Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

His most recent water tenders have not yet been announced, but again he targeted high-security water in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, water that once grew the food to feed the nation. Some claim that the city- and union-centric Labor Party is simply ignorant of the impacts and consequences of this ruinous water and agricultural policy. Unfortunately, Craig Knowles, the Chair of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, has belled the cat. At a public meeting at Swan Hill on 22 February this year, he said: 'If we take 30 per cent of your water out of this community, it will have damaging, severe, devastating effects.' When the public demanded to know why Labor was continuing its 'devastating' water buyback policies, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority chair declared: 'We've said that to the government: "Don't do it this way." We don't support that; I want to be clear about that.' Apparently, Craig Knowles's pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Irrigation buybacks continue, even though we have now removed more than 30 per cent of water in what are 'damaging, severe, devastating' impacts. We are in that zone that Mr Knowles identified.

This is a serious problem. It is madness, I can hear you say. What about the 52 towns and two cities? What about the jobs? What about the farm families who want to rebuild their herds and orchards after the drought? What about the growing global food task? What about all those export earnings in jeopardy if you continue to diminish the water available for irrigation? Unfortunately, part of the deal for an extra $1 billion to fix up the irrigation system was another 214 gigalitres to be taken out of the Goulburn-Murray irrigation system. That was in return for the $1 billion for stage 2 to be supplied by the federal government. This is a serious problem for us.

Much of the answer lies in the Goulburn-Murray Water authority being transferred into an irrigator owned cooperative, where it can become efficient and smart. It is now $266 million in debt. It employs over 800 people. This is ridiculous, when you compare similar authorities that are irrigator cooperatives in New South Wales. They deliver similar amounts of water with only 122 staff compared to the over 850 employed by the state owned agency in Victoria. We have to do better. My 52 towns and two cities deserve better. They will work hard to rebuild the herds and grow back the orchards, but they cannot do it if their irrigation water is being taken away by irresponsible government policy and incompetent and inefficient water authorities.

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