Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts representing the Minister for Climate Change and Water. Will the minister inform the House of the dangers of reckless spending that has occurred in recent years on water?

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the House is aware, Labor is actively engaged in cutting wasteful spending from the previous era and particularly in exercising the necessary disciplines in response to the economic circumstances that the country faces. But, in the lead-up to the last election, the member for Wentworth had ministerial responsibility for the Community Water Grants program. This program provided community organisations, schools and Indigenous communities with the opportunity to apply for grants worth up to $50,000 for water saving, recycling and treatment projects. Round 1, announced in March 2006, had approximately 5,000 applications from across Australia. The member for Wentworth approved 1,750, amounting to a cost of approximately $61 million. Round 2 funding, announced in late 2006 and early 2007, was approved for 1,611 projects totalling $66.7 million. But in May last year the member for Wentworth announced $200 million to help communities save water, and the funding was proposed to extend the program until 2012-13. Round 3 grants were announced on 22 October last year, during the federal election campaign. With his eye firmly on the federal election day, the member for Wentworth funded 4,661 Community Water Grants projects, worth $174.8 million over the next year. This was six years of funding in one financial year—clear evidence that the member for Wentworth is incapable of balancing any budget. A funding blow-out of this nature represents almost double the combined amount of funding approved for round 1 and round 2.

So let us be clear. The member for Wentworth took it upon himself to try to assist the re-election prospects of the former Howard government by extending the Community Water Grants program for six years and then spending all that money in the period leading up to the federal election.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order that goes to relevance. The minister was asked about wasteful spending on water. He has identified not one of those projects as being wasteful.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member will resume his seat.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This country cannot afford old-style reckless spending anymore. But last week the House heard about the performance of the member for Wentworth in unilaterally rejecting expert scientific advice to fund the rain-making technology being touted by the Australian Rain Corporation to the tune of $2 million. As the House heard, the minister instead wrote back to the Prime Minister and then insisted on heaping $10 million of taxpayers’ hard-earned money on this private enterprise—but that figure was five times more than the member for Wentworth was advised of and this was at a time when inflation was brewing.

But today I can reveal that, one year earlier, the member for Wentworth wrote to a scientific expert, telling him that intentional weather modification simply does not work. That correspondence states:

By and large, these trials have produced results that were inconclusive at best. Furthermore, the American National Academy of Science also concluded, on October 2003, that convincing scientific proof of the efficacy of intentional weather modification efforts were still lacking.

The letter continues:

The CSIRO has largely abandoned its active research effort after more than 30 years due to inconclusive results.

It further says:

The CSIRO has concluded that cloud seeding is unlikely to be effective during winter and spring over the inland plains of southern and eastern Australia and similarly inconclusive during summer over eastern and north-eastern Australia and immediately in the north of Perth.

Mr Speaker, can you imagine how much of taxpayers’ money the member for Wentworth would have spent on this project if he had actually believed in it?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the minister to table that document.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is usually done at the end of the response. If the minister has not concluded, he will resume his response.

Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said before, Australia simply cannot afford any old-style reckless spending any more. The member for Wentworth had no plan to fight inflation. Worse, he dismissed the inflation problem that families were confronting every day as just a fairy story. But, when it came to reckless spending, the member for Wentworth was the key part of a government under which spending grew faster in the last four years than at any time in the last 35 years. When it comes to reckless spending, the member for Wentworth is the best friend inflation ever had.