JOURNALIST: Penny Wong, good morning.

WONG: Good morning to you.

JOURNALIST: Nice to meet you.

WONG: And go Libby.

JOURNALIST:  Yes, go Libby. Have you met Libby?

WONG: No I haven’t.

JOURNALIST: World’s longest eyelashes. Extraordinary eyelashes!

WONG: Pretty tough gig, you know, not many women jockeys. Although there are more now then there were a few years ago.

JOURNALIST: She’s just a very brave young jockey. Any jockey I think is brave because these are big animals going 50, 60-odd kilometres per hour. It’s a brave thing.

WONG: I don’t think I’d do it.

JOURNALIST: Look obviously water is the main issue and we will get to that. But while we’ve got you here I just want to try and get some sort of indication of how the Federal Government is responding to the Haitian disaster.

WONG: Well obviously all of us in Australia are really deeply concerned and upset about what we’re seeing has happened in Haiti. And this is a very poor nation that doesn’t have a lot of infrastructure – certainly doesn’t have the emergency response capability to deal with the crisis that they have been engulfed in. This is a very serious natural disaster and one regrettably where there is a lot of human tragedy involved. So our thoughts and our sympathy are with the Haitian people.

My colleague Stephen Smith yesterday announced that the Federal Government would be contributing $10 million towards the relief effort. That has been provided through a range of mechanisms including the Red Cross, Australian and international non-government organisations, Caribbean organisations and others. So we have made efforts to provide some assistance from Australia. There is a very large international effort as you know and the United Nations has also released emergency funding. And the United States obviously has also put a lot of resources on the ground. But it’s a very serious and very difficult situation which is compounded by the fact that this is a nation that doesn’t have a lot of its own resources.

JOURNALIST: It’s an impoverished nation and when you get this sort of mass response, coordinating the efforts from each nation is a challenge in itself I’d imagine.

WONG: Pretty tough, I think that’s going to be a challenge. And as you probably know Secretary Clinton has had to return to the United States to help coordinate the relief effort. Obviously there’s a lot of good will from the international community and we hope that assistance can just simply be increased on the ground as quickly as possible.

JOURNALIST:  Senator Penny Wong is with us. Earlier this morning we spoke with the state Opposition Leader, Isobel Redmond. And I want to play a little bit of what she had to say because she is supportive of a proposal put forward by her federal counterpart calling for a referendum on the way in which the Murray should be managed. This is part of what Isobel Redmond had to say this morning.

(Excerpt – Isobel Redmond)

JOURNALIST: Isobel Redmond speaking with us earlier this morning. Senator Penny Wong, do we want the Federal Government completely controlling the Murray-Darling Basin?

WONG: Well let’s first be clear what Tony Abbot has actually said. What Tony Abbott has said is that he will – if he’s elected – look to the possibility of a referendum for more federal control of the Murray-Darling in 2013.

And what I’d say to that is two things. The first is if this is so important, why would you wait until 2013 to do it? And if it so important why is it that when you were in Government, you didn’t purchase through the Commonwealth a single drop of water for the Murray-Darling. Why, if it’s such a good idea, why is it that when John Howard announced it on Australia Day 2007 did nothing happen for almost a year?

This is a recipe for inaction from a man who is frankly seeking to distract and disguise his views on climate change. Because the reality is the future of the Murray-Darling is threatened by climate change. And if you don’t deal with that reality, then you are not serious about the Murray-Darling.

JOURNALIST: You obviously see the urgent need for some way in which amendments are made to the way in which the River is managed. Mike Young made the point with us before the news that this is moving far too slowly. And the longer it takes, the more damage will have to be undone.

WONG: We are moving as fast as is humanly possible in the circumstances. Let’s remember that the federal government that we replaced did nothing for over a decade on this issue. We would be in a much better position if something had happened. And I’d again say if this is such an urgent issue and we can’t wait, why is Tony Abbott putting up 2013?

But can I just say what we have actually done so we can get the facts on the table. We’ve taken over planning across the Basin. We’ve taken over the capacity to set a limit on how much can be taken out of the Basin. That’s the first time that’s ever happened. Unbelievably it’s taken Australia until the 21^st century to get governments to agree to set a scientific limit on how much can be taken out of the Basin. Now that work has been done by an independent authority and they will put out a draft plan sometime this year and the plan will be finalised and signed off ultimately by the federal Minister in terms of the limit on the amount of water to be taken out.

That’s the only takeover that really counts. Because it’s the one that matters in terms of river health. In the meantime, what are we doing? We’ve spent $1.2 billion to date returning water to the River and we’ve purchased 766 billion litres of entitlement. 766GL – billion litres – of water entitlement. That’s water that will no longer be used for irrigation but will be used for the environment. That was never done by Tony Abbott or by his colleagues.

JOURNALIST: But it’s water that’s not being realised in the Lower Lakes at the moment. We have to identify that the Lower Lakes are in significant trouble.

WONG: They are in significant trouble. That’s why we’ve put a very significant amount of investment into the Lower Lakes region. We’ve spent $120 million on the pipelines to deliver water to communities and to irrigators. We have $200 million on the table for the State Government to find a lasting solution to the Lower Lakes.

But a referendum is not going to fix the Lower Lakes. The reality with the Lower Lakes, as with so many other parts of the Murray Darling, is that climate change, drought and a history of mismanagement and over-allocation which absolutely has been there has meant that we don’t have enough water to do what we want.

JOURNALIST: It’s a quarter past nine, Senator Penny Wong is with us, the Minister for Climate Change and Water. I want to talk about negotiations between New South Wales and South Australia shortly in reference to the flooding that’s been experienced in New South Wales at the moment and the way those negotiations are going. Because there’s a fair bit of confusion there as to how much the River actually needs. And we’ll take some calls as well on 1300 222 891. We’ll do so right after this.

Senator Penny Wong can I just read an SMS message question verbatim? Please, please ask Penny Wong why Bob Hawke could act in Tasmania but Kevin Rudd can’t act under the River. And please insist on an answer. No weasel words. So what the question there is why can’t the Prime Minister - in reference to the negotiations over the water that’s in New South Wales at the moment, that South Australia so desperately needs – why can’t the Prime Minister act now and say this is the way it’s going to be?

WONG: We are acting. That’s the no weasel word answer. We are acting.

JOURNALIST: How?

WONG: We are doing two things. We’ve put in place a new authority to develop a plan which sets a limit on the amount of water…

JOURNALIST: The question is in reference to what’s going on right now.

WONG: And we are also investing billions of dollars in purchasing water entitlements which is the fastest way to return water to the River. Let’s remember that. That’s important. 

JOURNALIST: But the question is in reference to the negotiations that South Australia and New South Wales are locked in at the moment. Trying to determine an equitable – or what New South Wales describes as a reasonable amount of water from those floods coming into the South Australian Murray River system.

WONG: As I have said publicly, we are happy to facilitate that discussion and we have been.

We have called on New South Wales to exercise its discretion. At this stage we are not yet clear, nor can anyone be clear, how much water will actually get to Menindee. And that won’t become clear for some days and weeks. When that is clear and the negotiations proceed as to how much additional water can be released in environmental flows, obviously the Federal Government will be part of that discussion. But we can’t create certainty where we don’t yet know how much water we’ll get downstream to Menindee Lakes from these floods.

JOURNALIST: It’s eighteen past nine, let’s take some calls.

CALLER: Good morning Spence and Penny Wong.

WONG: Morning.

CALLER: I’m interested in this matter lately. Mike Young was on earlier about South Australia’s interest and I was thinking probably what we need to have is a flow through the Coorong through to Lake Albert, which can be done, engineered, as an ultimate solution to flushing out the whole River system. That’s just one point I was going to bring up first.

The main point I was going to ask you is your status as a minister – a federal minister, as a senator to South Australia – where do you stand with relation to New South Wales in particular, Victoria somewhat and South Australia? What will we get from the Murray in the end? You as a South Australian Senator looking after our interests, our community interests, in the health of the River. 

JOURNALIST: So the question Allen is – you are asking for the Minister’s stance on how much South Australia should be getting, is that what you’re asking?

CALLER: How much interest she has in South Australia as opposed to the Commonwealth, Australia or other states’ interests, mainly New South Wales I think has the biggest say in this.

JOURNALIST: Senator Wong? 

WONG: Well Allen what I have constantly said is that all South Australians have an interest in the Murray-Darling being run sustainably because we’re at the end of the river system. So we’ve got an interest in making sure the Basin as a whole is run sustainably.

But I tell you what I’m not going to do and that is to get into finger pointing as between the states. A lot of politicians do that and it might be popular in some quarters.  But when I became Federal Water Minister I said very clearly my job is to try and improve the health of the Murray-Darling for everybody. I think that’s a good thing for South Australia because being at the end of the line, we often bear the brunt of a river system that isn’t healthy.

So what have I done?  I have been part of negotiating this agreement with the states which, for the first time, will put a scientifically based limit on how much water comes out of the Basin. We have purchased, as I said, 766 billion litres of water. Now that is the fastest way to return water to the environment.

One of the things I want to make a point is we have seen Tony Abbott and some Liberal Party members here in South Australia jumping up and down saying we are going to have a referendum and doing a bit of chest-beating about that. This is the question they should answer for South Australians: where do they stand on water purchase?

Because we know federal Liberal MPs and federal National MPs from New South Wales and Victoria are vehemently and publicly opposed to water purchase. They don’t want us to purchase water. So when Tony Abbott stands up and says he’s for the future of the Murray-Darling and South Australian Liberal members and Senators stand up and say they want more water, they should be asked - are they prepared to stand up to their New South Wales and Victoria colleagues who are opposed to me purchasing water? Because that’s the fastest way to get water downstream, including for the Lower Lakes.

JOURNALIST:  That’s a question that we can pose to another South Australian Senator – Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham, who has just phoned in. Simon, good morning.

BIRMINGHAM: Good morning Spence, listeners and the Minister. Spence, to answer the Minister’s question first and foremost, water buybacks are absolutely part of the solution to the River Murray. John Howard budgeted money for water buybacks. That’s the money that Minister Wong and her government have been spending. He also budgeted money to fix the leaking plumbing infrastructure throughout the Murray-Darling Basin and sadly the Minister has not been spending that as quickly as she should have been. But the question that she needs to answer today is a question of is she 100 per cent satisfied with the referral of powers given to her by the states? Did she get everything she asked for in going into those negotiations and does she believe the Water Act is perfect? Because the arrangements that were put in place make it very clear in black and white that the autonomy of the Basin states to manage water within their catchments is preserved. There are 500 plus pages to the Water Act and they are littered with references back to the states and compromises and need to negotiate with the states. So the question for the Minister really is will she accept that Tony Abbott is saying we need to remove this doubt to make sure the Commonwealth is clearly the manager of the Murray-Darling Basin and ensure that going into the future we actually have clarity over the situation and not the doubt that exists in the past and under her arrangement.

JOURNALIST: South Australian Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham. Penny Wong?

WONG: I am happy to answer that but the first thing I’d make a comment on is this. Simon just came on saying he supports water purchase. Two of his front benchers, John Cobb and Sharman Stone, have made it very clear they are absolutely opposed. Now are they in the tent? Have they now agreed that they will accept the Federal Government purchasing water out of their catchments which they have been so vehemently and publicly opposed to? Because I notice Simon in his press release today and Tony Abbott in his speech last night made no mention of water purchase.

In terms of infrastructure Senator Birmingham and others like to bang on about this. I’d make the point we have spent, since we came to government, some three quarters of a billion dollars on infrastructure under Water for the Future. On recycling, on stormwater, on infrastructure within the Murray-Darling Basin. That compares pretty well with what was spent under the Howard Government. Because that Government did almost nothing in terms of the Murray-Darling and returned no water through purchase or infrastructure in the Murray-Darling in twelve years. So if they are going to have credibility I think people might have to look at where they were.

JOURNALIST: Let’s answer the question about whether or not you are happy with the power sharing arrangement.

WONG:  I will come to that. Obviously politics in this; there was a negotiation. And yes, if you are going back to where we were in 1900 and whenever when the Murray-Darling agreements were first written, knowing what we know about climate change, you might have developed a very different system. But as I said many times these are the cards with which we were dealt when we came to government and rather than doing a lot of talking, we wanted to get on with action.

And the question for the Liberal Party is why is it that talking about a referendum in 2013, how is that going to help South Australia or the Lower Lakes? The reality is it is not. What is more important is to get on with what we are doing which is practical steps on the ground to return water to the River.

And finally on this issue you can’t deal with the Murray-Darling if you don’t believe climate change is real. Professor Garnaut said that climate change could reduce in the Murray-Darling, irrigated agriculture production in this country by 90 per cent. By 90 per cent. So if Tony Abbott is serious about the Murray-Darling, then he has got to start to get real about climate change. And the reality is he can’t disguise the fact that he doesn’t believe climate change is real and that these policies are simply an attempt to try and distract and disguise from that fact.

JOURNALIST:  Twenty five past nine, we are going to try – people are queuing up to talk to you Senator, so we are only about five minutes away from our news and then the cricket. So if we can give as many people a chance to put a question to you…

WONG: Can’t be late for the cricket, can we Spence?

JOURNALIST: No, we cannot be late for the cricket. Hello Ralph and thanks for waiting.

CALLER:  Thank you and good morning Minister. Minister, the water entitlements that you have purchased – if this water, if it did eventuate upstream at Menindee Lakes, does New South Wales have the power to divert that water into Menindee Lakes?

JOURNALIST: Good question.

WONG: The water we purchase is across the Basin, so we will purchase both in the Northern and the Southern Basin. You would have to say we purchased significantly more in the Southern Basin and I recently – in fact I think it was earlier this week on the 11^th – opened another tender for what we call the southern connected Basin, because that is obviously where the most pressing environmental priorities are. Water entitlements that we purchase and this is a really important and good thing about what is happening, it is entitlement that is only for the environment. So we hold that for the environment, it’s not compromised by any other.

JOURNALIST: So you can’t then sell it onto any other irrigators or anything like that?

WONG: Well we don’t do that. We hold it for the environment.

JOURNALIST: Mary, good morning to you. Are you there Mary?

CALLER: Yes, hi Spence, hi Penny. I live at Clayton and I have seen the regulator go in and I have seen the pumping happen. I saw the water level go up and now I am watching the water level go down quite dramatically and rapidly into the Goolwa channel. And so much so that it looks like we are going to have to beach back very, very soon like in the next few days.

JOURNALIST: Really?

CALLER: The evaporation has just been tremendous because of the heat that we have had. Now we had 27GL pumped in from Lake Alexandrina into the Goolwa channel. They haven’t taken the pumps away, they have taken off the regulator, but they haven’t taken them away. And I did hear a rumour that they are going to start pumping from Lake Alexandrina again. I am just wondering if the Minister actually knows anything about that, on a micro-level of course, sorry about that Minister.

WONG: Sorry Mary, those sorts of operational decisions are made by the State Government and I am not across the day-to-day detail of what’s occurring there. The challenge as you would know as somebody who lives down there more than any of us, the challenge in the Lakes area, in the Lower Lakes region is very difficult. It’s compounded because we have had insufficient rainfall although we hope to see more and we had a bit. But it’s also compounded by evaporation which you referred to and the reality is unfortunately you get a lot of evaporation particularly in the summer and that compounds the environmental challenge there.

JOURNALIST: We will have to be fairly brief here if we can. Jo you just have a quick question for the Minister?

CALLER: Yes I have just got a quick question. I want to know why in your climate policy instead of spending billions and billions on the coal industry, why don’t you spend a couple of billion on making sure every house in Australia has a solar panel and all new builds are compulsorily forced to put solar panels on their roofs?

WONG: Well Jo we have spent an enormous amount on solar panels. In fact I think we have spent some in excess of ten times since we have been in power what the previous government spent on putting solar panels on people’s roofs. We have spent well in excess I think it’s some eight times what we committed to at the election and that’s obviously a very important part of our policy. As is the fact that we have put through legislation, that I was responsible for, that will increase the amount of renewable energy use in this country by four times out over the next decade and that means investment in solar and in wind. But the reality is we need more than that to tackle climate change. We need much more action than that and you can’t effectively tackle climate change unless you start to make polluters pay.

JOURNALIST: Thank you for your call Jo. And Senator Penny Wong that’s where we will have to leave it because as you say, the cricket waits for no one.

WONG: Absolutely.

JOURNALIST: We will get five minutes of news before that, but thank you so much for coming in and making yourself available to our listeners and we will see you next time. Next time will be with Matt and Dave. I am a bit afraid to say but you are sitting in Dave’s chair at the moment. I don’t know if he will be all that happy with that.

WONG: Is that a good or a bad thing?

JOURNALIST: I am not sure. Thank you Senator Penny Wong, who is the Minister for Climate Change and Water, our special guest in the studio this morning on 891 ABC Adelaide