Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

As we've gone through this, we've seen that it's quite obvious that the people who talk against this bill talk from a position of passion. The people who talk for it, talk from a position of the PMO's talking points.

What is quite clear is that we do actually believe in one position of the Labor Party, and that was the member for Watson's, Anthony Stephen Burke's, position, because it's his legislation that we're actually amending here. So the member for Watson's legislation has been thrown down and out the window by the member for Sydney's, Tanya Joan Plibersek's, version of how she wants to see the Murray-Darling Basin.

Now, it's interesting, isn't it, that we have a view of the basin from people who don't live in the basin. That view about the preciousness of water seems to conflict with what we'd probably see in their houses, where you'd have multiple toilets, multiple showers, multiple water features. We'd even have showers that had two showerheads, so, as you're having a shower, you can share it with someone else who needs to get clean as well. I don't know the logic behind that. But there's no concern at all about saving water, as long as you're not saving water in their house.

Their virtue always has to reside on the western side of the range, where it resides also with their power policy. Virtue is an easy thing with somebody else's chequebook. This whole process, of course, is as obscure—and, in some forms, obscene—as if the people from the western side of the range started making policies on where the roads and tunnels in Sydney or Melbourne would go. We'd have virtue signals about how we believe that it's only proper that we start closing down roads in Sydney to reduce carbon emissions.

What we have seen, all through this, is that the Labor Party, the government—hand in glove with the Greens—has managed to create a complete affliction on the lives of people in rural areas. This Murray-Darling Basin change is going to be massively problematic—not so much for the people who get the money, but for the people who are left behind. If you keep taking irrigators away from an irrigation scheme, then the cost to run the scheme remains with the few who stay. It's like having a high-rise building: if you've only got a few tenants, how do they pay the strata fees? If you've only got a few people in an irrigation scheme, how do they maintain the scheme?

For Australia in general, there's one thing we've got to realise: there are so many things that can go wrong in Australia, but one thing that should never go wrong, and hasn't gone wrong, is that we can always feed ourselves. Other countries don't have that blessing. If we're to respect that blessing, we've got to make sure the people in the country have the water to grow the food. You can't have this bizarre belief that, if you take away the water and restrict their capacity to manage the land, they'll be able to provide you with the food. People on the land will always try and make sure the cities in Australia are fed, no matter what. No matter what the price, they'll always make sure that the food gets to the cities, because it's our job. It's our role as Australians for our fellow Australians.

You don't seem to be looking like you appreciate what we're doing; you really don't. You make our life incredibly difficult. You put our costs through the roof, and now you're taking away the fundamental item we require to do it—the water itself. You started immediately after you got into government. The money that we had on the table for Hells Gate, the Bowen pipeline, Urannah Dam, Dungowan Dam, Emu Swamp Dam, Wyangala Dam—all these water projects were taken off the table. You kept the money for Paradise Dam because that was the Labor Party's debacle in Queensland. We did actually build water projects: Charleston Dam, Scottsdale Irrigation Scheme, Quipolly Dam, Chaffey Dam and the Mallee pipeline. We've always managed because we understand that water is wealth. Without water, you can't grow the food, you can't grow the economy and you can't sustain the area.

We know that 1.5 million people are going to be moving to Australia in the next five years. That's Adelaide. That's four times the size of this city. If you're going to do that, you're going to need to be able to feed them. You're going to have to have the water to feed them. If you're trying to say, 'I have this virtue policy—I'm going to endear myself to the benevolent spirits in the inner suburbs, with their multiple toilets, multiple showerheads and all that water in their houses, by restricting the amount of water that people outside can get,' then you're going to start putting pressure on.

One of the greatest things that this nation can do is to attend to the food task as it arises, as the world walks towards 10 billion people. Tragically, people are starting to starve again. We've got a protein deficit, a carbohydrate deficit, a fats deficit; the food produced by the globe does not match the population. Our job is to do our part in that massive food task. We can't feed them all, but whatever we don't do is going to result in a person you've never met, maybe in the Horn of Africa, maybe in Central America, maybe on a Pacific island, starving to death. Growing food is a very noble thing. We feed and clothe people. We don't work on their weaknesses. We don't work on gambling weaknesses, addictions or things they don't need. We provide the basic essentials of life—food and fibre—to keep them fed and keep them clothed. But you keep on making it so difficult to do this.

I ask you very politely to temper your passion with logic. As Alexander Pope said:

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

If you're going to make policies for regional areas, at least go live there for a while. Remember: Adelaide is not in the basin. Go live in Shepparton, Mildura, Goondiwindi, St George, Dirranbandi or Bourke. Go live in the areas which actually rely on this incredible resource. Understand that the reason we get so passionate about this is that we're so aware of the pain that you're about to deliver to some of the poorer people in Australia. That pain works at 180 degrees to the other narratives you have in such things as the referendum on the Voice—you say you're going to help people, but, within the same day, you're moving policy to actually hurt them.

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