Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I support the member for Mayo's motion in relation to including purchases of water to be subject to the Foreign Investment Review Board. This would obviously apply to permanent water and long-term leases, but obviously wouldn't apply to the purchases of temporary water right, which many farmers obviously need as a way of maintaining their traditional day-to-day farming businesses. The ability to purchase water in opportunistic times is just an everyday part of running a farm; it doesn't matter whether you are in South Australia, New South Wales or Victoria.

Right now the ACCC is investigating the water trading and the operations around water trading in the lower Murray and lower Darling reaches, and that's something that we are really looking forward to with anticipation. There has been serious speculation that water traders and water barons have been manipulating the water prices in dry times, which is incredibly heartless if it is true. We are really hoping that the ACCC and their inquiry will get to the bottom of this. We fully expect that the government will be able, through the consultation period, to include that permanent purchases of water will be subject to the Foreign Investment Review Board. So we are fully expecting that the member's motion will in fact be agreed to.

Foreign investment in water is quite important, but it is not as important as what happens to the water that we have available each and every year. It has been found through various inquiries and through, predominantly, the Keelty report, that over 370 gigalitres per annum of additional water is flowing down the river than what is modelled and what we are told is actually flowing. On average, an additional 375 gigalitres every year goes over the border into South Australia. That water isn't used for agriculture, it is not used for the environment, it is not put in as some sort of dilution flow and nor is it quantified as conveyance water. It is simply unaccounted for, unmodeled quantities of water.

We also understand that over 800 gigalitres a year evaporates from the lower reaches, from the Lower Lakes. This water is simply put down into the Lower Lakes to keep the Lower Lakes fresh and to keep the Murray mouth open. We know that the Murray mouth will never be kept open by using fresh water coming out of the Murray River. The Murray mouth will be kept open by the tidal movements of the ocean and the tides coming in and out and it will be kept open by dredges. That has been the case for many, many years now. So to think that we still have the Murray mouth being kept open as an environmental objective is actually laughable. This water is desperately needed in our agricultural communities, and to have 800 gigalitres evaporating in the Lower Lakes is very difficult for the agricultural sector and the communities upstream to accept, especially when you think that 50 gigalitres was enough evaporation for us to close down Mokoan. We closed down the Mokoan irrigation system because there was 50 gigalitres of evaporation. Everybody accepted the pain, the hurt and the detriment that went with that decision to close down the Mokoan irrigation system, because 50 gigalitres of evaporation in that program was deemed to be too much; yet we can turn a blind eye to 800 gigalitres of water evaporating from the lower reaches and the Lower Lakes of the Murray at Lake Alexandria and Lake Albert.

So we need to be very, very conscious and careful when we make a big deal about foreign investment. It's an issue and we need to address it—and I believe the government will address it in relation to its recent announcements—but we have to understand that foreign investors can't actually buy the water and take it with them. The only way foreign investors can make money out of the water that they purchase is to sell it to a farmer in the Murray-Darling Basin. They have to sell it to a productive farmer who is going to use it to grow something.

We have issues with water barons being able to manipulate the market, and we have to stamp that out. We also have issues with retired farmers who have done everything right but their action in providing for their own retirement by sitting on parcels of water and selling them at the most opportune time is also detrimental to the agricultural sector. So there is a whole raft of issues. This is one of them, and we are addressing this issue.

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