DOES THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAVE A ROLE IN WATER DEVELOPMENT?

_{18 November, 2008}

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Councillors, Ladies and Gentlemen, Mayors Brendan McNamara and John Wharton.

We live on the driest inhabited continent in the world. Water is essential to maintaining our health, to producing our food and to sustaining our quality of life.

Drought, climate change and water shortages make harnessing, storing and managing our water more effectively, one of the most important and urgent challenges facing Australia.

Clearly the Australian Government does, and must have a role in ensuring that as a Nation we do have adequate supplies of water for personal use and industrial and agricultural pursuits.

The Federal Government provides national policy leadership and direction, working with States and Territory Governments to fund scientific research, implement policies, legislation and programs at the national level.
Indeed, the Commonwealth has had a principal role in all major water storages in Australia from the time of the Snowy Mountain Scheme through to the Ord River Scheme, the Burdekin Dam and the Fairbairn Dam in Central Queensland.

There is a Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water within the Office of the Prime Minister and a Minister with responsibility for the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts.

The National Water Commission was an initiative of COAG in 2004, and is the lead Australian Government agency for driving national water reform under the National Water Initiative - Australia's blueprint for how water will be managed into the future.

The Commission, in conjunction with the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts is undertaking a Northern Australia Water Futures Assessment.  The objective of the assessment is to provide a knowledge base to inform decisions about development of northern Australia's water resources, so that any development proceeds in an ecologically, culturally and economically sustainable manner.  This was part of the Northern Land and Water Taskforce initiative of the previous Government.

The Commonwealth Northern Australia Sustainable Yields project will provide science to underpin the sustainable planning and management of the region's water resources. Due to report by the end of June 2009, this information will help governments, industry and communities consider the environmental, social and economic aspects of the sustainable use and management of water resources of the Northern Australia and should be helpful in relation to the Flinders River.

The Federal Department also manages the Water for the Future Program.  This is a long-term national plan to secure the water supply of all Australians and addresses four key priorities.

And the Federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government also will be relevant to new dam proposals in the future.However, the Federally supported activities are often more related to water management issues rather than to water development issues.

Under Australia’s federation system of government, primary legislative and policy responsibility for water development lies with individual state and territory governments rather than the Federal Government.    The powers that the Commonwealth Parliament has are expressly given in Section 51 of the Australian Constitution.  Anything not listed there is automatically under the control of the States.  Surface and ground water is not mentioned therefore clearly remaining with the States. 

Section 100 says The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a State or of the residents therein to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation.

However as the States fail to adequately plan for, develop and fund water initiatives which harness and store water, the Federal Government’s role in developing water infrastructure may well become more prominent.  This will be especially important in northern Australia where the abundance of water is well known and is increasingly being “eyed off” by southerners as a solution to their dwindling water supplies.
 
I have no doubt that some of our Asian neighbours will also notice that Australia has huge water reserves and good arable land that is currently unused and apparently unwanted.  According to a report in the New York Times recently the aquifer under the northern plains of China will be dry within 10 – 20 years.

The Queensland State Government has spectacularly failed in securing water resources for the state – particularly in north Queensland where development is being stymied by the State Government through their lack of vision for the north’s water needs and the potential for its development. 

Indeed, Paradise Dam on the Burnett River is the only dam which has been completed by the Queensland Government since the 1980s – and that has been fraught with delays and additional costs – including the now “infamous” fish ladder - which is still not operational some years after the Dam was declared “operational”.

That failure is demonstrated by the inconsistency and lack of vision by Queensland leaders over the past decade.

In 2004, the then Minister for Natural Resources, Stephen Robertson said
“Toowoomba has sufficient existing water supplies to meet demand until approximately 2015, Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg’s claim that critical water shortages are forecast for Toowoomba within six years is alarmist and a deliberate distortion of the facts.

Experts agree that even without better water use efficiency - such as greater use of recycled water and rainwater tanks - water demand will not exceed supply in Toowoomba until about 2015.”   (Press Release 23.6.04)
A mere four years after this heroic statement, and well before 2015, Toowoomba now has real water problems – level 5/6 water restrictions.  And after an acrimonious and in cases politically hypocritical plebisite which rejected recycled water, the Government has now decided unilaterally that Darling Downs residents will be drinking recycled water from Wivenhoe Dam in the very near future because of lack of forward planning.

In a dissenting report of the Parliamentary Committee of Public Works inquiry into the proposed construction of the Wolffdene Dam in 1989, Labor MP Henry Palaszczuk - who later served as the Beattie Labor Government’s Natural Resources and Water Minister from July 2005 to September 2006 – said that:
 ‘No dam is needed at this time and no dam will be needed in the Brisbane Area Water Board area as far as present population trends can be reliably projected.’

Former Environment Minister, Desley Boyle, told an International Water Loss Task Force that ‘dams are a bloke’s thing’. (Fraser Coast Chronicle, 25 February 2005).

Now the Government of which these same Ministers were part is now building Wyalong Dam behind the Gold Coast.
Peter Beattie and Anna Bligh in the early years of the Beattie Government were saying that dams were “20th century technology”– and that they wouldn’t be building another one. (Media release -18th June, 2004)

In 2004 Stephen Robertson even said
“There is no sense building dams if the new infrastructure kills the health of the river in the process.  It’s this type of 1950’s dinosaur thinking that makes Mr Springborg and the National Party unelectable” (press release 18.6.04).

And yet Mr Beattie found, not long after that, he had a political crisis in Brisbane because of inattention to water needs so he and his Deputy Anna Bligh needed a spin.  Without any planning, and to the surprise of many water bureaucrats Mr Beattie announced the Traveston Crossing Dam on the Mary River as part of South East Queensland’s Future Water Strategy. 

This was despite:
• their own rhetoric against Dams;
• lack of any real planning or investigation before the announcement
• huge opposition from local landowners and downstream communities;
• threat to 3 endangered species: the Mary River Lungfish, Cod and Turtle;
• ruining of quality farmland; 
• downstream repercussions for the World Heritage listed Great Sandy Straits and city of Maryborough; and
• little prospect of any sustainable benefit to the Brisbane Water Supply.

A Senate Inquiry into the Dam heard that it will do little to address Brisbane's water storage – and that the costs of pumping water to Brisbane would make the project cost marginal.  In addition, the shallowness of the Dam and the ground structure of the dam site, means that more water is likely to be lost through evaporation and through fissures in the ground than would reach Brisbane.  But still the Bligh government pushes ahead with it –however the Federal Government does, in this case, have a role in the final decision as to whether the dam will go ahead or not.

Given the political nature of such things, I am confident that the Queensland Government will be clever enough with the politics NOT  to make an application to the Federal Government for approval prior to the State Election as they realise there is a huge groundswell of feeling against the Traveston Crossing Dam - and that there are several questions about the robustness of the Queensland Government’s Assessment process. Two of their MPs have already left the Labor party over it.

The critical situation in Cloncurry and increasingly in Mount Isa is becoming a scandal of national proportions.  Lack of foresight, a concentration on the south east corner of Queensland where all the votes are, and the lack of leadership are all hallmarks of management, or mismanagement, of water in the State of Queensland at the present time.
As further evidence of the lack of any long term leadership and planning for water in Queensland, I refer you to the quite silly statements made by Mr. Beattie on 19th February, 2007 that the abundance of water in the north should be sent down to Brisbane by a pipeline.

Mr Beattie said on the 7.30 report:
“Now, frankly you’ve got, in the Tully, you’ve got in the northern rivers around Tully, you’ve got a huge amount of water that is just spewed into the sea and wasted.  Why wouldn’t we look at using that water in a more effective way?  What’s happened in Australia is, you’ve got the north with an abundance of water, you saw the floods not long ago – in the south, you’ve got a drought.”

“If anyone saw the Burdekin Dam recently, this is part of the Burdekin system too, you saw the amount of water that was just gushing over the dam wall because of the huge volumes of rain that had fallen.  I’m trying to use that for Australia.”

It seems to me (and I know many of you at this forum) that it would be more cost-effective for the State (and Commonwealth) Governments to invest in infrastructure in the north where there is an abundance of water rather than talking about moving our water south.

In the past, investment by the Federal Government in water storage infrastructure has brought great dividends to the north.

Close to my own heart – and home town of Ayr – the Federal Government agreed to provide up to $3 million in 1974 to fund the Clare Weir on the lower Burdekin.  This was the first provision of Federal funding for water storage construction on the Burdekin.

The Fraser Coalition Government agreed, in 1980, to provide all of the funds for the Burdekin Dam and associated works, estimated to cost $85 million in 1980 dollars. The Queensland Government agreed to provide the irrigation infrastructure and preliminary works which were expected to cost a further $124 million.  The Dam wall was completed in March 1987. The Dam covers an area of 224 square kilometres and extends 50 kilometres up the Burdekin from the dam wall.  Its catchment is 133,000 square kilometres – the largest catchment in Australia – and provides a reliable water source for irrigation of the Burdekin area.

As well, the Burdekin is now the backup water supply for one of the fastest growing cities in Australia, that is the Townsville conglomerate and as well, will shortly be providing water for agriculture along the Elliott River channel towards Bowen.  Mining activities in the Bowen Basin also need considerable amounts of water from sources like the Burdekin Dam.

The total irrigation area of the lower Burdekin is 80,000 ha, with a potential irrigation area of 142,000 ha.  Investment to raise the Burdekin Dam wall and development of hydro-electric power infrastructure would bring more economic benefits for the region and Queensland – and, indeed, the rest of Australia – well into the future.

In another well known example, the Ord River in Western Australia was first discussed seriously in the mid 1940s.  In 1957 the Menzies Government announced the first Commonwealth funding to develop Western Australia north of the 20th parallel and, with further funding (mostly from the Commonwealth Government), the $21.86 million Ord River Dam, 50 km upstream of Kununurra, was completed to form Lake Argyle and  was opened in  1972.  At the present time approximately 14,000 ha is being irrigated from the Ord and a 30 megawatt hydro-electric power station is in operation at the Dam.

Development of Phase 2 of the Ord River Irrigation Area is yet to be finalised. The West Australian Government has committed $15 million to double the size of the existing Irrigation Area.  Clearly the West Australian Government sees the benefit back to the State of investing in further water storage and irrigation schemes in the Ord.

But it needn’t all be about the development of such huge schemes – the proposals of local and regional councils for the development of water storage infrastructure at O’Connell Creek on the Flinders River - or at Mount Beckford - or for development of the Green Hills Dams on the Gilbert – all seem to me as an unqualified observer, to have merit. 

These are smaller, regional solutions - which contribute to the projected future needs of the region in the mosaic development of food production in the north – and helping to address the food supply shortages experienced in the south due to drought.

Climate change modelling suggests that southern Australia will receive between 2-5% less rainfall in the next 20 years, with little change in rainfall predicted for the north, giving North Queensland secure water supplies for the future.

Indeed, a reliable water supply, buffered against predicted rainfall changes, is the north’s competitive advantage – yet it is something we are yet to fully realise.  
 
A recent AEC Economics study undertaken by Townsville Enterprise concludes that taking advantage of North Queensland’s competitiveness of water supply would have a strong impact on the competitiveness of Northern Queensland for a number of business sectors, including:
• food processing;
• chemical and textile products; and
• light manufacturing products

Such sectors are important to value-add to the agricultural primary products produced in North Queensland – which stand to significantly improve their competitive position in Queensland.  And yet, the Queensland Government appears to ignore the scientific and economic studies which have already been done to demonstrate the cost benefit of water infrastructure proposals of regional North Queensland – and refuses to include them in the Water Strategy Planning for North Queensland.

Yet this is the way of the future – catchments and regions are increasingly being recognised as the most appropriate operational scale for managing natural resource issues, undertaking catchment planning based on the best available science and inclusive of the needs of the local and regional communities.

As regional councils in this room clearly recognise, local governments are the sphere of government ‘closest to the people’ and can assess, plan and provide infrastructure or undertake capital works to support regional development plans. 

In the past month the South Australian Local Government Association has commissioned an economic study on the role of local governments in Water Security which, amongst other things, will consider the potential opportunities for Local Government to influence the policy development process for the securing and managing water resources in Australia. 

Hopefully this will assist us in the future – in the meantime we need to convince those in George Street (and Canberra) that smaller regional water storage facilities are the way to go for North Queensland – and have the Water Strategies and policies changed so that the infrastructure can be built and the potential of the north begin to flourish.

We need to develop a common vision of the arguments that we can put, collectively, to the Federal and Queensland Governments so that they, like Western Australia, recognise the value of and investment in the development of water infrastructure in northern Queensland.

How we can make our voices heard is the topic for another discussion at another time, although those of you who did attend the North Queensland Local Government Conference in Home Hill last Friday would recall that I urged Councils across the north of Australia to act in the interests of Northern Australia independently of the powers that be in Governments in Brisbane, Perth and Canberra.

So quite clearly the Federal Government does have a role in water Development in Australia.

There will always be the need for Commonwealth approval under the Environment Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act (EBPC) and while it is yet early days it would seem to me to be sensible for those proposing water storage facilities in this locality to be making informal approaches to the Commonwealth Government at this early stage.

And whilst, as I have mentioned, actual planning and construction of water storages is a matter for State Government, the Commonwealth Government can always be assisting with planning and can commit money to assist State Governments and others in the construction of storage facilities.

Any water facility does these days, and who could argue against this, have to be cost effective, that is the sale of water would need to be able to pay the running costs and some redemption on the capital cost of the dam and this means, of course, that private finance is increasingly being looked at to fund water storages.  Indeed on the Dawson River in central Queensland, the last dam proposal, which unfortunately did not go ahead, was to be constructed with private finance.  But certainly Commonwealth financial support to cover public good and nation building aspects of water storage is a role and indeed a responsibility that I believe the Commonwealth has.

In the end result it is our National Government that has to work through issues like food production in Australia and what should be Australia’s role in the provision of food to all those places in the world currently without food and those places which, in the future, will be desperate for something for their populations to eat.

It is clear, as evidenced by the projects that we are talking about at this Forum, on the Flinders and Gilbert Rivers, that for reasons which I find very difficult to understand the State Government appears to be unwilling or incapable to make a decision that could start the process in providing water storage in this area.  Water storage will mean new activity, it will mean essential subsidiary infrastructure for which the Commonwealth will have a responsibility, it will mean increased population in these parts of the country and it will give Australia and the world a secure source of food production.

Food security is one of the great challenges facing the world at the current time and here in central western Queensland we do have part of the solution to this ever increasing world problem.

I commit myself to support further development of the proposals that have been floated for the storages on the Flinders and I offer any assistance that I may be able to provide.

Thank you allowing me to be with you today.  It has been an honour for me to be able to share with you some of the exciting ideas you have along the Flinders River.  Good luck with your endeavours and Keep Fighting!

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