Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Water Legislation Amendment (Inspector-General of Water Compliance and Other Measures) Bill 2021 establishes the Office of the Inspector-General of Water Compliance. It's a role that initially commenced with the Northern Basin Commissioner being appointed and was gradually expanded to the whole of the Murry-Darling Basin. Labor will of course support this legislation because compliance with water extraction allocations and ensuring the integrity of the water market are important objectives. However, the legislation is also an admission that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has failed in its oversight of the basin waters.

Whilst the legislation does have merit, water compliance alone will not resolve the underlying problems within the basin or the disputes between the basin states, which have been going on for over 100 years now. It was hoped they would be resolved when the 2012 Murray-Darling Basin Plan was agreed to. Regrettably, that agreement never sat comfortably with the eastern states or, indeed, with coalition members, as we just heard from the member for Nicholls. They have constantly sought to discredit and undermine it. In particular, there has been constant resentment about the additional 450 gigalitres of environmental water that was sought by South Australia and the volume of water that goes into South Australia's Lower Lakes. The member for Nicholls talked about both of those matters in his comments. As Labor's shadow minister pointed out in her response to this legislation, of the 450 gigalitres only 1.9 gigalitres has been delivered in almost a decade. That's because coalition governments that have been in office for most of that time have simply not been interested in trying to deliver that water.

The reality is that there were many experts at the time who argued that the amount of water that should have been returned to the system should not have only been the 2,750 gigalitres plus the additional 450 gigalitres that was contingent on other factors but that it should have been much higher. That was the advice of many of the experts. To reach a compromise that could be agreed on by all of the states at the time, the figure was settled on an initial 2,750 plus 450 that could be returned back to the system as a result of efficiency measures that could be put in place over the ensuing years, because the parliament at the time knew that it would take time to get those projects in place.

But there were projects. Indeed, when the committee of this parliament, chaired by the member for New England, looked at all of the different measures that could be put in place to return more of that water to the system, my recollection is that we identified about 30 different projects at the time that could be looked at to do just that. But that hasn't happened. Indeed, when we do look at the projects that this government has looked at to try and return water to the system, of the 34 that have been funded, I understand that only three can nominate an amount of water that's been returned to the system at all. So you wonder what the other 31 projects were funded for and on what basis they were funded if they couldn't provide a detailed figure as to how much water would be returned to the system.

The states' disputes about water rights existed prior to Federation, and it is somewhat regrettable that, the talks about our Constitution in the late 1890s, didn't result in an agreement between all of the states as to how this would all be resolved and agreed upon. Had it been clearly written into the Constitution at the time, we may not be having the debates here today. The fact that we are still having the debates and the fact that both the federal government and the states now have some responsibility towards the management of the waters in the Murray-Darling Basin simply complicates the arrangement even further.

What I've noticed over the years is that any state that is aggrieved by any of the conditions relating to the agreement that was reached both in, I think, the 2006 Water Act that the Howard government brought in and subsequently the Murray-Darling Basin Plan can simply, I guess, exploit loopholes in the agreement and not play ball in accordance with what was expected of them. We have seen threats by some of the states since that time to withdraw entirely from the agreement, which simply highlights what can ultimately happen when you've got so many parties that are part of an agreement and the agreement itself is not watertight.

The reality is that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has, since it was established, not only struggled to ensure that the plan, as agreed to in 2012, was delivered but also, in doing so, failed to ensure stability and certainty for the growers. When you add to that climate change, drought and changing weather patterns, the situation for those growers has become even more uncertain. Indeed, between the year 1900 and the year 2000—for almost all of the last hundred years of the 20th century—inflows into the basin averaged 9,407 gigalitres per year. Since that time—that is, in the last two decades—inflows have fallen to around half of that, to 4,820 gigalitres. So we have had a situation over the last two decades where we have had nearly half as much water but probably twice as much agricultural area that we have been trying to ensure survives. That is the real problem, and I'll come back to that a bit later on. But what it highlights is that where you have a system with a reduction in inflows and an increase in water coming out it will undoubtedly be put under strain, and when that strain occurs it not only pits states against states; it pits growers against growers in different parts of the basin. We have seen arguments between the cotton growers and the rice growers and between the rice growers and the horticulturalists and so on all claiming that the others are exploiting the system or taking an unfair amount of water. Indeed, when you get desperate or when growers become desperate then I guess they will resort to whatever they can to ensure their survival.

Regrettably and sadly we have seen cases of water being illegally taken from the basin, as was exposed by the Four Corners program in 2017. I understand that there have been several cases where prosecutions have been launched. I don't know what the outcome of those cases was, nor does it really matter. But what they highlight is that the Four Corners program was absolutely correct: water was illegally being taken and nothing was being done about it until those prosecutions were launched. Again, that was before we had a commissioner of any sort. Indeed, the responsibility for who was to be managing the water extractions is also a grey area, with the states having a role in all of that. Quite clearly, however, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's oversight, investigations and prosecutions of those illegal takings were inadequate. Then we also have cases of water metre tampering and the like. Indeed, I suspect that the findings to date with respect to illegal takings of water is really only the tip of the iceberg, because I have no doubt that across the basin there are many other examples of where water was being improperly taken.

The fact that we even have water as a tradeable commodity hasn't helped either. It has added to the problems and it has driven up water prices, which in some cases has put the price of water out of reach to some growers. I have spoken to growers who simply couldn't afford to buy the water at the price it was selling on the market and therefore couldn't keep their farms going. We've also had more than one account—in fact, we have had several accounts—of speculators who have profited from the water market, speculators who have no interest in agriculture in this country but are simply buying into the water market just like they would buy into the share market with respect to any other product, speculators who are often are domiciled overseas, as we have also seen. In my view, and this is my view, available water should be allocated by an independent statutory body at a set, affordable price on a priority needs basis. That is the system we should have and that is the system that was in place in South Australia in the Northern Adelaide Plains, where underground water was managed in the same way several decades ago. The government decided who could get access to it, but it did so on a priority needs basis and at a fair cost to the growers, rather than allowing the market to determine it. As I say, the market allows those with money to buy the water, and those who cannot afford it miss out.

I want to turn briefly to the water buyback issue. We know that between 2016 and 2019 there was $190 million worth of water buybacks under a particular program, which saw about 80 billion litres of water bought back. That buyback included the controversial buyback of $80 million worth of water—that is, 28.7 megalitres—from Eastern Australia Agriculture, whose parent company was domiciled in the Cayman Islands. It is understood that they made a $52 million profit from that sale. Again, that is an example that highlights how the market has been exploited at the expense of struggling growers. In many cases, these are small, family owned farms that have been passed on from one generation to another. They can't compete with the big multinational or corporate funds that have been established across the basin.

The reality is that the Murray-Darling Basin, as other speakers have quite rightly pointed out, is an important national asset. It is home to 2.6 million Australians; some 9,200 agricultural farms exist within it; it accounts for, I believe, around 40 per cent of Australia's irrigated agricultural land with a total annual production value of around $24 billion; and it contains 16 Ramsar listed wetlands. You couldn't think of a more important part of Australia than the Murray-Darling Basin, in terms of its economic and environmental importance to the nation. And it sustains hundreds and hundreds of towns throughout it, and, obviously thousands of farmers and other small businesses within the basin area.

The problem with it is simply this: it goes to the case where, over recent decades, we have allowed an expansion of farming within the area, farming that requires water, whilst at the same time water inflows into the basin have reduced. The system, under those circumstances, is not sustainable. Given that climate change is likely to see further reductions in water inflows, it will become an even greater problem into the future. Most of the expansion, with respect to the big corporate farms, has occurred in the eastern states. How the state governments have allowed that to happen, when they know that over the last two decades there has been a shortage of water, is beyond me. Indeed, between December 2018 and January 2019 of we saw hundreds of thousands of fish dying in the lower Darling just outside of Menindee, again as a result of the water inflows falling.

It is time we started taking the issue much more seriously than it has been. Having the fights between the states is not the answer. In my view, the answer lies in the recommendations of the royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin that was launched by South Australia. It was a royal commission that had 111 findings and 44 recommendations. I have pretty much read the whole of that royal commission report, and I can say it is the most accurate summary of what is happening in the basin. Yet the findings and the recommendations of that commission sit on a shelf, ignored by both the South Australian state government and the federal government. Perhaps, if we want a solution to a future sustainable Murray-Darling Basin, look to the findings of that commission. It was thorough, it was widespread and, quite frankly, it was accurate to the point that it reflects the true situation and provides workable solutions.

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