Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the October 2022 budget contained an undisclosed amount intended for water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin, and that confirmation of the Government's intention to recommence buybacks has already had an impact on the water market;

(b) the country's largest water broker, Adelaide-based Waterfind, issued and then withdrew, an expression of interest for Commonwealth buybacks;

(c) water entitlement holders have withdrawn from the market to wait for the expected premium when the Government enters the market;

(d) a 2018 agreement reached by Australia's water ministers guarantees that positive, or neutral, socio-economic outcomes must be demonstrated for approval of any further recovery of Murray-Darling Basin environmental water;

(e) the Government is ignoring expert reports and is pursuing a timeline for completion of the Murray-Darling Basin plan and buybacks which will cause economic and social harm in Basin communities; and

(f) the Government is ignoring former Prime Minister Julia Gillard's stated position on the additional 450 gigalitres when she announced with the then Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, that it would only be recovered via water recovery projects that minimise the impact on communities, to ensure there is no social and economic downside for communities;

(2) acknowledges that Murray-Darling Basin communities have already done the heavy lifting on the recovery of water for the environment and any further recovery should be done in a manner that does not deliver more social and economic harm to those communities; and

(3) calls on the Government to extend the timeline for completion of the Murray-Darling Basin plan and work with Basin communities on projects to recover further water for the environment in a manner that has a neutral or positive socio-economic impact.

The Labor government's current approach to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan poses an existential crisis to what has been one of the great food bowls of Australia. Water buybacks are hanging over basin communities, including those in the Goulburn Valley, in my electorate, like the sword of Damocles. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has many flaws in planning and execution, but there has been a general acknowledgement that the ability to use some water for environmental purposes is a good thing. At huge economic and social cost, basin communities have had recovered—and that means taken away—over 2,000 gigalitres of our most vital and precious economic resource, water for irrigation.

When water leaves an area, so does the economy that that water creates. If a farmer sells a water licence back to the government, the farmer may well be compensated, but the milk or fruit that the farmer once grew grows no longer, and the employed in the supply chain that gets the product to the consumer is no longer employed, and our nation is poorer in so many ways. But, we have copped it. Two thousand gigalitres have already been lost to these basin communities. What next? There was a welcome addition to the plan that said that up to 650 gigalitres of this water could stay as productive irrigation licence, so long as equivalent savings could be found in environmental efficiency projects. Some of these projects have been delivered, to great positive effect, but the states need more time to develop and put together the rest.

Question 1 is: will federal Labor extend the time for these worthwhile environmental projects or just say, 'the computer says no,' and adhere slavishly to an artificial time line of 2024? Do they care about people and the environment or do they care about politics? Also, when Labor signed the plan into law, there was a political add on—450 gigalitres of extra water, on top of what has already been taken, could be taken from productive use and sent downstream. But there is an important caveat in that legislation. It can only be taken if it would have a 'neutral or improved socioeconomic outcomes' on the basin communities.

Some in this place have tried to argue that, as long as the water licence holder is paid, the socioeconomic impact is neutral. But to paraphrase a former Labor PM on another issue last week—because I have a brain—I understand that any further removal of water will have devastating effects on basin communities: economic destruction, significantly reduced production and damaged export markets. That's the exact opposite of socioeconomic neutrality. There is also strong evidence that trying to push this amount of extra water down the river system will have terrible environmental impacts.

People in the Goulburn Valley pose this question to me: 'Sam, we work so hard. We grow cheap, clean and healthy food for the nation. We've created export markets that benefit so many people, creating wealth and jobs. Why do they hate us so much? Why would they jeopardise our future by taking away more water when they know it would hurt us? They don't understand the environment here, they don't understand our economy, and they make no effort. Why won't they acknowledge that the deal was that extra water could be taken only if it didn't damage our communities? Why don't they understand that a deal is a deal?' That's not me talking; that's people in my electorate talking. I'm at a loss.

You come up here with a spirit of goodwill and wanting to work together to achieve for our nation. But when you see the sort of attitude that is being driven by the Minister for the Environment and Water, threatening entire regions and industries, and therefore people, it is really, really hard. The government needs to re-evaluate its entire approach to the rolling out of the final stages of this reform.

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