Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I move, as an amendment:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words “the message be taken into consideration immediately”.

In moving this amendment, I say that, if the House defers this and makes it an order of the day for the next day of sitting, the House will never have another debate on this issue. The opportunity to deal with this issue is now, and there is an urgency in dealing with the issue that is before us. The allegations that were made on the Four Corners program with respect to the Murray-Darling Basin are serious. A series of inquiries has been initiated as a result by the Auditor-General and by New South Wales ICAC; the New South Wales government has a separate review, the Matthews review; we also have a review that has been put in place by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. Not one of those inquiries—even though all of them are being conducted with good intentions by those in charge—has the power to deal with the allegations that are before us in their totality.

The allegations that are before us go to compliance functions of the New South Wales government. They go to the interaction between the New South Wales government and Commonwealth officials. They go to the actions of a former New South Wales minister as to whether or not he told the irrigators that they could pump at a time when they were not lawfully allowed to. They go to a series of issues which cross the federal and state boundaries. Only a judicial inquiry instituted through COAG has the capacity to deal with that. New South Wales ICAC will be able to have the power to compel witnesses to provide protection to whistleblowers and to be able to subpoena documents, but not once they hit federal officials. In the same way, the Commonwealth Auditor-General will have a series of powers, but the moment he hits state officials those powers stop. When you are dealing with the Murray-Darling Basin, you need to be able to have an investigation that can cross jurisdictions. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority with its inquiry, while it technically is a body that does cross jurisdictions, doesn't have the power to compel witnesses, doesn't have the power to subpoena documents and doesn't have the power to provide protection for whistleblowers.

Yesterday we had this debate out, in a way, during the matter of public importance—during the MPI after question time. Let me remind the House of the arguments that were put by the government as to why we don't need a judicial inquiry. The member for Cowper finished his remarks by saying, 'Let's put an allegation about a billion litres of water being stolen into context,' and then told us how much water there really was in the Murray-Darling Basin: 'We're only talking about a billion litres of water when there are billions and billions of litres of water flowing down the river.' That's like arguing: 'Look, I know they stole the Lamborghini, but it was a really big car park. There were lots of other vehicles there. We really need to put this into context.' I thought that meant the government was probably starting with its weirdest argument, but then we finished off—and the environment minister will love this one—with the member for Barker arguing there is a different solution for fish stocks in the Coorong. Instead of it being about providing environmental water, what we needed to do was kill the native fur seals, because they, outrageously, are feeding on the fish. So the solution to look after one native species is to kill the other ones—kill the predators and it'll all be okay. Those were the arguments put yesterday by the government. Call me biased, but I just don't think they were compelling arguments.

In its place, Labor is simply saying that, when you have allegations this serious, you have to have an inquiry with the power to get to the bottom of it. It may well be the case that some of the allegations turn out to be not well founded. It may well be the case that some of the allegations are worse than we thought. It may well be the case that what has happened and has been reported are not the only instances of this sort of behaviour. We don't know the answers, but we have a right to know. Why do we have a right to know the answers? Because the water being stolen under those allegations was paid for with $13 billion worth of taxpayers' money, which has gone into the projects and the plans to be able to restore the rivers to health—$13 billion. Members here, who represent within their local electorates irrigators that have not broken the law, seemed to want to brush this aside yesterday. They owe it to the irrigators in their area to say, 'If you're obeying the law, we will get to the bottom and find out about the people who are breaching the law.' That's how you respect law-abiding citizens—not by turning a blind eye.

The government can't run that this is somehow just an issue for the Labor Party. Yesterday, unusually in an MPI, the member for Mayo, who is here now—not a member of the Labor Party but a member of the crossbench—took one of the spots because of her passion in wanting to make sure that the Murray-Darling Basin is restored to health. In the Senate, you have a range of parties. I don't think you can get a broader spectrum of parties than what you get when you look at the collection of senators who were all voting the same way yesterday. The principle there is: when you have allegations like this, that have rocked the nation and, in particular, rocked communities within the Murray-Darling Basin, the first thing you must do is get to the bottom of what has happened. The first thing you must do is say, 'We will have an inquiry with all the powers required to find out whether or not the allegations that were televised stack up, whether or not the behaviour of the New South Wales government was as bad as it appears to have been.' Only a judicial inquiry will provide those powers.

I urge members of the House to vote that we deal with this immediately. What nobody on that side of the House should do is think that they can vote against this today, to turn a blind eye to the allegations, and ever again claim that they are on the side of restoring the Murray-Darling to health. Unless there is integrity in the water market, unless there is compliance being provided by the state governments, then irrigation communities, communities relying on environmental assets and every Australian taxpayer gets let down.

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