John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

My first comment regarding the Water Amendment Bill 2008 is that the amendments in the bill seem to be quite ponderous in their length, in fact longer than the original bill—and I do not mention that because of the amount of paper being used. The National Plan for Water Security, the plan that the coalition government put forward for the Murray-Darling Basin, was the first time anything as all-embracing had been done in the world, as the Leader of the Opposition mentioned just after question time. In the course of working out the plan and putting together the legislation, which came into effect on 3 March this year, there was consultation with industry, the states and all the people involved. That consultation involved the community as well as irrigators and various industries, including the dairy and horticulture industries, and it was very intense and thorough. I recall the last meeting held on it, which I personally was not at, that the then water minister, Malcolm Turnbull, held in Sydney. A lot was done to make sure that the Water Bill 2007 encompassed what was needed by all parties as much as possible in something as far reaching as it was. The difference between that bill and this amendment bill is that as far as I can see virtually no-one has been consulted as to what is in the legislation. For the amount of pages and input that is involved—and, more to the point, despite the importance of the bill—it does not seem to me that anyone except the states has been involved. The more I look at it the more I think this is really a water amendment bill put forward by the states rather than the Commonwealth.

After some return of water to the new commission by the states, the states can look at the water plan and return it. At the end of the day the minister has the ability to decide what is in the plan, although this bill does not quite specify that in so many words. But it seems to me that in every other respect the states pretty much have the same powers as they do currently in the National Water Commission. The commission is a conglomeration of all the states where the schedules involving the direction and method of water-sharing plans and the like, with the exception of the water-sharing agreement between the states, can be changed simply by unanimous agreement, which any one state can veto. The states retaining those powers means that the powers of the Commonwealth are very limited.

In talking to this bill we have to look at the whole point of the National Plan for Water Security as we first put it up. It was to invest in, not buy, the Murray-Darling Basin. A plan for the long-term sustainable use of water and for the people and the environment in the Murray-Darling Basin could have started from 3 March. It seems to me, looking at this now and what has been done so far, that there is no plan. There has been no attempt to put one together, even though the authority could have been up and going. That would not have affected its ability to join with the commission, as this amendment bill envisages. I have no problem with putting the commission together with the authority, but they could have been working on a plan by 10 March. They could have had people ready to take up positions to start on it and to do the serious work.

In actual fact there is very little I can see that this amendment bill will do which could not have already been in process. As is quite obvious, the main plan that the minister, Senator Wong, has is simply to buy water—buying people’s lives, buying towns’ ability to act as cohesive social parts of Australian life by buying the water. Of course, after six years of drought, there are going to be a lot of people in bad situations economically, physically and mentally. There are going to be people who will sell water—plenty of them, for all the wrong reasons. Senator Wong is very much focused on spending nearly $4 billion. The $3.1 billion seems to have been extended by the priorities of the Queensland government, which includes another $350 million, I think, for which a tender is currently up, and there is another $80 million for the South Australian government. We are starting to approach about $3.6 billion, not $3.1 billion, to be used for the purchase of water.

At this point you have got to look at what really matters and what the big issues of this century will be—food security and water security. It is all very well for the Prime Minister to stand by the side of the Murray River and say, ‘Go with me on carbon trading and I’ll fill this river,’ which he did not actually say, but it is certainly what he intimated. This is to carry out a hoax on the Australian people. It is to prey on the fact that a lot of people do not actually understand what carbon trading means. They certainly do not understand what is happening in the Murray-Darling Basin. He tried to use the current drought to excuse his haste. Perhaps in the light of recent economic events that might slow down somewhat. I hope for the sake of Australia—industry and people, and the working families of Australia, very much the working families of Australia—that we might slow down now and have a bit of a look at how that is done.

We wanted to invest in the Murray-Darling Basin, not to buy it. Yes, of course, we were going to spend up to around $1½ billion buying water where we had to. But that was going to be the hard way to do it. The fact that it is the best way to deal with the sustainability and the use of water in eastern Australia is not the point; it was the correct thing to do. The easy way, the nasty way, the way to try to impress the cities of Australia with action in dealing with the water problems in the basin is to simply say, ‘We’re fixing it; we’re buying it.’ To go down this track without having socioeconomic studies is wrong. To do what happened in the Bourke shire in my own electorate—to go and buy the main productive station in that shire, irrespective of the effect it had on the ratepayers of that shire, the fact that they will all have to pay four per cent more in rates to make up for the fact that the Commonwealth is going to hand over to New South Wales for a national park, so it will not pay rates—will mean it will become a burden on the community rather than a bonus.

We wanted—yes, very much—to do the more complicated, hard thing, but the right thing: invest in the Murray-Darling Basin; invest in the efficiencies and share the savings with those within it. In other words, not cut the production, but maintain it—I would think even increase it, but do it sustainably—so that, be it the environment, be it the roughly one million people that live within it, be it the whole of Australia who profit from the best fresh food in the world that is grown there, we would arrive at the end of the day with a sustainable situation, with a healthy basin, with a good industry.

Irrigation is a good industry. Only an hour or so ago I was talking to the bill which brings to an end the Dairy Industry Adjustment Package. That brings to an end eight years of a program designed to help the dairy industry adjust to deregulation. In the course of that debate I mentioned the fact that it is now one of the most efficient industries in the world. It has become one of our star trading agricultural commodities. It has learned to do it well. It is one of the most efficient dairy industries in the world. That is pretty true of most of our irrigation industries and the way they deal with it in the basin, but it does not mean that they cannot be a lot better. It does not mean that within the basin there are not some very old methods of irrigation as well as the best. But we wanted to make the whole basin world’s best practice in terms of efficiency and use of water and production. And, given that we are the country in the world with probably the best reputation for providing clean, green food, we are going to be needed by the world.

We are buying properties as well as water without conducting socioeconomic studies on the effect upon the communities before we do so. As the department admitted at the last Senate estimates committee hearings, we also had about $1.5 billion to help areas restructure where efficiencies or gains were to be found or where we had no choice because the plan told us we had to buy there rather than just buy ad hoc, as Minister Wong and Kevin Rudd are currently doing. We wanted to go in there with a restructuring package if that money had had an effect. That has been wiped. I also believe that on-farm water is something that the minister cannot get her head around and does not want to.

Going through the states in this also worries me. We provide for their priorities rather than for the priorities to make efficiencies and savings in the Murray-Darling Basin. The industry has forgotten more abut irrigation than state governments are ever likely to know. The most efficient and best run irrigation systems are those in New South Wales which are run by private companies in various guises. The most inefficient tend to be run by the state governments, be they in Queensland, New South Wales or Victoria. There are enormous gains to be made, but unfortunately no-one has waited.

As I am sure the shadow minister for climate change, environment and water, the member for Flinders, mentioned earlier, there are certain aspects of this amendment bill that we believe we have to put to the Australian people and to the parliament for amendment. Earlier I mentioned the ad hoc buying, but I did not mention that the buying is happening through closed, secret tenders. You have to remember that we are not just talking about any old buyer; we are talking about the Commonwealth government coming in with $3.6 billion to buy water when up to this time the most that had ever been spent in one year was around $100 million. How in heaven’s name are they going to find the water to buy? But it really means they are the overwhelming force in the purchase of water and in the operation of the water market.

It being the case that the money is taxpayer money and it being the case that we are talking about people who have been stressed out over a long period of time, we have to have a totally open water market. It is essential in every facet of the irrigation industry. I have spoken to all the opposition members right around the basin and I have yet to find somebody who has not said that it is ridiculous, dishonest and totally amoral to have a water market where people do not know the value within it. I think Senator Wong has admitted that there has been a lack of transparency, but I am not talking about suddenly just telling at the end of a tender what everyone paid, be it $50 million, $500 million or $1 billion. I mean a market where every poor devil who has to sell water can look up his section of his particular valley—be it the Lachlan Valley, the Macquarie, the Macintyre, the Goulburn or the Murray—and see where the last sale of water in his section of the river was, what security of water it was, what the price was and how much water was sold. It does not have to say who owned it, but heaven! I think they have the right, with somebody coming in with a hammer like this, to know what the actual, true value of their water is.

There are two things we know about water: they are not making any more of it and it is not getting any cheaper. It can only get dearer. We are talking about the lifeblood of a lot of people and a nation. This is the food bowl of Australia. They come in with a secret tender so people do not know what is being paid—I do not mean at the end of tender but while a tender is going on. Every time someone signs up, that should be up there on the board just like it is in the stock exchange. We have a right to know, sellers have a right to know and other buyers have a right to know what the value of water is. That is different from what has happened in the past. Never before has someone come in and said, ‘I don’t care what’s happened before; I’m taking it all.’ If they are going to take it, they should damn well have to pay for it. They should have to pay top dollar for it and say what it is they are buying, how much and what security. It is not just the lives of individual irrigators involved here; it is communities and towns.

The current economic situation has made one thing very plain: times are going to get tougher. Of course they are; you do not need me to say that. Instead of simply going in with $3.6 billion, why would you not go in and say: ‘Let’s do what the original intent of the National Plan for Water Security was. Let’s go and, instead of spending $3.6 billion on buying, let’s invest it in the industry.’ Believe it or not, we are in a drought and, believe it or not, one day we will all get our water. When that happens, we will have the ability and the need to not lose the jobs which buying all this water will lose and to not kill off all the communities that buying $3.6 billion of water will kill off but to invest in them. Instead of taking jobs out of the Murray-Darling Basin, put some in there. Make an investment in the water industry to make it sustainable, to fix the rivers up where they are fixable and to deal with the overallocation.

I am very proud to be the shadow minister for agriculture, fisheries and forestry. It may have escaped the notice of some on the other side of the House that nobody uses more water or is more reliant on it than agriculturalists, whether they are irrigators or not. Apart from the towns that live off them, the only people in the Murray-Darling Basin being targeted by the current nonplan—the buying—of the Rudd government are farmers. If the current Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry will not stand up for farming, I certainly will. Nobody knows better than me that it is one of the best industries in Australia and it produces the best, the cleanest and the greenest food in the world. But in a few years time, after $3.6 billion worth of water is taken out of that industry, it will no longer have the opportunity to service not only Australia but the rest of the world with that food. If they are going to help states like Victoria steal water out of the basin, they are going to make it a lot worse. (Time expired)

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