Senator JOYCE—I have been watching you downstairs, but if I ask something that you have already answered, just indicate, and I will go back to the Hansard. How far down the track are you with the redevelopment of the Menindee storage so as to save water from evaporation and get it into South Australia where so many of the problems seem to lie?

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Senator Wong—Sorry, how far are we from what?

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Senator JOYCE—The redevelopment of the Menindee storage.

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Senator Wong—Menindee Lakes.

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Senator JOYCE—Noting that more water evaporates from Menindee storage when it is full than the whole of Queensland uses.

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Senator Wong—You are a diligent senator for Queensland.

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Mr Forbes—In terms of the election commitment of the $400 million, we have held discussions with the New South Wales government, and we are hoping to progress that further from where we have got to so far. Those discussions have commenced with the New South Wales government.

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Senator JOYCE—What is your time line so that the people of South Australia—not that that is my state, but I like to look after other people—can start getting some water flowing down there? How long before you actually get the dozers in and start pushing up seven-metre cells for a more effective storage of water? What would be your proposed time line?

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Mr Forbes—A range of different options is being considered. One option has not actually been preferred at this stage. Speculating on the time lines would be a little pre-emptive at this stage, but certainly we want to move this as quickly as we can.

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Senator JOYCE—Does the New South Wales government want to move it as quickly as you do?

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Mr Forbes—We are still discussing the issues with the New South Wales government. There is no commitment in terms of time lines at this stage.

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Senator Wong—Senator Joyce, you would be aware—and Dr Horne might add to this—given the low level of rainfall, the level of storage at Menindee is very, very low.

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Senator JOYCE—It should fill up fairly soon, because a lot of water is coming down.

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Senator Wong—Different people have different views about that.

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Senator JOYCE—That leads me to my next question.

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Senator Wong—I will ask Dr Horne to elaborate on how that is going.

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Dr Horne—You are quite right; the amount of water in the Menindee Lakes complex has increased over recent times, but it still remains relatively low, and in fact Menindee Lake itself, as I understand it, does not have any water in it at this point in time. In fact, there has been a conscious decision that, rather than to let water go into it at this point in, the water is actually continuing down the Darling and is currently going into Lake Victoria. There is a conscious decision about management, and a conscious recognition over the very significant evaporation issues and the very significant issues that as the lake is refilled, the first, I think, 200 gigalitres of water that come down would in fact just go into the dirt as reconstituting the lake. It would just basically soak into the system. That is all very well understood, and they are very large amounts of water, and I think everybody is very conscious of it. That is really over here, and it is being managed as well as it can be. Mr Forbes has indicated a number of proposals are around, and they need to be worked through. That process is being given a lot of attention.

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Senator Wong—I should be clear: we do have a $400 million election commitment on this, and the government will implement it.

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Senator JOYCE—By planned absorption. There was an issue in regard of 8,000 megs that was to be extracted from the Warrego, and for whatever reasons that decision was changed. I want to bring to your attention that 8,000 megs was going past Wyandra every 14 minutes during the last flow. About 9,000 megs went tearing through the middle of Charleville and flooded out a lot of people, and that is just from Bradleys Gully. Would there be any revisitation of that decision, even to tie it up with maybe flood mitigation measures for Charleville in such a way as to withhold the water from going down Bradleys Gully to go into Charleville, or to at least give the capacity of a little bit of irrigation out there? That would still leave the system 99 per cent unallocated in Queensland, and give a greater capacity for flood mitigation as well as development for irrigation?

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Dr Horne—I could not answer that question right now, but we could look into it for you.

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Senator JOYCE—Thank you. In the Murray-Darling Basin cap, we will not become too onerous on farm dams, will we? A lot of farmers have an inherent fear that this will turn into a bureaucratic nightmare that every dam on their place will all of a sudden require a licensing fee or someone turning up, and it will just turn into Kafka’s Castle. How will we handle that?

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Senator Wong—If we are to have a sustainable future for a range of agricultural industries and towns and cities, particularly in the Murray-Darling, we will have to have a more integrated approach to water management and integrating our management of groundwater and surface water. Obviously the details of that is something that needs further discussion with the states and stakeholders. I am very conscious of some of the concerns such as those you raise. I do want to emphasise that we cannot continue to pretend that there is no impact from what we do in relation to groundwater on water availability in our rivers. A range of decisions needs to be made by governments and communities about how you deal with that. They are issues that we will work through in detail with the stakeholders.

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Senator JOYCE—I thank the minister for that answer. I also draw to your attention that, since the GABC—Great Artesian Basin capping—scheme has been in place, there has been a 95 per cent reduction in the efficiency and use of water by those people in the Great Artesian Basin, and they think that is a rather fair compensation. A lot of that was their own money to alleviate any further bureaucratic impediments that are placed on them in the future. That is the logic of where they are coming from. I imagine Senator Macdonald has already dealt with northern development, but if we get out of the Murray-Darling Basin scheme and go right up into the north, and if we believe that the southern part of the Murray-Darling Basin will dry out, we will have to find an alternative area to produce our foods. There are huge problems up there because of tree clearing legislation in the development of the country. Will there be any interrelation between departments in how you will deal with this?

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Senator Wong—Land clearing reforms in Queensland are in place. I appreciate that you might not agree with them.

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Senator JOYCE—Not really.

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Senator Wong—They are being affected and I have to say they have actually made a significant contribution to Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. I acknowledge that farmers have actually done that through observing these land-clearing regulations. I have announced a revision of the membership in terms of refer