The Palaszczuk Government has received a sobering reality check of the true cost of sending 100,000 megalitres of water down the Burnett river in the middle of drought.
Member for Burnett Stephen Bennett took to the floor of parliament last night in a last-ditch effort to have the voices of desperate farmers heard.
“With no rain falling in the Paradise Dam catchment area and the waste of 100,000 megalitres of water by Sunwater in 2019, the dire prediction is that Paradise Dam will be empty by June—that is right: empty,” he said.
“Our growers are expecting historically low announced water allocations in July, possibly as low as five per cent.
“Water becomes hugely expensive once allocations fall as low as five or 10 per cent because growers are still slugged with the fixed costs for their full allocation, even if they only get five per cent of that allocation.
“For one local avocado grower, this could mean watching hid trees die before Christmas.”
Mr Bennett said preliminary calculations on the losses growers could incur due to the lowering of the Paradise Dam wall show that Sunwater’s fixed charges will result in the actual water used by the grower costing as much as $1,100 per megalitre.
“That is a 1,000 per cent increase in water costs,” he said.
“How would the average motorist feel if tomorrow morning they pulled into a servo and found that the fuel price had jumped from $1.40 per litre to $14 per litre?
“They would not stand for it. It is like asking an average household to exist on five per cent of its normal grocery budget.”
In closing, Mr Bennett made a bold prediction in a bid for truth of the State Labor Government.
“Today (yesterday) the Minister for Water stood in this place and tried to spin a yarn to the people of the region about what the options paper will mean for Paradise Dam.
“I predict publicly that the options paper will suggest that the cost of raising the wall of Paradise Dam will have so many zeroes on it that it will never happen because let’s face it: Labor never wanted the Paradise Dam and they will never support the farmers of Bundaberg or reinstate the wall at Paradise Dam.
“Mark my words.”
Following his speech, the Member for Burnett said he was disgusted by the contemptuous behaviour of members opposite him.
“It was truly shocking. I was pleading for answers on behalf of our farmers, but it still didn’t matter to them. Instead I was hit with a barrage of heckling and yelling,” Mr Bennett said.
“Despite the extremely serious nature of my speech, many Labor Members, including the Member for Bundaberg, continued to make extremely disparaging and disrespectful comments for the entire three minutes.
“I was shocked and appalled, but it just goes to show that Labor remain true to form in their anti-regions and anti-farming agenda.”
Link to Hansard recording: http://tv.parliament.qld.gov.au/?reference=0Mba20210310_190110
ENDS.
Thursday 12 March 2021