Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation (Water Entitlements and Home Insulation) Bill 2009-2010. I want to focus on the issue of water as I come from the Riverina, which is a highly irrigated area and a highly successful area. I want to commence my contribution today by reading from the Coleambally Observer dated Wednesday, 25 February 2009—an article which commences:

The Federal Government’s $2 billion water buyback scheme is a taxpayer-funded “tsunami” that threatens to wash away jobs and clause in the terrible damage to local farming communities, according to the Riverina and Murray Regional Organisation of Councils (RAMROC).

RAMROC have pretty much got it right. I have the letter that RAMROC sent to the Prime Minister of this country, dated 1 July 2008, in which they succinctly put the problem. I am going to quote from this letter to the Prime Minister from the chair of RAMROC because something has got to twig the conscience of the government on this issue. Rather than me constantly standing in the House and appealing for common sense for the electorate I represent—and other electorates, of course—I will talk to this letter. I am going to quote from this letter substantially. The letter is, as I said, dated 1 July 2008 to the Prime Minister:

Dear Prime Minister,

Murray Darling Basin —Water for the Future Program and Acquisition of Irrigation Water Entitlements - COAG Meeting Thursday 31rd July 2008

It was a major concern at that time. The reason I raise this is that nothing has changed. The concerns that were outlined in this correspondence were:

• The buyback program currently is not substantiated by any detailed business planning, milestones, benchmarks or performance measures;
• There has been virtually nil consultation with irrigators, councils and affected communities;
• There seems to be no scientific justification of how much water actually needs to be acquired for environmental purposes.

That is still a fact. The letter continues:

The Living Murray programs initially targeted 500 GL as being sufficient to meet environmental demands, but these have now advanced to an estimated 1500GL, with recent indications from environmental groups suggesting that up to 3,000 GL may be required;

• Furthermore, Government officers can give no indication of how much water needs to be acquired from the various irrigation areas throughout the MDB system. Surely these are the basic and fundamental starting points to be determined before any further acquisitions are to take place;
• In perspective terms, 3,000 GL is equivalent to the whole of the normal annual diversions in the Murrumbidgee and the NSW side of the Murray;
• If used for rice production, 3,000 GL is equivalent to feeding 53 million people one full rice meal per day each year—a significant impact against the backdrop of world wide food shortages and spiralling food prices
• To transfer 3,000 GL from agricultural production to the environment is estimated to remove $28 billion annually (2.9%) of Australia’s GDP. It could very well decimate irrigated agricultural production in the Murray and Murrumbidgee valleys, with consequent repercussions of business downturn, reduction in employment, stranded assets, loss of critical community services and inevitable population decline;

The letter goes on to say:

• Huge advances have already been made in irrigation efficiency over recent years. Therefore, opportunities for achieving additional water savings for the environment from irrigation infrastructure and operational practices are declining. Unfortunately this has resulted in a stronger focus towards water entitlement acquisitions, but with scant regard for the other non-environmental consequences;

Further, the letter says:

There simply has to be an opportunity provided for honest and transparent scientific debate and comprehensive community consultation and input. Certainly healthy river environments are important, but equally important are the long term sustainability of the nation’s agricultural production, regional development and the future wellbeing of our rural communities.

There needs to be full and detailed studies carried out on the socio economic impacts on communities, including such issues as investment confidence, business sustainability, regional development, loss of employment, stranded irrigation assets, reductions in government and private facilities and services, effects on Australia’s food production capacity vis-a-vis worldwide food shortages and other third party flow on effects.

The letter then says that there needs to be ‘an acceptable balance between the environment, water related agricultural development, regional economies and sustainable prosperous rural communities’ and that we should be looking at ‘alternative options’. As I said, this letter is dated 1 July 2008 and nothing has changed—except another year of pain, heartache and uncertainty for the irrigation entitlement holders in the electorate of Riverina.

I bring to the attention of the House that not one of these irrigators has done anything wrong. John Oxley, when he made his first expedition into the Riverina, said: ‘This is a wild and dusty area. Nothing could be developed here. Nothing could grow here. It is just a wilderness. It is a dry and dusty bowl.’ That was his first impression of the area. He could not wait to get out of there. And then, with the advent of the Snowy hydro scheme, past governments had a vision for this area. The scheme had two purposes: to generate electricity and to ensure agricultural production through the provision of downstream irrigation from the Murrumbidgee River. That ‘dry and dusty bowl’ was converted into one of the greatest areas of food production in Australia and became one of the greatest contributors to Australia’s GDP. It is undoubtedly the food bowl of the nation—but it has been struggling, and it is painful to watch that struggle year after year.

We heard today of the possibility of growers and government both contributing to projects. The idea is that the government would give some money and the growers and the entitlement holders would put in place certain measures. Might I say that the efficiencies gained in the Riverina over the past 12 years have been significant and it is now virtually impossible to get further efficiencies from on-farm use. The Riverina has had the worst 10 years since the forties. The people who remain there are the best of the best in the world. They have created the on-farm irrigation efficiencies and they have received absolutely no credit for it. They have spent billions of dollars, as have the New South Wales and Commonwealth governments, on efficiency programs. There is an investment in regional Australia worth billions and billions of dollars.

Growers and producers who have been in drought year after year have eaten so far into their equity that they will not have enough money to match any federal funding. Federal funding must not be tied to matching funds. If federal funding is on a dollar-for-dollar basis, if there has to be matching funding from growers, restructure and modernisation simply cannot happen. The pain that these growers have endured must be recognised. Growers need to give themselves a future, and that future is to produce food that will feed a starving world.

Hundreds and thousands of orange trees and fruit frees have been pulled out of the ground in my electorate. I have vineyards whose water has been cut off. We have planted rice this year—for the first year in four or five years—and maybe we will get 174,000 tonnes. Rice is a sensational crop. It uses water only when water is available, but from the Riverina alone it feeds over 40 million people a day. Rice is a crop which has been badly maligned; instead, it should be recognised for the contribution it makes. I support what the chair of RAMROC said. They have implemented a water for food program, a sensational program. They have got off their collective behinds and are doing something constructive to try to convince the government that the production of food is very important.

I turn now to ‘Secure Future for Food’, a presentation made by Professor Bill Bellotti, the Vincent Fairfax Chair in Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development at the University of Western Sydney. In that presentation, Professor Bellottie said rural communities are at breaking point, irrigation communities are without water and there is an issue with food security. He talked about the estimated population shifts in rural and urban regions—the massive growth in urban population and the decline in rural population. He talked about how greater urbanisation will increase global trade in basic food commodities. He also talked about future food production imperatives—as outlined in a CSIRO report in 2009. Some weeks ago, I attended a dinner in the Speaker’s Office with the head of CSIRO, who said the challenge to produce enough food will be greater over the next 50 years than in all human history. The fact is that that is the case, but what are we doing about securing food for the future?

Professor Bellotti talked about Australia’s role in global food security. Australian farmers feed 60 million people. We export up to 80 per cent of what we produce. We also export agricultural technology and know-how—farming in variable climates, in fragile and infertile soils, and science and practice partnerships. Professor Bellotti said food security was about the ability of individuals, households and communities to acquire appropriate and nutritious food on a regular and reliable basis using socially acceptable means. Food security is determined by the food supply in a community and whether people have adequate resources and skills to acquire and access that food. Professor Bellotti talked about the breakdown of people who are without food. He said the average Australian daily energy intake is 3,150 calories per capita per day and the main sources—wheat, sugar, milk and meat—make up to 50 per cent of the total. He said the proportion of our food energy which is produced in the Sydney basin is only 3.5 per cent of our average good energy consumption.

Basically we have an urban/rural divide. The city depends on rural communities for its very survival. There is no city without the country—and that is the appeal. It is the truth of the matter. Leadership is not being shown. There is no socioeconomic review done on the effects on communities. School teachers are now leaving all of my communities. The number of students entering our rural and regional schools is dropping massively simply because we are now the most marginalised people. I cannot just sit in this House and watch as more and more of our lifestyle and more and more of the nation’s opportunity to produce food, not only for this nation but for our Asia-Pacific nations and for the world in general, is eroded away by buybacks which simply have no basis to them. I cannot just sit here without answers to the questions posed by the Chair of RAMROC in his correspondence to the Prime Minister wherein he asked specific questions and leading questions—the most obvious and reasonable questions. I simply cannot support this appropriation legislation and abide by the determinations being made by the Minister for Climate Change and Water at this point. I urge her to reconsider and to understand the issues of rural communities and the world’s need for food.

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