Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm rising to discuss the most important issue in the electorate of Farrer, which is the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and the games that the Labor Party is playing in an effort perhaps not to derail the plan but to ensure that they have maximum chance of winning the federal seat of Batman, which is a long way from the Murray-Darling Basin. For the first time since Federation—and you would know this well, Mr Deputy Speaker—the Murray and Murrumbidgee valleys are in the same electorate, so, for me, the plan, water, irrigated agriculture and the future of our farming families is front and centre, and it's an issue about which I will make no compromise. To see what is happening to the communities that I have represented, some only since the last election but many for nearly 18 years, is quite heartbreaking because we have been through so much and given so much and hurt so much only to see, at this almost final stage, a game being played for political advantage in a community a long, long way from the Murray-Darling Basin.

I heard the opposition's water spokesman on the radio yesterday morning, and it dawned on me that, in all of the muddled conversation he was having, what he was doing was putting this whole thing in a holding pattern—calling for another review—until after the Batman by-election on 17 March. If he is doing that, I guess the 17 March isn't that far away and, hopefully, after that we can get back to normal. But make no mistake. What this tells us is that Labor is always prepared to sacrifice the interests of rural people for its own political advantage, even around something as substantial and important and 'signed on for' by Labor as the very bipartisan Basin Plan.

There is just so much misunderstanding about the Murray-Darling Basin, the communities in it, environmental watering, the health of the environment and so on. So it's vital at this point in time to trust those of us who live, work and raise our families in the basin and be up-front, honest and genuine. None of these things are coming from Labor, and it is incredibly disappointing.

We talk in a language all of its own when you talk about water, and I don't really want to do that today in the time that I have, but the place that we've arrived at now is not bad. We have communities that have signed on to the plan, many of them reluctantly—farmers who know that it's a compromise, but it's a compromise they can live with. They need the certainty going forward because they run businesses and they have multimillion-dollar investments in some cases—or maybe not so large in others if they are small family farmers, but they want that certainty. The plan should deliver them that certainty, but that certainty is off the table at the moment.

The 605 gigalitres of down water, which are savings that have been made through projects that state governments have submitted and had approved by the MDBA—which effectively means that that amount of water doesn't have to now be recovered from farmers—has brought broad acceptance in the southern basin. What Labor is doing is disallowing the northern basin review, which is about a separate amount of water—70 gigalitres—that a really rigorous scientific process has demonstrated is not necessary for the health of the environment, because the science wasn't really very well developed at the time that the figure was determined. But the two have become conflated, as has the 450 gigalitre of up water, a deal that was done to look after South Australia. Let's be really honest about that; we all know that's why it was done. But that 450 gigalitres of up water belongs to 2024, not to the here and now. If I see Labor somehow bringing back the 450 gigalitres of up water and telling the communities that I represent that they have to start recovering that water now—and I've heard that sort of line coming out of Labor—then I will do something that I never thought I would: I will call on the states to withdraw from the Basin Plan, in spite of everything that we've been through, because I am not going to turn around to my communities and tell them that we are coming to get another 650 gigalitres of your water. I can't do that. I won't do that. And I know that the water ministers and the agriculture ministers—and one is a Labor government—in both Victoria and New South Wales are seriously considering it.

So, while Labor plays the political games here, have no doubt about the really shocking effect that those games are having in the real parts of rural Australia—parts that I wish my Labor colleagues could spend more time visiting. But I'm here to look after and represent those communities. (Time expired)

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