Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Hansard source

I do appreciate the comments that are being made about the levels of anxiety within communities.

I will now go to the claim that was made that the seeking of legal advice is just an excuse. I absolutely, in the strongest terms, assure you that that is not the case. Just work the issue back from first principles. I think there is a view that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has not adopted all three principles—of a healthy river, of acknowledging the importance of food production and of acknowledging the importance of strong regional communities—in a way that they are valued equally. If there is a view that they have not done that, but their argument for what they have done is based on their interpretation of the act, then it would be senseless for me to do what the member for Murray said and say, ‘I know you think that is what the statute says, but just get on with it and do something different.’ They quite rightly would say to me, ‘Minister, you’re asking us to act contrary to our interpretation of the act; we can’t do that.’

But, given that there is a legitimate argument that is going on at the moment in communities—and, from all reports, among members of both sides of parliament in this chamber—as to whether the interpretation that is being given to the act by the authority is right, then I believe the responsible way for me to deal with that is to get legal advice and to give the commitment, before I have even seen it, that I intend to make that advice available to the authority and to make it available generally. I think that is an important commitment in transparency, because a lot of people are now looking around and saying: ‘Do we need now to open up the Water Act? Do we need to go through a whole lot of processes which we all know full well would lead to further delay and further uncertainty?’ But people are coming to the debate with the best of intentions, because they are worried that issues that should be taken into account might not be taken into account.

We need to find out whether or not there is a basis for that entire discussion to happen. Whether we use the phrase ‘healthy river, food, strong communities’ or the phrase ‘triple-bottom line’, we need to determine whether that is reflected in the act, as I think most members of parliament believed it was when the Water Act was implemented. I think most members of parliament believed that. I have gone through the speeches of members of both sides of the House. I look forward to different opportunities of quoting various speeches that have been made by members, and in particular—let us face it—many members from the other side of the House. There are some quotes there about what people believed and why people supported the Water Act and about issues of structural adjustment that people were willing to take on.

I do not think any of us should walk away from this. If we go through this entire process and then we end up with no reform, from my meetings with irrigators and farmers groups and from conversations that I have been having for years and having with a particular intensity in recent days I tell you that no-one will thank us. No-one will thank us if we end up delaying an almost identical decision by a few years because we could not get the politics of it right.

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