John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I am glad I lived to hear two things—that is, for the first time ever I believe I heard the member for Kingsford Smith in his speech on the matter of public importance mention drought and rain. Apart from that, it has been nothing but climate change. I cannot believe that I just heard him talk about the devastation in the Murray-Darling Basin on the one hand—and that is about the only thing that he got right in the last quarter of an hour—and, at the same time, skite about the fact that they are increasing that devastation by taking 110 gigalitres from the Goulburn River in the Murray-Darling Basin into Melbourne.

About an hour or so ago, the Prime Minister mentioned the fact that I had called him and his government ‘antirural’ because of action they took last week just below Bourke at Toorale Station. To take water they do not actually need in New South Wales, they spent almost $24 million of taxpayer funded money on Toorale Station. I wonder why I might call him and his government antirural. I will tell you why. Do they know for one second what they are doing to one of the oldest communities on the oldest inland port in Australia? They have bought the best bit of land on the Darling River, the most productive bit of land on the western side of the Darling River. Within 24 hours of that action, which is totally devastating one of the oldest communities in western New South Wales, the member for Kingsford Smith proudly announced that he was okaying the Goulburn to Melbourne pipeline that will enable them to take 110 gigalitres of water, which will in effect be high-security water. In a time of drought, as we have now under the emergency plan, this will put Melbourne on a basis way above anyone within the Darling Basin, from which they are taking that water.

I would have loved the Prime Minister to have stayed in the House another five minutes. I would have asked him a question. I would have said to him, ‘You and the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, have just bought Toorale Station. That is four per cent of the general rate base of the Bourke Shire. It is between seven and 10 per cent of all the stock that are run in the Bourke Shire. It is 15 per cent of the water that is used for production in the Bourke Shire. There are about 100 jobs there which are gone forever’—because, as we all know, they are turning that over to the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. The best land west of the Darling River in New South Wales will become a national park. They will no longer pay rates—they will absolve themselves from all commitments to that region. Everybody else in the Bourke Shire will have to find another four per cent to pay because the Bourke Shire will still have to produce the roads, provide water and sewerage and do everything it has always had to do, but not with the help of the New South Wales government. If they had an ounce of decency, an ounce of guts—because they have gutted the Bourke Shire—they would now stand up and say, ‘On that station, the New South Wales government or the federal government will pay the rates that that property would have paid before.’

They bought that station without inspecting it, without doing due diligence, without actually knowing what they were buying—except it was the largest station out there and it had 14 gigalitres of water. I find it incredible. As I said, within 24 hours they announced that they were buying what is possibly 14 gigalitres of water, after a flood down the Warrego. We are talking about the bottom of the Warrego. There is no dam there. There is no public storage to provide that 14 gigalitres that the member for Kingsford Smith kept talking about. He actually had his figures wrong. He was talking about 20 gigalitres; it is actually 14 gigalitres.

I will tell you something else about Toorale Station: it has man-made structures that are actually older than the barrages on the Lower Lakes. And, yes, half the wetlands he was talking about—he tried to correct himself, but he knows there are wetlands there which are man made—now have infrastructure there. They have wetlands that have been made, just as man has created his own form of ecosystem in the Lower Lakes. All that we have heard from him and his Prime Minister and the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, in recent times is how we have to look after the Lower Lakes—and I agree with that; any sensible person would.

But let me tell you something about this drought. This drought exists in St George in Queensland, in Goondiwindi, Moree, Brewarrina, Walgett and Warren. It exists in a lot of places and the people at the top have a right to the water as do the people at the bottom. But, so far, all we have heard is how they are going to take water from rural communities. I would have asked the Prime Minister, ‘Did you do a socioeconomic study on Bourke before you devastated it? If not, why not? Are you going to do one before you spend another $400 million devastating communities from the Menindee all the way up to St George?’ On Monday this week the Minister for Climate Change and Water let out a tender where people can take another $400 million. And, yes, of course they will get water. There are people in deep trouble out there.

The one thing the member for Kingsford Smith got right today was when he talked about how terrible it is in the Murray-Darling Basin, five minutes before had the gall to talk about how proud he was to sign off on water going from the Goulburn River to Melbourne. Melbourne has its own ability to deal with this. It can put in a desalination plant. It can recycle water, as the member for Flinders said earlier. Why in heaven’s name do you have to devastate every other community? It is just showing off to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and making them believe that you are doing something. This is a gutless, cheap, easy way of doing something that is going to forever affect rural Australia, because we are talking here about the food bowl of Australia.

The member for Flinders quite correctly said that we talk about food security for a very good reason; because this is also about food security for Australia. The big issue of the 21st century is food and water security. Heaven knows where the population is going. But the one thing the Murray-Darling Basin does—or it always has done until this drought—is to ensure that we have good food at reasonable prices and the communities that use it prosper, as do the people who get the best, the cleanest and the cheapest food in the world. But that is not going to last because after this drought, after the drought of Mother Nature, we are going to have the Rudd drought in rural Australia, and it is going to be one heck of a serious one. I shudder to think how Bourke is going to deal with this. I wish the Prime Minister had found time—before he ducks off oversees at the end of this week, or today, or tomorrow, or whenever the heck he is going—to go to Bourke today and listen to the rally there as the people asked, ‘What in heaven’s name do we do now?’ because Mr Rudd, the Minister for Climate Change and Water and the member for Kingsford Smith are proudly talking about how they have ruined our community.

We had a plan that was going to be sustainable. We were not going to spend $3.6 billion buying water and devastating those communities. We were not going to make long-term decisions based on a six- or seven-year drought—and that is what it is. There have been droughts this long before and there will be droughts again. It was incredible and it was gratifying to hear the member for Kingsford Smith, for the first time ever, say, ‘This is a drought, very affected by climate change.’ Well, it might be affected to some extent by climate change but this is a drought and, if you make long-term decisions that are going to affect every rural community within the Murray-Darling Basin, if you make long-term decisions based on a drought, then heaven help us in the future. We had $10 billion, as the member for Flinders said, and that was a plan. That was a plan to invest in the community, to work out where the major problem was, to spend $1½ billion on buying water if we could not get it through efficiencies, from willing sellers. But this is not a plan; this is a war. This is a war against the Murray-Darling Basin.

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