John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for New England has raised an important issue. It is certainly an issue that is dear to my heart, as the only engineer in this place and someone who has worked hard over the years to bring the argument along. The member for New England has commenced the discussion by reference to water, and I would like to spend some time on that. He has also raised in his motion some other natural resource management issues which require discussion as well.

It is a real triumph to be able to stand here in 2006 and boast about a National Water Initiative that has substantial carrots attached to it to encourage the states to address water as a national resource management issue. Clause 100 of the Constitution refers to the problem of bringing the states along on this issue, and I would like to read it for the record. It states:

The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a State or of the residents therein to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation.

I mention that because it is important for the member for New England to recognise the difficulty this parliament has in bringing the states along on the issues which are dear to his heart. The fact is that we have already seen some direct benefit from the National Water Initiative, including right across the north-west of Victoria where, with the government’s very strong support, there is a commitment of $334 million, in partnership between Victoria and the Commonwealth, to complete the piping of the northern Mallee-Wimmera stock and domestic water system. After 100 years of argument, we are finally going to finish off this scheme and save this most precious of the nation’s resources. There is the benefit.

It is worth continuing to work with the states to resolve all of the yet unresolved issues, and it needs to be recognised that there is still a considerable amount of work to be done. The member’s motion draws attention to some of those issues but, with his experience in a state parliament, he must understand that this government has done more than its share in bringing the states along. We have made tremendous mistakes in the 100 years of this nation on the management of our natural resources. Water is just one of them; there is also the land, timber and vegetation. It is a huge challenge in a political context to encourage communities to come along and address these issues, but it is a delight these days that so many of the land-holders in the areas affected are coming along and starting to understand these issues.

The issue the member raises to do with the taxation treatment of compensation is ongoing business and work to be done, but people need to understand whether the compensation they receive is for exiting or for lack of income. That is the difficulty the Commissioner of Taxation has and it makes a difference in the assessment. If it is compensation for loss of income, by its very nature it is compensating them for income they would have received anyway, which would have been taxable. I do not have the ground water problems of those members representing northern New South Wales, but I do have some understanding of the difficulties of protecting and making sustainable the precious ground water resource in the western half of my electorate associated with the South Australian border. This is a precious resource and we need to be extremely careful about the prolific way in which we have been using it. If we bring the communities along with us in the discussion, we will achieve a fine result. (Time expired)

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