Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to bring to the attention of the House matters of great concern in my electorate of Farrer, which, as many know, is defined by the Murray River and the southern Murray-Darling Basin. Last week I visited Booligal and Hay. Booligal is a town on the Lachlan River. The New South Wales government has decided to restrict water flows into the Lachlan downstream of Condobolin in a bid to ensure there is sufficient water for the major towns upstream on that river system. The New South Wales Water Commissioner, David Harriss, described the move as ‘extraordinary resource management constraints’. Water will flow along the river system until the end of October and then drought measures will be put in place, which will essentially put a stop in the river to prevent further water running downstream.

I actually make no criticism of the management by New South Wales in these extraordinary times, as it was explained to me that it takes maybe 136,000 megs to run the river and only 68,000 megs are left in the dam. Clearly, you simply lose so much water in transmission, particularly in an environment affected by drought, that you do have to take these extraordinary steps. But when we sacrifice landholders and farmers at the bottom end of a river system in order to preserve water where it might be ‘more efficient’—that is, at the top of the river system—we have to do something for those landholders. Measures that have been suggested include digging a bore within the river system and, somehow, carting water to feed stock and the people of the very small townships of Booligal and Oxley. These are important places but they are very small and they are easily forgotten. The Hay Shire is doing a great job and is aware of its responsibilities, but it does not have huge resources; it has suffered a loss in population because the drought has affected rural communities in the same way it has affected agriculture and farms. The Hay Shire is probably going to have to cart water out to people. But nobody has actually thought about how it gets from the storages to the tanks at individual houses. People there are not well-off. They cannot buy enormous tanks costing thousand of dollars, nor can they arrange their own pipelines and water systems.

When we have to take these stringent measures, we understand. But other efforts must be brought into play to look after people in a way that actually helps, such as sinking bores—some of the water might actually be quite good—and providing the funds to transport water. And then those people who have to make the sacrifices will feel that they too are being looked after.

Earlier this week, members of the Pastoralists’ Association of West Darling came to Canberra to meet with them Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke, about the dust storms in the western division of New South Wales, particularly the unincorporated area. Those dust storms have been declared by New South Wales to be a natural disaster. I am very pleased and I thank everyone because we made a big effort to get that recognition. At the New South Wales level, that does not provide a whole lot of help, I have to say. The Rural Assistance Authority can provide interest-free loans of about $130,000 and there are also freight subsidies for trucking your sheep and cattle out of the area to find feed. Most of the farmers have maxed out their freight subsidies already because of the drought and many cannot access low-interest loans. So I thank the agriculture minister for seeing the delegation. They gave him a list of things that would help them. I urge the minister and this government to act on what we can do as the Commonwealth government because we stand by communities affected by natural disasters.

This area has suffered for years now and it was quite heartbreaking to stand at Nundooka Station on my travels through that part of my electorate a couple of weeks ago and have all the landholders come along and talk about what affected them. I remember one landholder saying that his son, aged 20, had never seen a wet season, did not know how to get a ute out of a bog and did not know that you could take Saturdays and Sundays off.

The application, the effort, the management and the care that these western division families put into their stations and their farms really has to be seen to be believed. We must recognise that the best land management for the western division is the farmers who are there themselves. It is not the New South Wales national parks service locking up great areas and saying that humans have damaged the landscape. They have not. They have managed it and they have done a sterling job. Whatever we as a government, at all levels, can do to recognise their efforts, we certainly should do.

Question agreed to.

Question agreed to.