Lack of action leaving us high and dry
Source: The Advertiser
At the time of federation, despite the best efforts of South Australian delegates to the Constitutional Convention, an opportunity was missed to place our waterways under federal control.
A year ago this Friday then Prime Minister John Howard tried to redress this mistake, using an Australia Day address to the National Press Club to outline plans for national management of the Murray Darling Basin. This proposed $10 billion National Plan for Water Security sought to overcome more than a century of self-interested mismanagement by the states; mismanagement that has delivered the dire situation our river system faces today.
Our greatest waterway, the Murray-Darling Basin, is under immense strain from a combination of over-allocations and the debilitating prolonged drought.
Just this month, the Rann State Government was forced to announce construction works to modify boat ramps in order to deal with record low water along the Murray.
No population has a greater interest in the restoration of the Murray River’s health than we South Australians. No population, therefore, has a greater interest in seeing Kevin Rudd keep his promise to end the blame game now that we have wall to wall Labor Governments for the first time.
Right now, the Brumby Victorian Labor Government rightly stands blamed and condemned for its stubborn refusal to accept national management of the Murray-Darling, despite every other state coming on board.
The Victorian Labor Government should have been belted into line by Kevin Rudd and Mike Rann as soon as their recalcitrance emerged early last year. If they were truly serious about the need to fix the Murray and other water issues addressed by the plan, Mr Rudd would have shown some leadership, pulled Mr Brumby into line and demonstrated the issue was above politics.
Instead, he went missing on water policy, with barely a word to say about the Murray during last year's election campaign.
Be that as it may, then Acting Premier Kevin Foley returned from December’s Council of Australian Governments meeting to tell us Mr Rudd had taken personal charge of resolving the issues around national management of the Murray and had committed to meetings with Mr Brumby and Mr Rann to break the impasse. Mr Foley said that meeting would take place "in the New Year" with Mr Rudd organising them "as soon as he's able".
A month on from that COAG meeting, and a year on from the release of the National Plan, we’ve heard nothing.
Mr Rudd is at serious risk of not only failing to resolve this important split in Labor ranks during his first 100 days in office, but it appears he won't even get around to meeting with the key protagonists within this time.
It is heartbreaking to read weekly stories about the Murray’s plight: water levels falling below the end of irrigation pumping pipes, the risk posed by rising salinity and acidity, not to mention the dire consequences to the livelihoods of those in our irrigation communities.
The clock is ticking on the opportunity to ensure the environmental fruits and economic benefits of the Murray-Darling Basin are not lost or endangered forever. I'm sure all South Australians hope that Mr Rudd hears the alarm bells before it's too late.
Simon Birmingham is a Liberal Senator for South Australia and Member of the Senate Standing Committee on the Environment.
An age old debate
- The 1897 Constitutional Convention in Adelaide debated a clause to give the proposed federal government jurisdiction over "rivers which flow through two or more states".
- Then South Australian Premier Charles Cameron Kingston supported federal power over the Murray "in order to remove this fertile source of friction between colonies".
- Stretching across five jurisdictions (Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic & SA) the Murray-Darling Basin takes in an area of 1,060,000km2.
- NSW tops average annual water use in the Basin at 7,289Gigalitres (GL), Vic 4,108GL, SA 742GL, Qld 731GL and ACT 34GL.
- Much of the water in the system is evaporated and even under natural conditions only 54% of runoff or 12,890GL would flow out to sea. We all know that only a fraction of that is making to end of the Murray at present