Mike Elliott: Water Resources (Water Reservation) Bill

Extract from Hansard

Legislative Council
24 July 2001

Mike Elliott
Leader Australian Democrats
Member of the Legislative Council

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The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: There is no question that we will be revisiting this legislation, because I think we have yet to tackle the most substantial issue. This bill does not tackle the question of the impact of land use on recharge. It is fundamental to any process that seeks to allocate water that you take that into account. It is interesting that with the Murray River as a resource you can see the water-you can see how much water you have, how much water is being used, and the quality of the water. It is all very visible. However, we are struggling to get it right. At times, it is one step forward and two steps back. Nevertheless, because you can see the water and you can see water being drawn out, it is something that is relatively easy to get a handle on, even though we struggle to resolve some of the issues around it.

The problem with water in the South- East is that it is not visible. It comes down as rain, percolates into the soil and a certain percentage of that, which varies from place to place, finds its way to the confined and unconfined aquifers. The fact that you cannot see it makes it far more difficult to accurately assess what you have and far easier for disinformation, and for people to go on simple prejudice rather than tackle the facts.

One thing that has been useful in recent times is that the government commissioned the CSIRO Centre for Ground Water Studies to carry out an investigation into the ground water resources in the South-East of South Australia. It paints a picture that underlines the very concerns which I raised when this legislation was before us last year on a couple of occasions and which I raised also during my second reading speech, but at that stage I did not have a copy of this report. The executive summary leaves us in no doubt that forestry affects recharge. We should not have any doubt about that, but some people are in a significant state of denial about it.

What is even more interesting in the executive summary is that not only is recharge affected, which it confirms, but that the blue gums may reduce recharge by three times the amount that the existing pinus and eucalypt plantations do. That happens for a couple of reasons: one is the nature of the species itself; and the second is that the areas in which they are being planted have relatively shallow watertables and the roots are down in the watertable. It is not just a question of how much rainfall is being captured by the eucalypts but that they are actively pumping from the watertable itself in a significant way. The executive summary states that there are already development approvals for 34 000 hectares, of which at the time of writing it was expected that about 22 000 hectares of eucalypt would be planted. That would be a 21 per cent increase in the total plantations. The executive summary continues:

This will increase annual net groundwater discharge beneath the plantations by between 20 000 and 77 000 ML, that is by 3 to 13 per cent of the current Permissible Annual Volume of groundwater use for the whole South-East Region to between 9 and 35 per cent of PAV.

That is still a fair range, and the CSIRO executive summary is not confident about the absolute prediction but, if one takes the mid level of each of those, it is really saying that the increase in eucalypts will go from drawing about 8 per cent of PAV to somewhere between 22 or 23 per cent of permissible annual volume. That is not a minor matter, and I suspect that the discovery that eucalypts were using three times as much water as the pines probably went beyond the original estimates that were done by the Department of Water Resources when it first tried to calculate what the PAV should be.

My suspicion is that not only have we got the PAV wrong but that the potential drawdown by the eucalypts that have already been approved is much greater. That would be enough concern in itself but the bill as it is now before us and as amended in the lower house means that nothing has been done about land use. If there are continual applications and approvals for further plantings, it is quite possible, some people might even say likely, that there will be some areas in the South-East where the drawdown will be greater than the recharge, and that is before we take into account other variables.

There seems to be increasing evidence that some climate change is occurring and, on CSIRO predictions, the most likely consequence for the South-East is that it will mean less rainfall in the South-East and increased evaporation. If that is combined with this situation, we are heading towards significant problems. Virtually 12 months ago to the day we were promised that, by the end of last year, the issue of land use would be addressed. There might be more than one way of addressing it but doing nothing, which is essentially what this bill does, is not one of them.

The minister has said that he will not allocate further water, but allocation of water is not the only way in which water will be used, and that is the very point that I sought to make. In some hundreds that will not matter because very little of the PAV has been allocated, and plantings in some areas might be a godsend. Some areas, particularly in the west and north-west of the Lower South-East, have highly saline ground waters and drawdown in that area would not be a problem. If the whole lot was covered in forest, it would not be a problem. However, in areas where there is significant drawdown of water, if there are increases in forestry above that currently approved, we will have some significant problems. People who have been historic users of water will suddenly find that the available water simply will not be there. That causes me great concern.

Because of the internal difficulties in the Liberal Party, regardless of what ultimate solution is adopted, we will end up with no solution at all, and in another decade the people of the South-East will not thank this parliament for reneging on its responsibilities. In my view, the evidence that is now emerging from the CSIRO report reinforces the concerns that were raised over 12 months ago and the fact that parliament is still failing to address them does not do any of us any credit.

The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: For the record, while the honourable member is congratulating the minister he needs to recognise that this is not the bill I think the minister wanted. The minister wanted something very similar to what I was talking about, and the problems he had were not with me: the problems he had were within his own party.

I do not recall mentioning the `e' word at all, although the honourable member seemed to go a bit ballistic on it. I simply mentioned that this current legislation does not fix the situation in terms of the mathematics of water availability. My concern, and I would have thought from the previous member's speech his concern, was whether or not there was going to be adequate available water. This bill does not address that issue; it does not fix the deficiencies in the previous act, and that is the point I was making.