Graziers and tourism operators fear a re-run of the Cubbie Station saga

THE South Australian government will seek guarantees from Queensland regarding reduced flows into a vast desert catchment.

Pilot Trevor Wright

THE South Australian government will seek guarantees from Queensland that the potential relaxation of development bans on the "wild" rivers draining to Lake Eyre won't reduce flows into the vast desert catchment.

The issue is set to crop up at ministerial council discussions, amid concern that expanded irrigation will be on the table when the Newman government reviews "wild rivers" protection put in place by the former state Labor administration in Queensland.

Graziers and tourism operators fear a re-run of the Cubbie Station saga, in which downstream water users complained about the volumes being extracted by the giant Queensland cotton farm from a tributary of the Murray-Darlingsystem, separate to the Lake Eyre basin.

Third-generation grazier Angus Emmott, who chairs a community advisory committee that reports to the Lake Eyre Ministerial Forum under an agreement between the states and Canberra, said he opposed any further irrigation on Cooper Creek and the Georgina and Diamantina rivers.

They flow into Lake Eyre only during major floods, often more than a decade apart. But for the past three wet seasons the lake has filled to near brimming at times, boosting outback tourism and creating a bonanza for farmers on the rivers feeding it.

Boom turned to bust when the lake went dry last month and reverted to a vast saltpan in the desert, 700km north of Adelaide.

"This is a closed river system, one of the few of its kind in the world," Mr Emmott said from his central-western Queensland property on the Thomson River, a tributary of Cooper Creek. "I just don't believe irrigation has got a place on these rivers."

Air charter service operator Trevor Wright, who flew 1200 joy flights over Lake Eyre this year from his base at William Creek, said damming or siphoning water from the rivers in Queensland would have a catastrophic effect downstream.

He employed up to 30 people during the winter, and the publicity about Lake Eyre filling for three years in succession had kept up numbers during the summer so far. Local graziers were employing again and investing in new equipment, Mr Wright said.

South Australian Water Minister Paul Caica said the SA Labor government had supported the wild rivers declarations made under Anna Bligh in Queensland, banning mining and most other commercial development on the western rivers and their banks.

Campbell Newman's Liberal National Party government, however, has pledged to develop a "more practical, less onerous framework . . . to support agriculture and resource pillars of the economy", while preserving enviromental values.

Queensland Natural Resources and Mines Minister Andrew Cripps describes this as a "fresh approach" to wild rivers.

"South Australia is aware that the new Queensland government is investigating alternative strategies for the management of the western rivers," Mr Caica said in a statement to The Australian. "We will assess the impacts that any proposals could have on South Australia.

"We will also seek to ensure inflows into Lake Eyre are not jeopardised."

Local MP Lyn Breuer, Speaker of the SA parliament, said the area was "very fragile" and any loss of flow would be disastrous.

Mr Newman would not buy into the question of whether the review would lead to more irrigation in the Lake Eyre basin. "I'm not sure of the commentary and until I see the actual people who have been speaking about the location I'm not going to comment," he said on Sunday.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: BRIDGET CORMACK