Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to repeat something the member for Murray just said: 'Water equals wealth.' He spoke about farmers. He said that if given the opportunity and given the right amounts of fresh, clean water for their produce then they would create wealth. That's not just true in regional Victoria and not just true in regional Australia; it's true in the Werribee irrigation district. I call on the member for Murray to support me in finding $11 million from the Commonwealth to support the growers in my electorate, who are getting $11 million from the state and who are left there as stakeholders to find two-thirds of the funding to improve, update and upgrade the irrigation system in the Werribee irrigation district. I have been talking about this since October 2015 and have been calling on this government and the minister, who obviously now can't be called upon because we're not sure what his legitimacy is at the moment. But I call on the member for Mallee and the member for Gippsland. The Werribee irrigators deserve Commonwealth support to ensure that they can continue to make a state and nationally significant contribution to leafy vegetables.

We have now been talking about this for a long time. The member for Capricornia put forward a motion to celebrate the $500 million National Water Infrastructure Development Fund. In my electorate, we are waiting for our fair share of those funds. We are losing 40 per cent of the fresh river water that is going through channels, which are 50 years old and completely and utterly dilapidated. We want to fix that. The farmers who I work with every week are desperate to fix that. They want a futureproofed irrigation system, they want affordable water for their farms and they want to ensure an environmental flow for the Werribee River at the same time. If you think about a 40 per cent waste and about how water equals wealth, then in Werribee this government equals waste. That's because the government hasn't come to the party for the Commonwealth to support what is a nationally significant part of our agriculture industry.

I go down there and visit those farms. I see the investment that they are putting into their businesses. They are building dams. The Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources likes to talk about building dams. Well, in my electorate the farmers are building the dams. There is no contribution from the Commonwealth. The farmers are investing in equipment. They are investing in transport and logistics systems. They are growing four crops a year. This is incredibly important work that the farmers are doing. They are doing work of national importance. I rise to speak on this motion today to highlight this, once again, and to call on members of the LNP. I call on Nationals members of the LNP and in particular the Victorian Nationals members of the LNP. I call on the member for Gippsland, who didn't hesitate to go down to celebrate the $20 million promised to Macalister. It is the Werribee irrigators' turn; they deserve better. It is all right for members of this government to stand in the House of Representatives and quote the Werribee irrigators in their speeches. It is all right for them to talk at the National Press Club about the national significance and the opportunities that the free trade agreement with China will create for these growers. But when it comes to putting their hand in their own pocket and putting $11 million on the table for the Werribee growers, they are nowhere to be seen.

I appeal one more time in this place for this government to show some commitment to the growers in my electorate, who currently are working as hard as they have worked in the last 60 years and growing four vegetable crops a year using the best scientific method they can. All they want is a co-contribution from the Commonwealth to match the state's contribution of $11 million and their own contributions. They want a modern irrigation system that will futureproof their area from droughts. I would remind the House, as I have reminded the House many times, that this is a group of people who have embraced recycled water. In times of drought, they have gone to that place and embraced recycled water on their farms and proven that it can work.

These growers deserve this investment in their future. The Werribee River deserves this investment to ensure environmental flows into the future and we deserve this investment locally to ensure we can maintain a million-dollar industry that employs thousands of people in my electorate of Lalor. I call on this government and those Nationals members that represent the state of Victoria to give us some support.

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