The Hon. H.J. GUMBYS (16:24): I rise in support of the motion moved by the Minister for Climate, Environment and Water. The River Murray is not only the lifeblood of communities situated along it, it is essential infrastructure for South Australia. It supports irrigated agriculture, regional employment, tourism and recreation, internationally significant wetlands, First Nation communities and the drinking water security of our state. That is why South Australia must remain united in insisting that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan be delivered in full.
The amendments proposed by the crossbench would weaken that position. They would weaken our ability to secure the environmental water the river needs and, in doing so, undermine the reliable delivery of water to irrigation communities at the bottom of the system. For South Australia, this is not an abstract argument about a number in a plan. We are the downstream state. When flows are reduced, when water quality deteriorates, or when upstream governments fail to meet their commitments, the consequences arrive here.
Those consequences are felt throughout the Lower Murray. The Lower Murray Reclaimed Irrigation Area, extending between Mannum and Wellington, is home to livestock, dairy and irrigated hay producers, who rely upon dependable water delivery. During the Millennium Drought, paddocks across this area acidified significantly. Producers continue to manage the legacy of acid sulphate soils today. The same drought showed what happens when the entire system is not managed sustainably. Irrigation pumps could no longer reach the water, salinity became unsuitable for stock, domestic and irrigation use, levy banks cracked, riverbanks collapsed and hypersalinity and acidification pushed the Coorong and Lower Lakes to the brink of ecological collapse.
A healthy river and a productive irrigation sector are, therefore, not competing objectives. Irrigators need a river that can reliably deliver water. They need acceptable salinity and water quality. They need confidence that the system will remain viable through dry years and under a changing climate. Environmental water helps sustain the system upon which productive agriculture itself depends. The economic evidence also challenges the claim that recovering water from the environment must come at the expense of basin agriculture.
Since water recovery commenced, water use has reduced by around 20 per cent, while the gross value of irrigated production has increased from approximately $7.7 billion to around $10 billion. That outcome has been supported by substantial public investment. Of the $13 billion committed to basin plan implementation, around $5 billion has been invested in on-farm and off-farm efficiency and modernisation. South Australian irrigators have been leaders in efficient water use for decades, building resilience through modern infrastructure, improving monitoring and more precise irrigation.
South Australia supports continuing to recover water through efficiency measures and, where necessary, through voluntary buybacks. It is important to be clear: the basin plan does not contemplate involuntary cuts to diversions. It provides mechanisms to recover water while supporting irrigators and regional communities through the transition. Adjustment can place pressure on smaller irrigation communities; that is why South Australia supports the commonwealth's $300 million sustainable communities program. Supporting communities through change is responsible policy. Using those pressures to abandon the plan is not.
For South Australia, finishing the job means recovering the equivalent of 3,200 gigalitres from the environment as committed when the basin plan was adopted in 2012. Full recovery against the existing targets remains non-negotiable. We cannot accept the review process or political compromise that results in fewer flows crossing the South Australian border. The importance of those flows extends far beyond agriculture. More than 3.4 million people rely on the basin's river system for residential use and drinking water. For many regional communities, the river is their only source of drinking water.
In South Australia, up to 90 per cent of the population has some reliance on the Murray, including communities as far west as Ceduna and as far east as Keith. Metropolitan Adelaide is also deeply connected to the river. Current annual drinking water demand is around 180 to 190 gigalitres. In a worst-case year, the River Murray may be required to supply between 100 and 150 gigalitres, while the effective capacity of the Adelaide Desalination Plant is around 80 gigalitres. Projected population growth could add nearly another 20 gigalitres to annual demand by 2032. Those figures expose the danger of pretending that Adelaide can simply substitute its way out of a declining river system.
Reservoirs and desalination form important parts of our water security network, but neither makes the Murray optional. Much of the water held in the Adelaide Hills system has itself been drawn from the River Murray. Climate change makes full implementation more urgent, not less. Historical overallocation created risks that declining rainfall, hotter conditions and more severe drought will intensify. Lower flows, increasing salinity, algal blooms, blackwater events and exposed acid sulfate soils threaten irrigation, drinking water, tourism, cultural values and environmental health.
The basin is also a major tourism and environmental asset containing more than 30,000 wetlands, including 16 internationally significant wetlands. Tourism contributes roughly the same economic value to the basin as irrigated agriculture. A diminished river would damage much more than one sector.
South Australian water users account for less than 6 per cent of diversions across the basin, yet our communities bear the downstream consequences of decisions made throughout the system. South Australia capped River Murray water use in the late 1960s and moved early on irrigation efficiency. Our state has done the work. We are entitled to insist that every basin jurisdiction honour the commitments made under the national plan. I welcome the determination of the commonwealth Minister for the Environment and Water, Senator Murray Watt, to address outstanding recovery targets and the balanced use of efficiency programs, voluntary purchases and community support to complete the plan.
The choice before us is not between farming and the environment. It is between completing a national plan that supports the long-term viability of both, or even weakening that plan and transferring even greater risk to the communities at the end of the river. Reliable flows matter to a dairy producer near the Lower Murray. They matter to a family turning on a tap in Adelaide or a regional town. They matter to tourism operators, First Nations communities, wetlands and wildlife. They matter to every South Australian whose future depends upon a healthy and functioning river system.
It is not enough for the River Murray merely to survive; it must be able to sustain communities, industries and ecosystems through the decades ahead. South Australia must continue to speak with one voice, deliver the basin plan in full, recover the water that was promised, and do not weaken the protection of our river. For those reasons, I support the motion and oppose the proposed amendments.