eckermann who has five kilometres of lake front but no water. There is the story of Mick and Lesley Fischer. I was privileged to be one of the judges in the year they won South Australian Dairy Farm of the Year. The title to that article (as distressing as it is) is, 'From 700 cows to none'. They are just some of the stories. Dairy farmers Melanie and Nigel Treloar are paying $3,000 a week to cart water. The Lower Lakes of South Australia are beyond simply talking about farmers, however. We are talking now about the towns and the small communities that have no water, that are having to pay to have water carted in. The situation is little better than a third world country.

The government has trumpeted that it has signed an MOU. The memorandum of understanding on the Murray-Darling Basin reform was signed on 26 March. I am sincerely concerned that this is nothing more than another talkfest. It will set up what is described as a new independent authority 'which will be responsible for developing, implementing and monitoring the basin plan'. It goes on at some length, and it states that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority will provide a basin plan in early 2011. Well, by early 2011 the Lower Lakes, Fleurieu Peninsula and Langhorne Creek will be finished. I do not believe that they have ever before been in such a parlous state. Anywhere south of the Adelaide Hills—

The Hon. J.S.L. Dawkins interjecting:

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER: As the Hon. John Dawkins interjects, anywhere south of Lock 1 will be ruined if nothing is done before 2011. Dot point 14 states that the role of the advisory council will be formalised eventually and the authority will report to a new ministerial council. We are now onto dot point 17 and I cannot see anything which makes South Australia any better off than it is currently.

The Hon. Sandra Kanck: We will be worse off.

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER: As the Hon. Sandra Kanck interjects, it is my great fear that we will be worse off. In my view, this has been a brilliant con by Premier Mike Rann and a brilliant strategy by the Premier of Victoria, Mr Brumby. He has committed to 'saving' 175 gigalitres of water in Victoria (off the top of my head) and for that he is being paid an additional $1 billion, over and above any of the spending to be generated from this national plan. He is getting an extra $1 billion to save '100 billion litres'—and they think people from the city will think that is a lot of water. In fact, it is 100 gigalitres. Why suddenly they have started to talk about billions of litres is beyond my comprehension. I understand that 75 gigalitres of that saving will go straight to Melbourne, some 25 gigalitres will go to irrigators in Victoria (if my figures are correct) and the rest, supposedly, will go in savings to the River Murray.

However, it fails to take into account the leakage from the open drains that currently goes back into the river. A number of us who do basic back-of-the-envelope sums are saying, 'South Australia is actually going to be net worse off'. The River Murray in South Australia will be net worse off under this grand scheme than it is now. In addition, dot point 37 states, 'The commonwealth agrees to honour all existing water resource plans in all jurisdictions, including Victoria's plans, that continue until 2019.' So, for our money we get a plan by 2011, but Victoria does not have to come on board: it is paid an additional $1 billion up front but does not have to come on board until 2019.

The Premier of this state tells us that this is a breakthrough and that this will save the people, the ecology, the environment and the economy of the people who are dependent on the flows of the River Murray. It will also save the environment, the birdlife, the marine life and the flora culture of the River Murray. I am sorry; I am very sceptical—very sceptical.

The Hon. Sandra Kanck: Let's be cynical.

The Hon. C.V. SCHAEFER: I do not want to be cynical. I am desperate to see that the South Australian section of the river, and indeed all the Murray-Darling Basin, survives, flourishes and returns to being not only the fruit bowl and supplier of food for the nation of Australia but also a magnificent and profitable exporter.

I do not want to be cynical: I would actually like to see something good come out of this. I have read this document, and every time I read it I become more depressed for the people of the Murray-Darling Basin and particularly for those of the Lower Lakes and south of Lock 1, and that is why I moved my amendment.

The Liberal Party supports the Hon. Ms Kanck's motion, but I very much suspect that, like many of these motions, the government will move that it be adjourned and that it will sit on the Notice Paper for as long as we wait for anything to be done that will practically assist anyone on this system.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

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