Tuesday, 15 October 2019

 Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (13:52): In a recent statement Premier Andrews rejected building any new dams in Victoria. The Premier says that dams do not make it rain. I am not surprised that Mr Andrews has no idea how dams work—you do not see many of them in Melbourne. But for the government’s benefit, dams exist to store water for later use. They are not supposed to make it rain; they are supposed to help farmers and others make the most of water when it does rain.

Rainfall is inconsistent, and excess water is wasted if it cannot be stored. This government should know all about using dams to save for later. You are replacing Victoria’s reliable energy generators with intermittent generation, which needs storage. The only scalable storage solution we have is hydro-electric dams. These dams can not only generate clean energy as baseload and on demand but also use excess power to pump and store water for later use. New dams are essential if this government plans to meet its 50 per cent renewables target.

The Minister for Water has echoed the Premier. She too rejects the building of new dams because she thinks rainfall will decrease. Anyone else would think this is all the more reason to store excess water when it is available. Instead, the minister plans to expand desalination, producing water at $4000 per megalitre. The New South Wales government is spending a billion dollars on building and upgrading dams. This government is spending $100 billion on the Suburban Rail Loop for the benefit of Melbourne, but there is not a single cent for projects in regional Victoria. Without new dams, Victoria has no water future and no energy future.