Subjects: Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
JULES SCHILLER: The number one story at the moment is the Murray‑Darling Basin Plan, and the federal Government announced today that it's committed to delivering the plan in full, just not in the original timeline.
Tanya Plibersek, of course the Federal Water and Environment Minister, has committed to returning the 450 gigalitres to the Murray, and with all the Basin states signing up except Victoria. It's important that water comes through, but of course while we had floods last year, if you look at the long‑range forecast we could be in for some years of drought. And the federal Water and Environment Minister joins me now. Welcome Tanya Plibersek.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Great to be with you again.
SCHILLER: Look, it's kind of good news, I guess, that the 450 gigalitres, you're sticking to that plan. Why hasn't Victoria signed up?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, that's really a question for Victoria, but what we're offering states and the ACT, the Basin states and territory, are more time, more options, more funding, more accountability. And I think this is really the only way through to fully deliver on the Basin Plan. We know that it's been off track for some time, we had a number of reports under the previous government - so the Productivity Commission Report, we had a number of reports from the Murray‑Darling Basin Authority, and two Water for the Environment Special Account reports, one of which, by the way, was kept secret until after the Coalition lost government.
They've sort of hinted that the plan was off track or said that the plan was off track. I really hoped we could get it back on track, but within the timeframe it's just not possible. So what we're saying to states like New South Wales and Victoria in particular, is that we are offering them more time to deliver on the big infrastructure water saving programs that they've got, we want more options on the table, and that means more voluntary water purchase, particularly towards that 450 gigalitre target that's so important to South Australia. We've got more funding available to complete the plan, but what we expect is more accountability. We're not going to give an extension of time and then not see that plan delivered.
SCHILLER: So is 2027 the date for this 450 gigalitres to be returned?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: That's right. So we're extending the infrastructure projects to 2026, so they'll get another couple of years, and then 2027 is for the 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water - to achieve that.
SCHILLER: Now, you've lifted the cap on buybacks, you know, which hasn't been popular with farmers and many of the states, Tanya Plibersek. I guess you can't really announce how much you're going to buy because there's a water market, and that could distort the prices. So how do you balance that?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah. Look, that's a hundred per cent right. The big frustration with that 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water is when we came to government, when I became the Minister, 2 gigalitres of that had been achieved. So, in 11 years we got all the way to 2 gigalitres out of the 450.
So it is a big job, and obviously if you've got a purchaser like the Commonwealth Government in the market, people - they can begin to speculate on water prices. We absolutely don't want that to happen, that's one of the most important reasons for giving this extension of time. We want to smooth out any purchasing. We also want to give an opportunity for any of those big infrastructure projects that are going to make a difference, a real difference to water saving, we want to make sure that they're completed, because the more really good water saving projects we get up, the less water we need to buy, but we will need to buy some.
SCHILLER: Were there some infrastructure projects that weren't fit for purpose?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Oh, yeah, definitely. Look, there's -
SCHILLER: Because they were taking federal money, weren't they, for this ‑ so, what, did they rort the system?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, no, no. These are really big and complex engineering feats, so there's a program called the Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism. There were 36 projects under that, 14 of them are up and working, another six of them are likely to be delivered on time. So 20 of them will be on time, we hope 20 of them will be on time, but 16 of them are at risk, and they're either not going to be delivered, they'll be delivered to a smaller degree or there's some other problem with them.
So a lot of this was, I think, over‑optimism from state and territory governments in the initial stages, they thought some projects would deliver a lot more water than they in fact will, or they thought the engineering would be easier than it has been, but you know, at the end of the day, what we've got is some targets to recover water, and we've got to get to them.
Now, we have ‑ we've done not bad. We've got to about 2,100 gigalitres of water returned, but it's worth saying that only 16 per cent of that has happened in the last close to a decade under the Liberals and Nationals, and almost 84 per cent of that happened under the previous Labor Government and since we've come back to government. So it just shows you what a deliberate go‑slow the previous government was on.
SCHILLER: How can ‑ I mean South Australians are cynical that Victoria and New South Wales, you know, at a time when there might be a drought, are going to agree to buybacks or return this water to the environment. How do you hold them to account?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, just to be really clear, I don't need the support of the Victorian or the New South Wales Government to do voluntary water purchase, that is a matter for the Commonwealth Government. New South Wales still doesn't support buybacks, Victoria certainly doesn't, but we don't need their agreement for that. That is something that I need the agreement of the Commonwealth Parliament to do.
So the Liberals and the Nationals and the Greens and the Crossbench are all going to have to answer whether they support that 450 gigalitres of water being delivered and having that impact in South Australia that we know it will have. They'll have to vote for it or against it, and this is really a very important question for the Liberals and Nationals; do they support South Australia or don't they?
SCHILLER: Will Victorian MPs in your party vote for it, since the state isn't signed up?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Oh, yes. The Victorian MPs at the federal level understand that this is actually a very good deal for Victoria. What we're offering is more time to complete these water saving infrastructure projects, and more funding, funding for projects, and funding also if there is a socio‑economic impact of voluntary water purchase - we've got funding that can be delivered through the state government to mitigate those impacts. And I think my colleagues see that this is a very important thing to do for the nation.
We've got another drought just around the corner. The one thing we know about Australia, we've had a few good years of rain, I know that down in South Australia you had too much water on the ground for a while there, it brings its own problems, but right around the corner is the next drought. We're already seeing below average rainfall in parts of the south east corner of Australia, and we know long‑term that we're only getting hotter and drier.
So if we don't do this now, we've got 3 million people who rely on the Murray‑Darling system for their drinking water. We've got, more than 30 threatened species, we've got the wetlands that we need to inundate occasionally, we've got these beautiful, big old river red gums that have in the past died, after hundreds of years living by the river, have died after the long dry periods. We've had towns with bone‑dry river beds running through them for more than 400 days at a time during the last drought. We've got to get on to this now, or we're facing the same environmental disaster in the future, and it’s only going to get harder.
SCHILLER: The Greens put out a pretty strident press release. It was from Senator Sarah Hanson‑Young who said, "This is just an agreement to kick the can down the road again," and they'll only support it if this is done before the next election. Are you going to have their support in the Senate?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I have obviously spoken to Senator Hanson‑Young and I'll continue to speak with her, but this is the only path to delivering on the 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water for South Australia. I think as a South Australian she would understand how important it is to complete the agreement.
We need the legislation changed in the Federal Parliament to do things like remove ‑ currently there's a cap of 1,500 gigalitres of water that's the maximum we can buy through voluntary water purchase, and unless we change the cap, unless we extend the deadline for these additional projects, they'll fall over, and that doesn't help anyone. That's the unravelling of the Murray‑Darling Basin Plan, that doesn't help anyone.
SCHILLER: A couple of final questions. Just policing the plan. I mean there was that famous Four Corners episode which just showed that some farmers were just taking water from the Murray and not really adhering to the agreements. Will you have a sort of better way to police water flows and people taking water from the Murray?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, absolutely. There's a number of things we're doing to improve accountability, and not just for the states and territories but for us as a Commonwealth Government as well, like what's good for the goose is good for the gander, right? We need to uphold our end of bargain.
We're making a number of really important changes to the way water markets operate. There's some obviously very good and reliable people working in water markets, and there's cowboys as well. We're making sure that we get rid of the cowboys in the water markets.
We're also increasing the responsibilities of the Commonwealth Inspector‑General, who does already police a number of elements of water recovery, and our water system. We're working very closely with the states and territories on how we can make sure that they're upholding their end of the bargain.
One example of this, of course, is the water resource plans that were due in in 2019. The New South Wales Government basically, the previous Coalition Government here in New South Wales, never did them, you know, "dog ate my homework". They were years late. We've already now accredited seven of those plans from the New South Wales Government, and we're working to make sure that the other plans are fit for purpose. We can't police the plan until we've got these water resource plans, the kind of catchment by catchment ones that New South Wales have been tardy with, and there's a lot of accountability that we need to up in the system.
SCHILLER: And finally, just a question about Victoria. This has come out from my text line a lot, that Victoria hasn't signed on to this. Do you know ‑ can you let us know why they haven't, and are you confident, or are you optimistic at one point they will sign up?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, the door is open for Victoria. I very much hope that they'll come on board. What's in it for them? I mean they get more time to deliver their water infrastructure projects, and they get more funding to do it, and at the end of the day the water saving projects reduce the need for buybacks, because if you can get that money through water efficiency projects, you don't need to buy it.
Now, Victoria says, and New South Wales as well, they both, both those states say that they don't support water purchasing ‑‑
SCHILLER: Buybacks, yes.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: buybacks, they don't support that, but the truth is this is something that as the Commonwealth Minister, I will need to make a decision about. I need the permission of the federal Parliament to do it, I don't need the permission of the states to do it. So not signing up to this certainly doesn't mean no buybacks in Victoria, in fact it may mean the opposite if their water saving projects fall over.
SCHILLER: And just finally, and lots of questions coming through, we won't be able to get calls, I know you have to go. But there are a lot of very water intensive crops, things like rice that are grown out on the Hay Place, Andy's telling me. Are you worried that we are using the Murray in these very water‑intensive agricultural pursuits?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I think there's a few really important things to say about this, right. Water is the most precious resource in Australia, we're a dry continent and we have to use it wisely, and we do have a really fantastic world‑class agriculture sector, and the irrigated part of that agriculture sector is worth more than $8 billion a year. It's very important for our export dollars, employs a lot of people, brings a lot of economic activity but -
SCHILLER: But is rice a sensible thing to be growing on a dry continent
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, we need to make sure, whatever ‑ I'm not going to pick and choose between crops. What I will say is that every drop has to be used wisely, and we have to have enough water for drinking, for communities, for families to rely on, and the environment. You know we've got ‑‑
SCHILLER: And keep the mouth ‑ keep the mouth open of the Murray.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: So the environment is making sure that those rivers and wetlands flow when they need to. It means keeping the Murray Mouth open, that Lower Coorong area, making sure we protect the environmental aspects of that. Making sure we don't have that terrible overly saline water that does so much damage, that we're not exposing soils to acidification. There's so many environmental problems that come with a poorly managed river system. There's so many social problems that come from that. Can you imagine living in a town that had a dry riverbed for 422 days in a row? That's one of the towns in New South Wales, 422 days in a row -
SCHILLER: Yeah.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: with not a drop of water flowing through their town. Imagine what that does, not just to the economy, but to the social fabric.
SCHILLER: Well, look after South Australia, Tanya Plibersek.
TANYA PLIBERSEK: Will do.
SCHILLER: We are at the bottom of the Murray, and we do rely on your goodwill and the goodwill of the other states to keep the Murray Mouth open and water coming down.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, can I tell you, you're not just relying on goodwill, because your Deputy Premier, Susan Close is the Water Minister, of course, and
SCHILLER: Yes, well ‑
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: She's has my arm up behind my back telling me, saying South Australia is absolutely determined to make sure that you continue to get -
SCHILLER: We get the water.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: ‑ well, you get the water that you've been promised.
SCHILLER: Tanya Plibersek, you're always generous with your time. Thanks for coming on again.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Great to talk to you, thanks.
