Legislative Council
2 June 1998
The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: I seek leave to make a brief explanation
before asking the Minister representing the Minister for Environment and Heritage a
question about the Cooper Creek system.
Leave granted.
The Hon. M.J. ELLIOTT: There has been a great deal of discussion in the media
recently about the future of one of Australia's last wild river systems, the Cooper Creek
system, and the implications of new plans to allow more water to be removed from its upper
reaches in Queensland. The Cooper Creek is one of the most variable large rivers in the
world. It is integral to the health of the Lake Eyre basin and the Coongie Lakes region
which are wetlands of world signifi-cance and subject to RAMSAR treaty. It also has huge
implications for both pastoralists and tourism.
The Queensland Government has released a draft water management plan for the Cooper
Creek that seeks to allow Queensland pastoralists and irrigators to take a total of 390
000 megalitres from the Cooper Basin. As metropolitan Adelaide uses about 350 megalitres
of water each day at this time of the year, this would equate to three times as much water
as Adelaide uses in a year. The plan pre-empts a heads of agreement, signed in May 1997,
between the South Australian, Queensland and the Federal Governments for the management of
the Lake Eyre Basin. The agreement signing followed concerns about another Queensland bid
to extract an extra 42 000 megalitres from the Cooper catchment near Windorah in Western
Queensland for a major cotton farming project.
The Australian Conservation Foundation believes the new proposal would potentially
stop the headwaters of the Cooper system flowing for an extra 35 days in at least one out
of every two years. The agreement was to have included legislation being introduced into
the South Australian and Queensland Parliaments at the start of this year. I have been
told that that legislation still has not been drafted. Last week in another place, the
Environment Minister suggested that South Australia `will not be bullied into accepting
anything less than the long-term survival of the basin'. My questions to the Minister are:
1. What action has the Government taken in response to the release of the Queensland
draft water management plan for Cooper Creek?
2. What impact will this new proposal have on the number of days that the Cooper
will flow into South Australia?
3. In the Minister's view, what level of protection should be afforded to the Cooper
system?
4. Will the Minister lobby the Queensland Government to ensure that the studies on
the proposal include investigat-ions into ecological and environmental issues, as well as
the hydrological issues?
5. What impact does the Government expect this proposal to have on the Cooper
catchment and the Coongie Lakes area in particular?
6. What importance does the Government place on this region?
7. What does the Minister mean when she calls for the `long-term survival of the
basin'?
The Hon. DIANA LAIDLAW: I will refer the honourable member's questions to the
Minister and bring back a reply.
Read the Government's reply: 8 July 1998
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