Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the Deputy Prime Minister outline to the House the importance of cooperation between all stakeholders in the implementation of the coalition’s $10 billion national water security plan? Why is this plan important to regional economies, including in my electorate of Maranoa in Queensland?

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Maranoa for his question. He has an obvious interest in this issue, given that his electorate of Maranoa covers most of the Queensland section of the Murray-Darling Basin and Maranoa actually represents about six per cent of basin water use. So it is a critically important issue in south-western Queensland, particularly in the electorate of Maranoa.

Last week I indicated that the value of irrigated agriculture to the Australian economy is $9 billion. It is critically important. So $9 billion worth of agricultural product is produced through irrigation—about 25 per cent of all agricultural production. Of course, that equals a lot of jobs. There are about 40,400 farm businesses that rely on irrigation: about one-third of all the farming enterprises or entities that exist in Australia rely on irrigation. Sixteen per cent of people employed in the Murray-Darling Basin are actually engaged in agriculture, compared with 4.6 per cent across the entire nation’s workforce. So 16 per cent in the Murray-Darling Basin and 4.6 per cent nationally—that is the percentage of the workforce engaged in agriculture. Those statistics are critically important.

The whole objective of our $10 billion water strategy or proposal is water security, and water security in these areas, these communities and these industries equals job security. Remember that, Mr Speaker: water security in the Murray-Darling Basin equals job security.

A lot of work has already been done by industry through the initiatives of the former Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson, and the National Water Initiative. We need to build on that hard work and the commitment that has been made. We recognise that, and it is terribly important in this debate today. We certainly intend to work very closely with industry and with irrigators.

To that end, later on this week the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources and I are going to meet with a delegation from the National Farmers Federation and irrigator groups to work through some of the issues and to reconfirm to them that we recognise the hard work that has been done and the contribution they have made and that our objective is to save water and secure water for the future so we can secure jobs in the basin for the future. It is critically important that we recognise that. Our goals are to secure the futures of the farming families throughout that region and throughout regional Australia.

The $10 billion plan that we have put forward is a bigger investment than the Snowy Mountains scheme. This is critically important to the nation. The basin runs across state borders; it needs to be seen as a national issue. That is the point the Prime Minister raised with the premiers last week. So we want to engage with industry and we want to engage with the state governments because this is about building a secure future in the Murray-Darling Basin system—because water security equals job security, and there is nothing more important in Australia today than job security.