Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

As a federal member of this House who represents a large part of the Snowy Mountains Scheme area, it is certainly important that I speak to this motion here today. This has really come about in the timing that it has because of the New South Wales Labor government’s quite quick decision, made towards the end of last year, to sell its majority shareholding in Snowy Hydro. It is worth emphasising that the New South Wales government currently owns 58 per cent of Snowy Hydro, so it alone, as a government, has a controlling interest in the ownership of Snowy Hydro.

I think there are many questions that could be asked and should be asked about the way in which the New South Wales government went about making that decision, and it is fairly clear that the reason that the rushed decision was made towards the end of last year is related to the New South Wales Labor government’s perilous budgetary situation. It needs the cash and it needs the cash fast. I think it is a shame that such an important issue as the privatisation of Snowy Hydro was accelerated to the forefront in the way that it was simply because the New South Wales Labor government cannot manage its budget.

But, having made that decision, and with the Victorian government subsequently deciding to sell its 29 per cent, it would have been irresponsible for the Commonwealth not to consider its position on the 13 per cent that it holds in Snowy Hydro. I agree with the member for Melbourne when he says that a 13 per cent shareholding in what would be a private company would not give the Commonwealth much power in decision making with that particular company. Consequently, the cabinet decided that the Commonwealth government’s 13 per cent holding would also be sold.

The corporatisation of Snowy Hydro took place in 2002, and this was an issue of great debate back then as well. In allowing that corporatisation to proceed, one issue that I ensured occurred at privatisation was the maintenance of the headquarters of Snowy Hydro in Cooma. It is obviously a key industry for the Snowy Mountains and particularly for Cooma, and many of the people of Cooma and the region have a great connection with Snowy Hydro.

That happened as part of the corporatisation. In fact the activity of Snowy Hydro in Cooma and the region has grown in that time. So when this came on the agenda I certainly ensured that all the issues related to the Snowy Hydro privatisation were considered in great detail. I have been working with my colleague Senator Nick Minchin in that respect. I got all the advice so that the New South Wales dash-for-cash would not be detrimental to the environment, existing water users or others who might be affected by this scheme.

One of the issues related thereto is the lakes. A number of the lakes in the Snowy scheme are in national parks; there is probably superficially more protection for those lakes, being wholly within national parks. However, there are two main lakes, Lake Jindabyne and Lake Eucumbene, which certainly have a use far beyond just storing water in a hydroelectricity generating sense. Those lakes are integral to tourism in the Snowy Mountains. I personally own a small shack on Lake Eucumbene, at Old Adaminaby, which my wife and I bought in 1981, and I have been a regular visitor to that since 1981. That is my real tie to the region and partly why I ultimately stood for election to this place as the member for Eden-Monaro.

Those two lakes are integral to the tourism industry in the region. Many people have come to me over the last couple of months about matters related to the ongoing operation of those lakes and access to them. A few weeks ago I attended a meeting of the Eucumbene Chamber of Commerce in Adaminaby, and many of the people who own businesses in the region and who certainly rely very heavily on having those lakes for their businesses were at that meeting. They raised a variety of issues with respect to the level of the water in the lakes and their environmental flows, and particularly with respect to access and use of the lakes.

These lakes are great fishing locations, particularly Lake Eucumbene, which has been much better from a trout fishing point of view over the last few years than in some time. So they are great recreational lakes for boating and fishing—Lake Jindabyne particularly for waterskiing—and other activities. I wanted to ensure that there would not be any change in that recreational use with the change of ownership, so I worked very closely with Senator Minchin on this issue, and I thank him for his active interest when it seemed that the state Labor government had just washed its hands of some of those concerns. Things sort of happened without the issues really being gone through closely.

Advice has now been received that the use of the lakes is governed by the state government, which actually owns the water. Snowy Hydro does not own and will never own the water in the lakes. They have title to the land under the lakes but not the water. So the New South Wales state government does have legislative arrangements to regulate and look after that aspect of the lakes. The advice is that this arrangement will continue after the privatisation of Snowy Hydro, ensuring that boating and fishing activities will remain under the regulation of the state government and not a private company.

I have to say that the New South Wales local Labor member, Steve Whan, has been pretty ineffectual in raising and addressing these particular concerns of the local people with his government. In fact his own government’s cabinet made this decision without even telling him. They did not even tell the local member, so you have to ask what sort of influence he has in his own government. That was of great concern to people and why people came to me to say, ‘We want to be sure that the use of this lake is not going to change.’ Mr Whan seems to have done nothing to give comfort to people, but I have worked very closely with Senator Minchin and his advisers to ensure that we have this information, which, in speaking to this motion today, I can impart to my constituents, residents, tourists and visitors to the region. What we can say is that the use of the lakes is a New South Wales government responsibility. It falls at their feet now to ensure that the existing use rights enjoyed by local residents do continue, as they are, into the future. I call on the Premier and the New South Wales government to give my constituents that guarantee.

I will conclude by commenting on the amendment put forward by the member for Melbourne. The government will support this amendment. We do not have a problem at all with the amendment, because in the amendment are matters that we believe in very strongly, such as Snowy Hydro meeting the environmental flows of the Snowy, the Murray and other rivers, and we strongly support reporting back to the House five years from the passage of this motion on the performance and outcome of the share transfer and disposal with respect to this sale.

There is another matter that I will quickly mention. The member for Melbourne talked about the Victorian government putting their money into schools. Comments like this are really grandstanding and politicking, because at the end of the day how does a government identify particular money gained from a particular sale for a particular expenditure? The state Labor member for Monaro was running around making similar sorts of comments. His own cabinet did not even tell him that they were going to sell their share. He said that he was against it, that he was going to fight—but he was not prepared to cross the floor over it in the New South Wales parliament, I might add—and that he was going to make sure that money from the sale would go back into the region. I predict that from now until the New South Wales election in March 2007 he will claim that every single cent of New South Wales expenditure in his electorate is money that he got out of the sale of Snowy Hydro—which is just a farce. The proof of people’s representations is what they do across the board, not stunts like saying, ‘Yes, we’ll take some of that money and put it back in.’ We have been putting increased funding into major projects and major areas like education, health and transport, and I will ensure that continues and that my electorate is well serviced in that regard. But I reject these stunts about particular money going in certain directions. As anybody running government knows, income goes into Treasury and then government makes decisions about where money will be allocated, and you cannot trace it dollar by dollar from one project to the next. As I said, the government will support the amendment moved by the member for Melbourne, and I commend the motion to the House.

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