Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for Flinders proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government’s mismanagement of water as shown by its approval of the disastrous North-South pipeline.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a government of water wallys. They have been silent as the states have wasted 1,800 billion litres of water a year off our coasts by a failure to support recycling and by an agreement with the approach of pumping pollution off our coasts, and all the time they have adopted a simple approach. Their simple approach has been to take from the country to give to the city, whereas our approach has been to look at recycling, stormwater and water efficiencies so the city finally gives back to the country. That is what water reform is about, that is what water efficiency is about and that is why we as the previous government put in place a once-in-a-century water revolution. What we have seen by comparison is a white flag on water. Before I begin in detail, let me turn to what Tim Flannery said about that plan. Over a year ago, on 2 February 2007, the then Australian of the Year said:

I think it’s an excellent plan; it really is. It’s the best we could hope for and I applaud the Prime Minister—

John Howard, the then Prime Minister—

and Malcolm Turnbull on that plan …

They were Tim Flannery’s words. That was what he said about the plan—and I am delighted that the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts has seen fit to join us on this matter of public importance.

What have we seen by comparison? We have seen no money for infrastructure, we have seen no real power to the national authority and we have seen no money for rural communities as the structural adjustment funding has been stripped away. One and a half billion dollars which was intended to help rural communities to adjust has gone, and there is a disastrous pipeline plan to take water from the communities of the Goulburn, from the communities of McEwen and, ultimately, upstream from the Murray. At the end of the day to take that water is to defeat the very purpose of the national plan on water—for which, as Tim Flannery said, credit is due to the then Prime Minister and to the now Leader of the Opposition. They have defeated that plan because they have dropped the ball, they have raised the white flag, by taking away the money for infrastructure and by taking away the money for rural communities, and instead of having a plan which focused on three parts: (1) most importantly, water efficiency for the farmers to help them and to share the benefits with the rivers; (2) to allow for water trading—we believe in water trading and its role but only where there are wise choices and not where the water efficiencies have been denied from the outset; and (3) where you have traded, to have support for the communities. Parts one and three have gone. The water efficiencies have gone. The money for the community has gone. What they have is a plan to buy water from farmers which is not real and which has not been effective. They paid $50 million for 35 gigalitres, the Prime Minister told us. The reality is they paid $50 million for 10 swimming pools. There are people around this country who would love to sell this mob a bridge or two because, when it comes to sensible purchasing, they are kidding.

What we want to present to the House today is a very simple proposition: that this is a government of mismanagement, or water wallies, when it comes to water. The example of the disastrous north-south pipeline highlights, in a way which is absolutely clear to Australians, that instead of saving water in the city to share with the country they have a simple plan: take the water from the farmers and from the country, take it to the cities, make no changes in water efficiency in the country and make no changes to this disastrous waste of water, which is dropping 1,800 gigalitres off our coasts, polluting our coasts—

Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is totally wrong. Try telling the truth!

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you believe in polluting our coasts, good for you, mate. Pollute our coasts and do not recycle. They are a disgrace when it comes to water.

I want to do this in three parts. Firstly, we will deal with the question of the water revolution. Secondly, the member for Calare will deal with the particular problems that rural communities have faced through this theft of water from the country to the city without giving the farmers the chance of water efficiencies. The Minister for Climate Change and Water said the Lower Lakes will not get a drop from the purchase of Toorale. Thirdly, the member for McEwen will deal with the impact of Pete’s pipeline on the people of the Goulburn and on the Murray. This is the reality of Pete’s pipeline.

While everybody is here, let us look at what the local people are saying about this pipeline: ‘This week Peter Garrett betrayed our communities—No savings; no water; no meeting.’ That is about the future of water. It is about the future of the communities. At the end of the day this government has sold out rural communities, failed to make the water efficiencies there and gone soft on the state governments, who continue to pump off our coasts 1,800 billion litres of waste water, which the rest of the world is recycling.

The member for Cook witnesses that 400 billion litres of waste water, primary treated sewage, goes off the coast of Sydney. As the member for Wentworth and Leader of the Opposition has previously said, basically they take out the sandshoes. It is a nightmare and a disgrace in terms of environmental pollution. It is water which the rest of the world recycles for industry and agriculture. It is water which comes off the member for Kingsford Smith’s own electorate and yet is not recycled—and I am not aware that he has stood up in protest at the nearly 100 billion litres of polluted waste water dumped off his coast every year by Sydney Water and that he has called for that water to be recycled now and for this pollution nightmare to stop.

Let us look then at the question of what should occur. We put in place a once-in-a-century water revolution. There was $6 billion in money for infrastructure, there was $3 billion in money for communities—of which half would help to assist in purchasing water, but after the infrastructure was put in place so the farmers could make the savings—and $1½ billion dollars to help fund rural communities. That money for rural communities, as the member for Calare will tell us, has gone—and that is what the people of Bourke and the surrounding districts will face. If we talk about evaporative losses, that is money which has evaporated. And the people of Bourke, who look set to lose 100 jobs from Toorale alone—and however many more from the region—will suffer as a result of not having a real rural adjustment plan and as a result of this bad purchase.

Secondly, we had $1 billion for the Bureau of Meteorology and other elements to do with monitoring and with making predictions on the effects of climate change—and we never, ever make the mistake of having a fundamental problem of misallocation and a fundamental underlying drought. We need to recognise that these are real and happening and we also need to make real assessments as to what might occur in the future.

The other critical thing that we put in place and which, in this once-in-a-century revolution, the member for Wentworth, the Leader of the Opposition, oversaw was the creation of a true national authority. It was a program which was intended to say to the states: ‘You cannot continue to mismanage.’ But what we have seen from the member for Kingsford Smith and from the new Prime Minister is the waving of the white flag on national water reform. The reason they have done that is very simple: they are weak. They have sold out to the state premiers. The state Labor premiers have seen them coming. They have apologised for the premiers. Instead of ending the blame game they have begun the apology game. When they talk about the blame game what they are doing is apologising for the mismanagement of state Labor premiers—and the apology for state Labor premiers on water continues because they have put off real reform. They had a chance; they had a blueprint; they had a plan; they had money; and they had an outcome—and they failed on all of them.

Let us look at what others have said about this once-in-a-century water reform. The President of the National Farmers Federation, David Crombie, said:

It was a strong announcement and I think there are probably few issues that are more important to all Australians than the efficient management and certainty relating to water and water supply.

The New South Wales Irrigators Council, through Doug Miell, said, ‘The plan is breathtaking in its scope.’ Simon Ramsay, the President of the Victorian Farmers Federation, said, ‘We certainly welcome the announcement of a significant investment in water management and infrastructure.’ It is that infrastructure component which has gone begging under this government. Instead of helping the farmers to make savings and water efficiencies which could be shared fifty-fifty with the farmers and the environment, they have said, ‘Sorry, guys; the money hasn’t gone to the farmers.’ What they are going to do is buy the farmers out, take the water away, not make the efficiency savings and not make the savings which could be good for the environment and good for the farmers.

And they have completely forgotten about something which the member for Calare talks about, the member for Murray talks about, the member for McEwen talks about, and so many others on our side of the House talk about: food security. They have a one-only approach, and that is: ‘Buy the lot. It doesn’t matter if we’re buying empty space in dams. It doesn’t matter if we’re simply buying rights without water. It doesn’t matter if we are spending $50 million on 10 swimming pools. We want to look as if we are doing something, and we don’t care if we are not actually doing something.’ At the end of the day, it is the farmers and the environment that miss out—from people who do not care about the country and do not care about our coasts.

That brings me to the fact that the government have dropped the ball on water reform on a truly national Murray-Darling Basin Authority with real powers at the national level. What they have also done is to put in place Pete’s pipeline. What this minister for the environment did was to make a decision on Pete’s pipeline which is based on no evidence, no environmental impact statement and no concern for the rural community. That is what the member for McEwen, the member for Murray and many others have said. It was an election promise that no water would be taken from the north; no water would be taken across the divide. That promise has been broken by both state and federal governments and, in their heart of hearts, they know it and they should feel ashamed. It is a misallocation, because if you do make these savings, as we proposed making savings, the savings should be shared first to the farmers and second to the environment—to the Goulburn, which is one of the most stressed rivers in Australia, or to the Murray, which we know is stressed. But these rivers miss out; instead, the farmers and the rivers will both be the poorer from a plan which is misconceived, misguided and a misallocation of water.

There is an alternative. We would not be able to stand up here and criticise if we did not have an alternative. On the one hand, we have their approach: water from the country to the city, the breach of the promise, the pipeline. On the other hand, we have our approach: water from the city to the country. Firstly, there is the potential for recycling and a water revolution. Eighteen hundred gigalitres of water—1,800 billion litres of water—is washed off our coasts by state Labor governments every year around the country. Four hundred billion litres of primary treated sewage gets dumped off Sydney’s coastline every year and is not recycled. It is too hard for the Carr, Iemma, Rees, Tebbutt governments—or whoever it is in the future. We see it in Victoria: 300 billion litres, including 150 billion litres of effluent at the shoreline at Gunnamatta Beach in my own electorate.

If we go to South Australia, which admittedly is the best in the country, we still see the best part of 100 billion litres off the coast. If we go to Perth, we see another 100 billion-plus litres off the coast and in Brisbane we see 200 billion-plus litres—but, fortunately, we put $400 million into ensuring that there will be a recycling scheme, which means that the water that comes out at Luggage Point will no longer be wasted. We see in the South Australian Liberal Party a plan to save 75 gigalitres of water by harvesting the stormwater, which is also wasted and sent down the gully traps and into the ocean.

We have a plan which is real, and that is a plan based on two things: firstly, recycling and stormwater for our cities and, secondly, real water savings in the country—savings which go to the farmers first and then go to the environment, but which are based on real action and real investment in infrastructure, not a meaningless pipeline. That is why this government should be condemned.

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

I have to say that, of all the contributions to a matter of public importance debate on an issue which is of critical importance to Australia, I am seriously disappointed at what we have heard from the opposition this afternoon. I have to say that I actually expected a lot better from the member for Flinders, as he made a series of totally inaccurate, unsubstantiated claims about the government’s position on water and particularly about the Sugarloaf pipeline. For the record, I should simply say that this project, in particular, is subject to specific conditions in relation to the responsibilities that I am required to discharge under the Environment Protection Act. The Victorian government has provided assurances that there will be no reduction in flows to the environment, and particularly to the Murray River, as a consequence of this decision.

I have also imposed conditions to be sure that Victoria’s assurances are met. The proponent in this project, Melbourne Water, is no different from any other proponent. They are bound by the law to comply with the conditions that I have imposed, and it is a specific condition of approval that no water can be taken from savings allocated to the Living Murray Initiative, from the Waters for Rivers entitlements or from environmental reserves, and that all water savings projects supplying the pipeline are compliant with the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

It is also a condition of my approval that the water savings must be directed to Melbourne through the pipeline and that they must be independently audited. The member for Flinders knows full well that this is part of a larger project in place, the Food Bowl Modernisation Project—which he saw fit not to mention on one occasion at all—which has identified potential savings of 225 gigalitres, of which a third, a third and a third will go to the city of Melbourne, to the environment and to irrigators.

This matter of public importance comes at a critical time. It comes at a critical time because of the parlous state of the Murray-Darling Basin and the fact that we do have a problem of extreme drought impacted upon by climate change conditions which are seeing allocations, entitlements and water generally within the system at all-time historic lows. So you would think that the opposition would come in here and, firstly, be able to agree on what its position is—and I will come to that later—and, secondly, recognising the seriousness of this challenge on water, not come forward with some scattered political attack and funny little punchlines about ‘Pete’s pipeline’ and so on but rather address in substance what this government is actually bringing forward in Water for the Future.

What has happened here is that the member for Flinders has seen this MPI as an opportunity to audition for his position on the front bench. That is what has happened. As in his past activities, the shadow minister is searching for a headline. This is the shadow minister who accused a minister in the other house of being akin to Saddam Hussein. I have to say, with all respect, that I thought that that was an overreach on your part, Shadow Minister. This is a shadow minister who referred to Brendan Nelson in the same breath as Abraham Lincoln and Churchill. I thought that was a little bit of an overreach as well. This is the shadow minister who jumped out of a plane with a parachute to say that solar panel rebates were going into freefall when in fact they were heading to an all-time high.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’d better speak to the solar panel sector, mate.

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

I speak to the solar panel sector quite often. The facts of the matter are these. The government take seriously the questions of reform and of making sure that we address this issue which has bedevilled the Federation for decades. We recognise that, after nine months, we have already put in place a series of comprehensive reforms and commitments to do what the opposition failed to do for 12 long years. Let us quickly look at a bit of history to set a context for this matter of public importance. It was the Labor government that initiated water reform. It was Labor that established the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council in 1985 and the Murray-Darling Basin Commission in 1988. It was Labor that led the historic COAG agreement in 1994 that set out the principles for water reform. So the principles for water reform were set out when the incoming government came to office.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I ask you: what happened at that particular point in time, when the incoming government came to office? Mr Howard was confronted with the reform framework that the Labor government had put in place and with the stresses and strains on the federal system and on the river system and, of course, with some warnings about climate change. There were a number of warnings about climate change at that particular point in time—warnings which specifically directed the government of the day to the fact that climate change impacts upon water allocations within the Murray-Darling Basin and on water in the system would need to be addressed and need to be taken into account. What happened? The answer is: nothing. That is what happened: nothing. There was a stony silence. I think some people listening to me speak in the House will recognise that there was a stony silence until the now Leader of the Opposition became the minister responsible for water. We know what happened next, but I will come to that part of the story a little bit later on.

Let me just go back and remind members opposite of the Liberal coalition history of inaction on this issue. In the 2004 and 2006 budgets, the Howard government committed some $750 million to return water to the Murray-Darling river system under the Living Murray program. But not a single drop or a single bit of water entitlement was recovered directly using that Commonwealth funding. Then, just 10 months before Mr Howard lost office, he announced his plan, the National Plan for Water Security. I assume this was the plan that the member for Flinders was so proud of. This was a plan that displayed all the aspects of good governance that we came to know the Howard government for. This was the plan that the now opposition leader and the former Prime Minister concocted literally on the back of an envelope, with $10 billion worth of taxpayers’ funds. This was a plan that was brought forward without consultation of the cabinet. They did not consult the Treasury. They did not consult the National Water Commission. They did not consult the farmers. They did not consult the states. They did not consult the territory governments. That was the coalition’s approach to one of the most important pieces of water reform that we have seen in the Federation. It was nothing other than a ploy to catch up quickly, to pretend that they cared—just like they pretended that they cared about climate change—and to deliver something which would get them a couple of quick headlines.

If we look specifically at the detail of that plan, what do we see? We see that only one-half of one per cent of the $10 billion was committed in the 2007-08 financial year. Just to take us back to that time, to remember what else was going on there: we were having a vigorous debate in this parliament about climate change and about climate change impacts, much in the same way as the member for Flinders is having a vigorous debate amongst his own party about the merits or otherwise of securing properties like Toorale and others to ensure that there is more water that can flow into the system, particularly—and we pray very much for this—in the case of rain arriving. What was going on in the parliament? We were having a vigorous discussion about climate change. The Prime Minister was getting up to the dispatch box, day in and day out, and bringing up that strain of climate change scepticism which is still in evidence on the opposition benches whilst at the same time sitting on reports which specifically point out that the impacts of climate change on the health of waters and the river systems in the Murray-Darling Basin were likely to be parlous—and then they did not go and spend any money on it at all.

Then we came into government and we committed ourselves to Water for the Future. There is $12.9 billion invested: some $3.1 billion to be invested in entitlements and allocations and some $5 billion to be invested in infrastructure and savings. We have made a specific commitment to purchasing a property—a property which I think is going to make a huge difference to the health of the river system—and those opposite are criticising us for it.

The other thing the member for Flinders was saying in his matter of public importance was that we were stealing water from people. I completely reject that and I think the use of the word ‘theft’ in this instance is particularly irresponsible on the part of the member for Flinders. The fact of the matter is that we do have critical needs in our cities and we do have critical needs in our rural communities. We understand that. We are not pretending to care about it; we understand it very well. When we went to the community cabinet meeting in Kingston, we sat there and we listened to those people in the lower end of the system and we heard what they were experiencing. We identified with it and we want to respond to it. But what kind of approach is it from an opposition that is prepared to try and play one part of the Australian community off against the other? What kind of approach is it from the opposition when it wants to continue to play the states off against the Commonwealth. This is a stereotypical ‘olde worlde’ way of playing important politics in the 21st century and, frankly, the Australian public deserve and expect a great deal more.

On a matter of public importance—with the audition that the member for Flinders was making in front of his leader for the position of shadow minister—he actually stopped talking about the Sugarloaf pipeline altogether and ended up talking about recycling and water that is going out in coastal areas. These are matters that are deserving of debate, but this is a matter of public importance on what the government has done about Sugarloaf. We have imposed the appropriate conditions in respect of this approval and there are other conditions that will be imposed subsequently when other referrals of this kind are made to us. We have also specifically committed—in the purchase of Toorale Station last week by the federal government and the New South Wales government—to the capacity to return an average of 20 billion litres of water to the environment every year.

I ask myself, listening to those opposite complain about this particular action: what is the problem? What is wrong with the federal government actually committing taxpayers’ money to add water to the river system? It is a river system that needs water—that is the point. That is exactly why we are taking those actions. I am absolutely bewildered but can only assume that the views of the member for Calare and the views of the member for Flinders are not at one. In fact, their comments of the last couple of days show that to be the case.

Significant environmental assets will benefit from the purchase that the Rudd Labor government has made—wetlands of national importance at Menindee Lakes and the Darling River itself. I refer the member to the recent CSIRO sustainable yields audit for the Barwon-Darling system which found that the middle zone of the Darling River is in poor condition. We are responding specifically to that science. We are acknowledging that there was a willing seller—and there was. We made an offer at a fair market price and a property was sold to the Commonwealth and the government of New South Wales. I was particularly pleased that, in a property which has about two-thirds of its land mass as flood plain, we would actually get a significant environment heritage as well. With the national park on the other side of the river, hopefully people will come to share that experience and it will produce some income for the local economy. It is frankly a win-win. It is a win-win for the river system and it is a win-win for the environment.

The opposition has got to make up its mind whether it is going to accept that at this point in time, in a highly stressed river system, in the midst of one of the most serious droughts that we have seen, with significant additional impacts from climate change, the program that the Rudd Labor government is bringing forward to deal with and address those issues is one they might find the goodwill and the good politics to support. If it does not, we will have what we had today: a matter of public importance which referred to a series of matters which were unsubstantiated, a matter of public importance which proposed to criticise the government on the basis of the actions that it is taking on the Sugarloaf pipeline, which ranged far and wide to matters of coastal outfalls and New South Wales political governments, and a matter of public importance which actually requires us to accept that in nine months we did what it did not do in 12 years. We have taken the action to deal with this important and critical area of our natural, economic and rural infrastructure. If the best that this opposition can do, coming into a matter of public importance like this, is bring forward contradictory assertions, wild exaggerations and baseless historical reflections of their own inadequacies, then God help us all. The Rudd Labor government is committed to delivering water to the people and to the environments of the region. I will continue with that job.

John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am glad I lived to hear two things—that is, for the first time ever I believe I heard the member for Kingsford Smith in his speech on the matter of public importance mention drought and rain. Apart from that, it has been nothing but climate change. I cannot believe that I just heard him talk about the devastation in the Murray-Darling Basin on the one hand—and that is about the only thing that he got right in the last quarter of an hour—and, at the same time, skite about the fact that they are increasing that devastation by taking 110 gigalitres from the Goulburn River in the Murray-Darling Basin into Melbourne.

About an hour or so ago, the Prime Minister mentioned the fact that I had called him and his government ‘antirural’ because of action they took last week just below Bourke at Toorale Station. To take water they do not actually need in New South Wales, they spent almost $24 million of taxpayer funded money on Toorale Station. I wonder why I might call him and his government antirural. I will tell you why. Do they know for one second what they are doing to one of the oldest communities on the oldest inland port in Australia? They have bought the best bit of land on the Darling River, the most productive bit of land on the western side of the Darling River. Within 24 hours of that action, which is totally devastating one of the oldest communities in western New South Wales, the member for Kingsford Smith proudly announced that he was okaying the Goulburn to Melbourne pipeline that will enable them to take 110 gigalitres of water, which will in effect be high-security water. In a time of drought, as we have now under the emergency plan, this will put Melbourne on a basis way above anyone within the Darling Basin, from which they are taking that water.

I would have loved the Prime Minister to have stayed in the House another five minutes. I would have asked him a question. I would have said to him, ‘You and the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, have just bought Toorale Station. That is four per cent of the general rate base of the Bourke Shire. It is between seven and 10 per cent of all the stock that are run in the Bourke Shire. It is 15 per cent of the water that is used for production in the Bourke Shire. There are about 100 jobs there which are gone forever’—because, as we all know, they are turning that over to the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service. The best land west of the Darling River in New South Wales will become a national park. They will no longer pay rates—they will absolve themselves from all commitments to that region. Everybody else in the Bourke Shire will have to find another four per cent to pay because the Bourke Shire will still have to produce the roads, provide water and sewerage and do everything it has always had to do, but not with the help of the New South Wales government. If they had an ounce of decency, an ounce of guts—because they have gutted the Bourke Shire—they would now stand up and say, ‘On that station, the New South Wales government or the federal government will pay the rates that that property would have paid before.’

They bought that station without inspecting it, without doing due diligence, without actually knowing what they were buying—except it was the largest station out there and it had 14 gigalitres of water. I find it incredible. As I said, within 24 hours they announced that they were buying what is possibly 14 gigalitres of water, after a flood down the Warrego. We are talking about the bottom of the Warrego. There is no dam there. There is no public storage to provide that 14 gigalitres that the member for Kingsford Smith kept talking about. He actually had his figures wrong. He was talking about 20 gigalitres; it is actually 14 gigalitres.

I will tell you something else about Toorale Station: it has man-made structures that are actually older than the barrages on the Lower Lakes. And, yes, half the wetlands he was talking about—he tried to correct himself, but he knows there are wetlands there which are man made—now have infrastructure there. They have wetlands that have been made, just as man has created his own form of ecosystem in the Lower Lakes. All that we have heard from him and his Prime Minister and the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, in recent times is how we have to look after the Lower Lakes—and I agree with that; any sensible person would.

But let me tell you something about this drought. This drought exists in St George in Queensland, in Goondiwindi, Moree, Brewarrina, Walgett and Warren. It exists in a lot of places and the people at the top have a right to the water as do the people at the bottom. But, so far, all we have heard is how they are going to take water from rural communities. I would have asked the Prime Minister, ‘Did you do a socioeconomic study on Bourke before you devastated it? If not, why not? Are you going to do one before you spend another $400 million devastating communities from the Menindee all the way up to St George?’ On Monday this week the Minister for Climate Change and Water let out a tender where people can take another $400 million. And, yes, of course they will get water. There are people in deep trouble out there.

The one thing the member for Kingsford Smith got right today was when he talked about how terrible it is in the Murray-Darling Basin, five minutes before had the gall to talk about how proud he was to sign off on water going from the Goulburn River to Melbourne. Melbourne has its own ability to deal with this. It can put in a desalination plant. It can recycle water, as the member for Flinders said earlier. Why in heaven’s name do you have to devastate every other community? It is just showing off to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and making them believe that you are doing something. This is a gutless, cheap, easy way of doing something that is going to forever affect rural Australia, because we are talking here about the food bowl of Australia.

The member for Flinders quite correctly said that we talk about food security for a very good reason; because this is also about food security for Australia. The big issue of the 21st century is food and water security. Heaven knows where the population is going. But the one thing the Murray-Darling Basin does—or it always has done until this drought—is to ensure that we have good food at reasonable prices and the communities that use it prosper, as do the people who get the best, the cleanest and the cheapest food in the world. But that is not going to last because after this drought, after the drought of Mother Nature, we are going to have the Rudd drought in rural Australia, and it is going to be one heck of a serious one. I shudder to think how Bourke is going to deal with this. I wish the Prime Minister had found time—before he ducks off oversees at the end of this week, or today, or tomorrow, or whenever the heck he is going—to go to Bourke today and listen to the rally there as the people asked, ‘What in heaven’s name do we do now?’ because Mr Rudd, the Minister for Climate Change and Water and the member for Kingsford Smith are proudly talking about how they have ruined our community.

We had a plan that was going to be sustainable. We were not going to spend $3.6 billion buying water and devastating those communities. We were not going to make long-term decisions based on a six- or seven-year drought—and that is what it is. There have been droughts this long before and there will be droughts again. It was incredible and it was gratifying to hear the member for Kingsford Smith, for the first time ever, say, ‘This is a drought, very affected by climate change.’ Well, it might be affected to some extent by climate change but this is a drought and, if you make long-term decisions that are going to affect every rural community within the Murray-Darling Basin, if you make long-term decisions based on a drought, then heaven help us in the future. We had $10 billion, as the member for Flinders said, and that was a plan. That was a plan to invest in the community, to work out where the major problem was, to spend $1½ billion on buying water if we could not get it through efficiencies, from willing sellers. But this is not a plan; this is a war. This is a war against the Murray-Darling Basin.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This matter of public importance that the member for Flinders has proposed here today raises the so-called north-south pipeline in my home state of Victoria—and, by that, I take it that the member for Flinders is referring to the Food Bowl Modernisation Project and Sugarloaf pipeline in northern Victoria, which, as the House has heard from a number of members, is a large water project in northern Victoria. It is a state government project, of exactly the kind that was endorsed by the now Leader of the Opposition when he was the parliamentary secretary for water. I will come back to that in a minute. But if the member for Flinders thought that he was making a job application by putting up this matter of public importance, he needed to check what his now leader said when he was the parliamentary secretary for water in 2006 about projects of exactly this kind.

I just want to make a few points about the project itself. This project, which is a very large project that is designed to improve an irrigation system that has not had any major work done on it for over a century, is about taking action in the face of drought and climate change. This project that is taking place in northern Victoria will not reduce flows to the environment. This project is part of a program to distribute water savings, firstly to the environment, secondly to irrigators—and they are the same food bowl producers that those opposite have been talking about—and, thirdly, to the people of Melbourne. The opposition has demonstrated by the two speeches that have been given on this matter of public importance that they are in total confusion about the nature of this project.

I want to come back to the extraordinary inconsistencies presented here today by the member for Calare and the member for Flinders—and on previous occasions in this House by, in particular, the member for Murray—in using exactly the same phrase that the member for Flinders used here today, which was, ‘theft of water from the country to the city’. Far from it being the theft of water, this is about increasing available water. It is about using that increased available water to send water to stressed river systems, to irrigators and also to the people of Melbourne. This is what the then parliamentary secretary for water, in September 2006, said—and this is the same person, the member for Wentworth, who is now the Leader of the Opposition:

Many people fear water trading between irrigation areas and towns and cities. In Victoria it is a particularly controversial matter.

However, rural to urban trade may offer more opportunities to rural Australia than threats.

The first thing to remember is that the amount of water needed by cities and towns is very small compared to the amount of water used in irrigated agriculture. To put it in the right perspective—

this is the member for Wentworth speaking—

Goulburn Murray Water’s CEO—

that is the same area of northern Victoria that we are talking about—

has told me that his Authority loses every year through inefficient distribution infrastructure around 900 GLs; about twice the water Melbourne consumes!

Now, there is no doubt—

this is still the member for Wentworth—

irrigation areas can save a lot of water by more efficient infrastructure both in the distribution system and on the farm. If the cost of saving a GL in an irrigation area is a fraction of the cost of making a GL in the city (through recycling or desalination) then a commercial opportunity is created from which farmers can benefit.

…            …            …

The improvement in efficiency is enormous.

The then parliamentary secretary, the same man who is now the Leader of the Opposition, went on to discuss a project of this type to supply water savings from rural areas to Perth, and then said this:

This type of win-win partnership between city and country should not be overlooked as a real option.

So that ‘win-win partnership’ the member for Flinders chose today to describe as ‘theft’ and which the member for McEwen, on a previous occasion in this House, has described as ‘theft’ and which the member for Murray chooses to describe as ‘theft’—

Fran Bailey (McEwen, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s an accurate description.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What was ‘accurate’—thank you very much to the member for McEwen—was what the then parliamentary secretary for water said in 2006 when he described it as a ‘win-win partnership between city and country’. And let us all hope that, in his new capacity, the new Leader of the Opposition will demonstrate some leadership and stop the kind of nonsense that has been talked here today on this matter of public importance by those opposite, who do not understand the role of the federal minister in environmental regulation and have demonstrated yet again that they do not believe in science. They do not believe in the science of climate change. They want to deny that. They do not believe in the science of environmental assessment. They want to deny that, too. They think, and they have demonstrated by their speeches here today, that ministerial decisions are only a matter of party political advantage. They do not understand, because that is the way those opposite behaved when they were in government. It is always party political advantage—it is never the national interest; it is never taking decisions in the long-term interests of this country, which is what this government is doing. The reason that massive projects of this nature, of the nature of the Sugarloaf pipeline and the Food Bowl Modernisation Project, are needed in places like northern Victoria is that we had, for nearly 12 years, neglect by the former government and, before that, in Victoria we had neglect by the Kennett government.

I say again: the irrigation system in Victoria is over 100 years old. It has had some very piecemeal updating over the last few years, but it requires overhaul of the whole system. The project that the state government has put in place is an overhaul of the whole system and it should be being commended by those opposite, not smeared by the kind of deliberate campaign of, really, emotive misinformation that is being promoted in the area by the member for Murray and is being promoted here by the member for Flinders. I notice, indeed, that the member for Murray has chosen not to speak on this matter.

It is absurd to suggest that this project is not paying attention to food security. It is paying close attention to food security. It is absurd to suggest that anything has occurred here that is anything other than complete respect for the environment. The approval process that the federal minister for the environment has engaged in will ensure that there is no adverse impact on matters of national environmental significance. There are conditions that the minister for the environment has imposed which will ensure that that occurs.

Debate interrupted.