Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

Let me put the importance of this issue in context. The Murray-Darling Basin sustains over two million Australians. It accounts for 14 per cent of Australia's landmass, nearly 20 per cent of our agricultural land, and a third of the nation's food supply. It contains about 40 per cent of all-Australian farms and 65 per cent of all irrigated farms. It's home to over 30,000 wetlands and around 50 Indigenous nations and their burial grounds. That's how important it is. It has all been put at risk by a handful of greedy irrigators and a minister who is not committed to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and never was.

South Australians flagged their concerns about the future of the Basin Plan the day the Deputy Prime Minister was handed the water portfolio. Their fears have been validated not only by the Deputy Prime Minister's comments at Shepparton but also because he walked away from the additional 450 gigalitres intended for the Murray-Darling Basin and committed to by this side of politics.

The Basin Plan was agreed on in 2012 and was intended to end 100 years of bickering among the individual states. The importance of the Basin Plan came to a head in 2008 after a decade of drought which highlighted the environmental, social and economic risks to Australia if the basin continued to be mismanaged. Those risks include whole communities being destroyed, farming families going broke, families being torn apart and, sadly, even lives being lost.

As a supplementary member of the Standing Committee on Regional Australia that inquired into the Basin Plan at the end of the drought, I saw firsthand the devastation and heard the personal hardship stories as the committee travelled across the basin. In just the last two weeks, I was in the basin area talking to farmers about their needs. The committee's report was largely adopted. The member for Watson, who sits here today and spoke earlier, brought all of the parties together, after 100 years. Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, the ACT and the federal government all came together to sign off on a plan; finally, there was a plan. But what was exposed by the Four Corners program were both allegations of serious criminal activity and either complicity in those activities or incompetence on the part of the government of the day in New South Wales or of government officials.

Basin water, during a time of water shortage, sells for around $3,000 a megalitre. You can work out for yourself just how much is stolen when a gigalitre of water is taken. It is big dollars. Even worse, what matters is that the downstream farmers are the ones who will be hit the hardest, because, when there is less water in the river system, their allocations are lowered, so their productivity is lowered, their income is lowered and their livelihood is threatened.

The response by the Deputy Prime Minister that the New South Wales authorities and National Audit Office are investigating the matter is grossly inadequate, as the member for Watson has, quite rightly, pointed out. Each of the six parties to the Basin Plan has a stake in the basin, and the basin waters in New South Wales do not belong just to New South Wales. That's why a national judicial inquiry should be held. Only then will Australians know the full extent of the mismanagement of the basin and know about the people that should be held to account for that mismanagement and perhaps the alleged theft.

For South Australians, at a time when the state is bracing itself for the closure of Holden, a threat to the future livelihood of the Riverland growers because the Basin Plan is being undermined is the last thing South Australia needs. Of the four states, South Australia takes the least amount of water from the Murray, but the little that is taken is used very, very productively. Any attempt by this government to sweep away allegations of water theft will only add to the accusations that the Turnbull government is not committed to the Basin Plan, as the minister is not committed to it.

And why is the minister not in the chamber today to defend what are very serious allegations? He is not in the House today to defend them because, quite frankly, he has never been committed to this plan. As we heard from the minister who spoke on his behalf, it seems that the feeble excuse is that it was only a drop in the bucket—or words to that effect—and therefore it doesn't matter. If that's the approach that this government takes to the serious matter of theft, then God help the people of Australia. This is a serious matter, and only a judicial inquiry will get to the bottom of it.

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