David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

This is a sad day for basin communities, with the amendments to this important Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 that are being sent back. This is a piece of legislation that was first put in train by the member for Watson, and today the 450 gigalitres form a significant part of that. A mistruth that has been espoused by the minister here is that for some reason we have only delivered two gigalitres of the 450 gigalitres. This goes to the very heart of the design of the Murray-Darling Basin plan, the design that the member for Watson actually put in place. He put in place, in 2012, a safety mechanism to protect the social and economic viability of those communities that were going to have an additional 450 gigalitres ripped away from them.

The original plan is 2,750 gigalitres. We have recovered 2,100 gigalitres, and the last element of that can be recovered through infrastructure, not water buybacks. Buybacks destroy communities. They don't destroy farmers; farmers walk away with a check. The communities that are left behind are the ones that are decimated. That's the lack of knowledge and understanding of this plan and its intricacies and its impact, economic and social, on these communities: this minister walked in here yesterday and made it clear that not even one ounce of economic modelling had been done about the cost of this fairytale that she is taking us on, nor about the flow-on effects to our communities. What responsible government takes away the very legislation that they put in place, with appropriate safeguards for the 450 gigalitres of additional water to the plan, and tears that up without any economic modelling for the lives and livelihoods of people living up and down the Basin? Are they just collateral damage sitting at the altar of political expediency, for city members to walk out and say, 'We did something'? Not one ounce of modelling—nothing done to understand exactly the impact of what they are doing in tearing up their very own legislation.

While the member for Watson stands here before me, can I say that we acted in a bipartisan way in delivering the Northern Basin Review and the sustainable diversion limits, and then we were able to get the neutrality test, in agreement with every state, including South Australia. You have torn up that bipartisanship, a plan that was going to be delivered. The 2,750 gigalitres were going to be delivered. This nonsense of 'year 4,000' on the 450 was because of the very safeguards that the member for Watson, who is leaving now, put in place. You are actually tearing up your very own plan, the plan that was there to protect communities.

This is the lowest moment for those communities up and down the basin. And you sit here and don't even show respect but show contempt—contempt for them, their future and their livelihoods—without even doing modelling, without even going out to these communities and having the courage of your convictions to eyeball them and to explain your courage of your convictions. No: you made every effort to only invite certain people.

See this speech in context