Speech by The Hon. Mr Christopher Pyne, MP,
Federal Member for Sturt (SA, Liberal)
at the
3rd Shed a Tier Congress
Canberra, 22 March 2002
COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Official Hansard
No. 2, 2002
MONDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2002
FORTIETH PARLIAMENT
FIRST SESSION—FIRST PERIOD
BY AUTHORITY OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
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Governor-General's Speech—
Address-in-Reply............................................................................................. 381
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Monday, 18 February 2002 REPRESENTATIVES 381
GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SPEECH
Address-in-Reply
Debate resumed.
Mr PYNE (Sturt) (8.21 p.m.)—Mr Speaker, at this opportunity, I congratulate you on your re-election as the Speaker. The last time I spoke, it was only to ask a question and it did not seem appropriate at the time to congratulate you. I look forward to your continuing presence in the chair.
The SPEAKER—Thank you, Member for Sturt, and for your discretion.
Mr PYNE—Tonight I want to talk about the issue of the Murray-Darling Basin and to address parts of the Governor-General's speech, particularly with regard to the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, which was touched on by His Excellency when he spoke to us last week in the Senate chamber. The National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality is one of the more visionary and far-reaching programs that the Commonwealth and the states will be taking part in over the next five years.
The Commonwealth and the states are putting aside $1.4 billion to tackle issues to do with salinity and water quality, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin. It is a program that I strongly support, and it follows on from our excellent Natural Heritage Trust, which was one of the great achievements of our first term in office and which arose out of the sale of the first third of Telstra. As you would know, we put certain billions aside for relieving our debt burden, which was an important step, particularly with the Asian financial crisis that followed about a year later. We also established the Natural Heritage Trust with a billion dollars so that we could get out of the roundabout of Labor spending on the environment, which seemed to be dependent on which special interest group at any particular time was tweaking the Labor Party—its environmental program would be funded or its particular area of native vegetation would be saved. But the Natural Heritage Trust means that there is a committed amount of money that is put aside for the environment every year. It is one of our great achievements. The National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality will be another great achievement of this government, because it will tackle the Murray-Darling Basin salinity and water quality issues, which you and I, Mr Speaker, have chatted about as recently as the last day or two.
The Governor-General's speech presents an opportunity to comment on the Murray-Darling Basin and on steps that the Commonwealth might be able to take in the event that the states remain recalcitrant about working in a cooperative way either with each other or with the Commonwealth. I am pleased to say that the Prime Minister has identified the environment as one of the major points on the agenda of his third term in office as Prime Minister. Victoria and South Australia have signed the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, but the other states are yet to do so. It is very important that, in the coming ministerial council meeting on Murray-Darling Basin issues, they use that opportunity to sign the National Action Plan and to start the process. The Murray-Darling Basin is of such economic and ecological importance to the nation—and to South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland in particular—that it is time that the Commonwealth seriously explored the avenues available to it in the event that the states continue to not work together and instead pursue their parochial interests.
There are a few statistics of interest to do with the Murray-Darling Basin. The Murray-Darling Basin is, as we all know, Australia's most important agricultural region, but not everyone would know that it accounts for 41 per cent of the nation's gross value of agricultural production, which is a tremendous amount. It also provides the raw materials for almost all of the manufacturing activity that occurs in the Murray-Darling Basin and for much of the manufacturing that occurs outside the Murray-Darling Basin. Commercial agriculture is represented by 51,672
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farms in the Murray-Darling Basin, which is 42 per cent of Australia's 122,053 farms, covering an area of 84,625,000 hectares, or 18 per cent of the Australian total. It is also the home of three-quarters of the mainland's hydro-electric power stations. It obviously includes the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric power station, but there are many smaller hydro-electric power stations in New South Wales and Victoria that exist in the Murray-Darling Basin. There are 3,280 manufacturing establishments in the Murray-Darling Basin, employing 62,400 people, particularly in the area of food, beverages and tobacco. The basin accounts for 17 per cent of Australia's total in the industries of food, beverages and tobacco. It also accounts for 16 per cent of Australia's total textiles industry.
As you can see, the Murray-Darling Basin is a very, very important area for Australia's economy, particularly in agricultural production. As a consequence, we cannot afford as a nation to allow it to degenerate into parochial fights between states. Only the Commonwealth can take the national view on the Murray-Darling Basin. It is noteworthy that the member for Indi made that same comment today in her maiden speech. Much of her electorate is affected by the Murray-Darling Basin as it is right on the river. My 65 square kilometre electorate of Sturt in the eastern suburbs of Adelaide does not have quite the same problem, but as an Adelaidian I know that the issues to do with the Murray-Darling Basin have been the talk in my state for many decades. It is becoming much more serious, as is the mouth of the Murray—a constant source of political discussion in the great plain state of South Australia.
There are four options that the Commonwealth could consider with regard to the Murray-Darling Basin. It could run a referendum to delete section 100 of the Constitution, which leaves the power in the hands of the states over the tributaries and rivers of the Commonwealth. It could include a new power, under section 51 of the Constitution, that gave the Commonwealth power over the control and regulation of the Murray-Darling Basin and the use of the water thereof. It could consider running a test case in the High Court about what the term "reasonable use' means, because section 100 of the Constitution says:
The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a State or of the residents therein to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation.
That raises the question of what "reasonable use' means. It is a matter that has never been put to the test in the High Court. It would be interesting, if the Commonwealth chose to go down that path, to see what the High Court would define "reasonable use' as. I am sure that in many decades past it would not have been an issue, but now, given the serious environmental disaster that waits on our doorstep with regard to the Murray-Darling Basin—as was highlighted by the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, David Kemp, and the Prime Minister as recently as
last Thursday in question time—what "reasonable use' means is a serious question. Does it mean that Adelaide's drinking water will be unusable two out of every five days in 2020? Is that an unreasonable use of the Murray-Darling Basin and its waters by the people who have been using it under the auspices of the states? If the Commonwealth were to take it over, would that be a way of making sure that the Murray was being used reasonably rather than unreasonably?
The final option would be to ask the National Competition Council to consider whether they should withhold funds from those states that are recalcitrant in the area of the use of water. It was stressed by the National Competition Council last year that they would consider withholding funds from the Victorian and Queensland state governments over water issues.
Queensland was criticised by the National Competition Council for allowing cotton growers in southern Queensland to extract too much water from the Condamine-Balonne river system, starving the Narran Lakes wetlands of water. The National Competition Council has that kind of power. We need to ask whether it is the financial carrot that will cause the states to stop bickering over the Murray-Darling Basin and seriously come to the table and try and bring about Monday,
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change. There is ample evidence to show that there are good reasons for the people to give the Commonwealth greater power in this area. The Australian Dryland Salinity Assessment 2000, the National Land and Water Resource Audit's Australian Water Resources Assessment 2000 and the Murray-Darling Commission's salinity audit, all from an environmental perspective, made it very clear that, while the states have had management of the basin since 1901and have been arguing about it, it has been affected in a deleterious way. There are serious environmental issues facing the Murray-Darling Basin that we cannot ignore any longer. The Murray-Darling Basin commissioned a report as recently as October 2001, which was reported in the Weekend Australian of 16-17 February. The article stated that the report:
... released by the Murray-Darling Basin Commission last October, found 95 per cent of the river assessed suffered environmental degradation and water quality ranged from poor to very poor. Fish populations were in poor condition along the length of the Murray, and down more than 80 per cent on original population numbers in 17 per cent of the river.
It recommended the return of two-thirds of the Murray's natural annual flow to the river—a big ask given that less than 30 per cent of the river's median annual flow reaches the Murray mouth in South Australia -
That study followed an August report headed by eminent river scientist Peter Cullen that concluded the Murray needed a massive 1000 gigalitres in environmental flows.
The Queensland government is particularly egregious in its treatment of the Murray-Darling Basin. It is the Queensland government that has the most to answer for in terms of management of the precious waters of the Murray-Darling Basin. It is the Queensland government that still to this day refuses to sign the water cap agreement, but Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia signed it in 1997, based on 1993-94 extractions from the Murray and the Darling. The first time I spoke on this issue was in April 2001. I said then that Queensland had promised to sign the cap agreement in July in the lead-up to yet another meeting of the ministers that are concerned with the Murray-Darling Basin.
As I stand here tonight, it is fair to say that Queensland have still not signed the agreement. It follows their pattern of setting a deadline to sign the Murray-Darling Basin cap agreement and then just letting the deadline pass them by. Queensland are desperately taking water from the Murray-Darling Basin at massive rates of increase on a yearly basis. I think they believe that they are going to miss out when they finally sign the agreement and their extractions are limited.
The truth is that this is a national issue. It affects South Australia, it affects Victoria to a lesser extent, it affects New South Wales—in the long term, the viability of the farms in New South Wales will be put at risk unless proper management is taken of the Murray-Darling Basin—and it affects Queensland as well.
Last Thursday, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, in answer to a question from the member for Herbert, made the point that new research commissioned by the Queensland Department of Natural Resources, supported by the Commonwealth backed Grains Research and Development Corporation, had found that no less than 21 per cent of Queensland's cropping lands are now regarded as high hazard salinity areas—that is over half a million hectares of agricultural land in Queensland—and that, to prevent salinity destroying this land, there will need to be effective management of over 1.6 million hectares in Queensland.
The National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality would deliver $81 million from both the Commonwealth and the Queensland state government to combat salinity issues and improve water quality management in Queensland. Yet Queensland still has not signed the national action plan agreement or the capping agreement between all the states and the Commonwealth. One has to wonder what the Commonwealth needs to do to make Queensland come on board, to recognise the urgent need, and to start making a difference for the Murray-Darling Basin. That is why people have started to talk about test cases on "reasonable use' in the High Court and the withholding of money by the National Competition Council for bad water management. The piece de
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resistance, the final straw, would be taking the matter to a referendum to delete section 100 from the Constitution and introduce a new head of power under section 51 that would give the Commonwealth sole power, or concurrent power. People are getting to that stage because they are fed up with waiting for Queensland in particular and the other states to come on board and support proper management of the Murray-Darling Basin.
The Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council next meets in April, which is in a couple of months. It provides an opportunity to discuss environmental flows and to review the cap. It gives the states that have not signed the national action plan the chance to do so. I wish the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, David Kemp, the best of luck in working with the states to try and achieve a cooperative approach. If the states fail again to move this issue forward at the April ministerial council then it provides impetus to those people who support taking the power away from the states and would give the Commonwealth reason to consider proceeding with a referendum.
Even the Australian Conservation Foundation—which is not usually regarded as a supporter of the coalition; it is not—regard that step as the most radical. Yet it has been proposed by numerous people around Australia as the last straw to try and bring about change for the Murray-Darling Basin, change for the people of South Australia and change for Victorians who are as affected as South Australians.
Mr GIBBONS (Bendigo) (8.37 p.m.)—
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