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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2017-07-05 Daily Xml
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Murray River

The Hon. T.A. FRANKS (15:46): I rise on behalf of the Greens to speak about the importance of a flowing and healthy River Murray and Murray-Darling Basin. The River Murray is our traditional water source for Adelaide and it is in a critical condition. Necessity is the mother of invention, and as the driest state in the driest inhabited continent on earth, it is little wonder that South Australia has taken the lead on water innovation, water security and, of course, on resilience.

Unsustainable extraction means that not enough water is flowing to the Lower Lakes and Coorong in dry periods. All forecasted climate change scenarios show this will only get worse. Meanwhile, millions of litres of wasted water in the form of stormwater is diverted out to sea, where silt and nutrient load damages the marine environment. Billions of litres of additional nutrient-laden wastewater is flushed out to sea every year, killing our seagrasses. The mighty river supports farming communities, with over 20,000 farms relying on water from the Murray-Darling Basin, as well as over 30,000 wetlands that are nurseries for fish, frogs, turtles, water, migratory birds and animals.

This is a vital ecosystem and one that is under threat from overexploitation and the impacts of climate change. We need a healthy river from source to the sea. That is why hashtag #sourcetosea is the catchcry of the group called Rivers Fellowship, a program being run by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), where river advocates—some of whom I met with recently, including Kate McBride, Bethany Koch and Tracey Hill, who are a passionate group of dedicated people—are demanding a plan that leaves enough water in the river to keep communities and nature healthy and resilient all the way from where the rain falls to the Murray Mouth.

Kate McBride, in fact, wrote to me from Tolarno, Peppora and Wyoming Stations recently. For those of you who are familiar with the Facebook video, that is where my federal leader Senator Richard di Natale and my New South Wales counterpart Jeremy Buckingham MLC were able to kick a football up and down the dry riverbed where the water once flowed. Kate wrote to me with deep concerns that the voices of the basin communities, the traditional owners and South Australians are not being heard.

I want to assure Kate, Tracey and Bethany, and all the rest of the members of the Rivers Fellowship, that the Greens are hearing their voices loud and clear and that we will keep talking about the need for a healthy river from the source to the sea until we make it so. The situation is dire and we need solutions. In Kate's petition to the federal government she stated:

My family and I run a pastoral property on the Darling River in the far-west of NSW. We run over 20,000 merino sheep, and Australian rangeland goats. The Darling River is our lifeblood—it sustains our families, our animals, our businesses and our community. As a Basin, it produces 40% of Australia's agricultural production and is home to almost every one in two sheep in Australia.

But right now, the Murray-Darling River is stressed.

In 2015-16, we had no water in our river for 8 months. We watched the water we and our animals drink go stagnant and then dry up, and our sheep, goats and native animals struggle to stay alive. The water has returned, but because our underground aquifers couldn't replenish, our bores are now saltier than ever before.

There was no drought. There was no water in the river because greedy, unsustainable irrigators upstream take too much water. It is destroying the livelihoods of established, sustainable farmers along the Murray-Darling.

The river is our lifeblood and we need a healthy Murray-Darling river that flows from source to sea, supporting sustainable farming communities along its way.

The Greens know how crucial the Murray-Darling Basin is for Australia's food production, environment and, of course, economy. We will support and fight for reforms to keep the system healthy all the way to the Murray Mouth, winding back the overallocation of water and restoring precious ecosystems so they can keep sustaining Australia. We want to see the return of water to environmental flows and note the South Australian government's commitment to 450 gigalitres through improved water efficiency measures for irrigated agriculture and the buyback of water entitlements in severely degraded and overallocated systems.

With those few words, I commend the river fellowship and endorse the hashtag #sourcetosea and look forward to working with all of my colleagues in this place to have a healthy river have a healthy flow from source to sea.

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