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

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Murray proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The failure of the Government to undertake a balanced and properly informed process for the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

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—

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Murray-Darling Basin communities, which is are of course just out of drought or flood or locust damage, have been holding their breath waiting for the delivery of the Murray-Darling Basin guide to the plan that will either give them a future or seal their fate. They have been apprehensive because they saw the then Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, before the last election put the plan away to make sure it did not see the light of day before the election. They also were aware that on commercial radio in South Australia the then Prime Minister in August said that she had not seen the plan but she certainly intended to have it comprehensively delivered. She would sign up to it after the election and she had already budgeted for the four years of water buyback that she implied would be part of that scheme.

So the basin communities were holding their breath because, after all, they depend on the environment, the quality of the water system that gives them the potential to grow product, some of the best product in the world. They also depend on healthy communities and of course they have to depend on government policy that does not stymie their capacity to grow food and to raise their children in the expectation that they too will have a decent life. After all, they believe in the win-win scenario. They also believe in the triple-bottom line, which it seems the minister, Tony Burke, has just discovered. The triple-bottom line is of course what coalition policy was all about, as the minister acknowledged, and it is what we need in the basin community: a win-win-win outcome acknowledging the triple-bottom line.

They knew too that the coalition left $5 billion for the on-farm water use efficiency and infrastructure measures. We anticipated that this government would use, or indeed the last government would use, that $5 billion effectively, and we had said that 50 per cent of the savings that came out of that water use efficiency program would be put back to the environment. But the basin communities saw that program trashed by probably the worst minister for water there has ever been since Federation, Minister Penny Wong. She also presided over the non-strategic water buyback. That was her policy in relation to how to get more water for the environment. That non-strategic water buy-back, in the teeth of the worst drought on record, meant that farmers were pressured by their lenders to sell water, which of course reduces their production capacity in the future.

We saw stranded assets in the irrigation systems, where, in my part of the world, 20 to 30 per cent of the farms were forced to sell their water. We saw that the water market price was distorted, because the government has very deep pockets. We saw stranded assets in the irrigation systems, we saw the higher costs for those who have not yet sold their water or are resisting their banks and we saw the degraded environment as dried out farms blew in the wind—and the weeds, the feral animals, the uncontrolled diseases, the problems with dying remnant vegetation because they could no longer afford to fence out their trees. That is what happens when you take water out of an area that has a 15-inch rainfall and a highly variable climate.

We experienced the water buy-back scheme for three years. We had the basin communities suffering three years of water policy ineffectiveness. The former minister for water, Penny Wong, has to have been the worst minister on record. Her programs were inefficiently and badly managed. I suppose we should not be surprised. After all, this is a government that cannot even manage a free pink batts installation program without killing people and having houses burn down.

But, given the importance of a Murray-Darling Basin plan, the basin community was still hopeful of one that would finally bring better governance across the jurisdictions. The basin communities hoped that Labor might get it right. After all, they had had three years to produce the plan and they had spent many scores of millions of dollars in the process.

The basin is important because, although it covers only some seven per cent of the continent, it produces 40 per cent of the food off 40 per cent of the farms. And it is the biggest and driest catchment on earth. The community does a magnificent job. But what other government in the world in this century would deliberately set out to destroy their food security by making it impossible for their food-growing communities to survive? The basin communities rationalised that they could not possibly get a plan that would destroy their livelihoods by sacrificing their capacity to produce food and fodder, which could not necessarily even guarantee the improvement of the ecosystems or the natural resource base that they depended on. So they held their breath and then, on Friday, 8 October at 4 pm the Australia public was handed a 220-page report—I have it here—which they read with disbelief. If it were implemented, as Prime Minister Gillard has promised she would, word for word, it would spell out the end of viable irrigated agriculture across the basin. It would do immeasurable damage to the expectations and the faith in the future of the 2.1 million people across the basin. We heard today in question time the examples of basin businesses that will no longer be employing people in the coming days. The plan would increase personal poverty and impoverish communities.

What did this guide do? There was no cost-benefit analysis and in particular no modelling of the food cost impact from less food being available on the Australian market. It had totally inadequate socioeconomic impact analysis. In fact, it was admitted upfront and quite loudly stated, ‘Oh, well, the legislation would not let us do it,’ and ‘the data was wrong.’ The chairman of the authority, Mr Mike Taylor, who should have known better, said, ‘I personally know there are extraordinary socioeconomic impacts involved in our proposals here, which involve up to 45 per cent of irrigation water being taken from the food producers. I know there is a serious problem here and, yes, we think the assessment of 800 job losses is grossly underestimated.’ Yet here it is in our basin guide. This guide has gone out to the communities across the basin, the people who have just survived the drought, survived Penny Wong’s buy-back scheme, survived the floods and now have to survive the pestilence. They read in the document that there will be 800 job losses and then they heard Michael Taylor saying, ‘Oh, yes, but we got that wrong.’ And why did they get that wrong? ‘Well, we think the section of the act did not really say we should look at socioeconomic impacts.’ Yes it does. The coalition’s Water Act 2007 quite categorically expresses the need and it insists that the socioeconomic impacts on the basin must be taken into account. Indeed, the content of the plan mandates that social, economic, cultural and Indigenous factors be taken into account.

I thought it was amazing that today the minister had the cheek to come to the dispatch box and say, ‘Oh, he is now going to go back and look at the legislation.’ Sorry, Minister, that is just an excuse. Get on with the job and pull the authority into line and tell them they have got to do much better before more of the basin community’s despair about any future employment activity and before our older farmers say, ‘It is just too hard. We will sell our water, not to Penny Wong this time but to Minister Burke, and we will walk away.’ The trouble is that the rest of the nation depends on the provision of the food they grow and a lot of our export earnings are derived from the production of fruit, fibre, meats, dairy products and nuts. Our access to fresh food and produce will be extraordinarily different if this plan goes ahead as it is proposed.

In the plan it states that up to 45 per cent of the water will be clawed back from the irrigators by simply tapping people on the shoulder in the communities and looking for willing sellers. I have already described to you the experiences of this policy over the last three years under Minister Penny Wong. Under the willing-sellers policy, if communities contract and associated businesses go broke, who compensates those who used to sell things such as the silage? Who compensates the small town whose school is reduced from three to one teacher when the families have left because they have had to become willing sellers when the banks leaned on them? And who compensates the veterinarians, the people who sell shoes and the hairdressers in those small towns? Who is going to deal with those fallouts and impacts? No, this scheme is just going to look at buying the water at market prices from so-called willing sellers. Do you know what the market prices are right now, given that it has rained and the basin is awash with water? The market prices are some 30 to 50 per cent less than they were two years ago.

So we have a serious problem of further poverty for the farmers who are forced to sell their water; yet they are some of the world’s most innovative and productive primary producers. They also are the people who manage the environmental services: for example, soil nutrition, water quality and biodiversity protection—the people who actually produce the sort of effort that makes sure the Mallee does not blow away and choke the cities. Those farmers can do that only when they are viable—when they have a few dollars to rub together so that they can not only feed themselves but go out and buy sprays for Paterson’s curse, buy bullets for the foxes and fence the remnant vegetation. You are talking about beggaring those individuals and those communities so that they will not be able to produce those environmental services which are the public good that we all depend on.

Who is going to do this work? Maybe the Department of Sustainability and the Environment in Victoria will. Do you really think so? Or maybe, in New South Wales, those rangers and all those other beaut people the government employs to do some of that work will do it. Look at the roadsides. Look at the invasion of weed on public lands. Look at who is being told to fix the locusts right now. It is not the public sector; it is the farmers. The farmers do all the heavy lifting to keep our ecosystems in a healthy state. They do it willingly because they happen to want to pass on their land in a better condition than it was when they received it from their fathers and grandfathers. That is what farmers tend to do. But, even when the farmers are corporations, they still have the production of environmental services as a by-product from what they do for the rest of Australia, because it makes sense economically for them. They know that if their property is in good shape it has a greater value.

What you are talking about is taking water off irrigators to the extent of a magical number. The Living Murray came up with 1,500 gigalitres as an estimated need for the environment. The report has it both ways. It goes from 3,000 to over 7,600 gigalitres—maybe. What a range. It is not sure quite what might help the environment, but it has a stab at a number, then divided by your grandmother’s birthday and that will do. What are we going to do with that number of gigalitres? Who would know, because there is no description in here of any water plans. The states will do those. When will the states do those? In the case of Victoria, in 2019.

So what we have is incredible insecurity, no faith in this government being capable of improving its performance in the area of environmental management or regional economy management and no evidence at all in this document that the 20 volumes that are somewhere out there will have any better information, justification or evaluation. I know the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities at the table has already panicked and said, ‘Oops! We’d better get the Murray-Darling Basin Authority out there now doing a socioeconomic impact assessment analysis, and they’d better report by March next year.’ Yes, that is what they are going to do—the minister is shaking his head..

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s not what I told them.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister says he did not tell them to do that. The minister has asked, in parallel to the authority doing this report, that a new parliamentary committee to be headed up by Mr Windsor to do the socioeconomic impact assessment which the Murray-Darling Basin Authority failed to do. But the lucky committee has until April to produce that report. If the minister knew anything about regional Australia, he would know that from now until March or April is the peak period for people in the basin for harvesting, managing their crops, employing people, picking, packing and pruning—not to mention that there is also Christmas. How are these communities going to respond to another go at the economic impact assessment of the government taking away up to 45 per cent of their production capacity by the removal of their water? This is such a cynical exercise. We had hoped that this government had learned from the numbers of rural and regional communities that rejected them at the last election. They have not. (Time expired)

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Murray for bringing this issue of the Murray-Darling Basin plan to the attention of the parliament so that we can debate it in the format of a matter of public importance. A lot has been said in the presentation we just heard from the member for Murray that is factually untrue. It gives me an option for a particular style of delivery, but I do not think we do the communities affected any service at all, given the current angst, by continuing the debate in that form. So I would like to go through, very calmly, where we are at and the facts as affected by the issues raised in this MPI.

The words of the MPI itself refer to the failure of the government to undertake a balanced and properly informed process for the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin plan. The process that is going on at the moment is being driven entirely by legislation. Those elements of the process that are being conducted by the authority are being entirely driven by the legislation. While there are parts of the article by the member for Wentworth in today’s Sydney Morning Herald that I take issue with, I certainly do not take issue with this statement:

An elaborate program of consultation was mandated by the act, and that is the exercise the authority is now undertaking.

In the terms of the MPI that is in front of us, let us acknowledge that an authority is acting independently. In fact, what it is doing at the moment is actually an extra layer of consultation beyond that which it is specifically required to do by the act. I have been speaking privately to a number of members on each side of the House. Many individuals and families in the communities that we are talking about here have had very deep issues of anxiety for some time. By all means, where anxiety or an action from the government gives rise to legitimate debate in those terms, have the argument and have the debate. But, please, when it is simply a scare campaign—and in some of the language that was used in that speech—

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s not a scare campaign.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will go through what was factually incorrect in that speech. People are quite right to want to defend their communities and quite right to want to argue for the best possible deal, but, when information is added that is factually untrue, for the particular circumstances that many of these communities are in, I do think it is unhelpful.

First of all, there was a claim that the report had been completed and the government sat on it in advance of the election. That is just factually untrue. I was handed a copy of the report for the first time two days before it was released. Briefings began in the final week before it was released. The authority, up until when briefings began, were holding regular meetings to determine what would be in the document. Given that that was when it was completed, which was well after the election, well after the 17 days following the election while we worked out who was going to be in government, it is simply untrue to claim that there was some disingenuous game going on to hide this report from people. It was not completed beforehand. The first time it was handed to a government minister, it was handed to me, and that was a couple of days before the release of the report.

Second, there was a claim that the Prime Minister had committed, before the election, to implement this report, to implement the guide. That is completely factually untrue.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Stone interjecting

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Secker interjecting

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the interjection that I should read the transcript. What the Prime Minister said was that we would as a government implement the Murray-Darling Basin Authority plan. That document is the final document that comes out at the end of next year after there has been an opportunity for ministerial intervention, to either ask them to reconsider aspects of it or specifically to demand that they change aspects of it. That is the document the Prime Minister quite rightly committed to implementing. There was an election commitment that was made about implementing the draft. That was made in the name of Senator Birmingham, Senator Joyce and the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition, from his indications in the House—

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rubbish! They never said anything about implementing the draft.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The words of the media release that I refer to are on a bit of paper that I can get, but I remember them by heart—they are that good. In response to the member for Barker, the words were that within two weeks they would release the draft and proceed with its implementation immediately. That was the commitment that the opposition made. Notwithstanding that, nobody on either side of the House, as I understand it, now has any interest in implementing the guide. I think that is common ground. We have a long process to go through now as we move towards the document which the government is committed to implementing, which is the final plan. As I say, the authority does not have sole control over what goes into that document. It only becomes the plan after the draft has been presented to ministerial council and I, as minister, have directed the authority either to reconsider certain matters or specifically to change elements of the report. At that point, it becomes the plan. That is the document that the Prime Minister guaranteed we would be committed to implementing. That is the commitment that the Prime Minister made during the election. That is what the government intends to do. I think it is important that we are able to provide that reassurance for communities so that they know exactly the extent to which the processes that must occur independently by the authority are part of a long period of statutory consultation but are not definitive in the different documents that get released on the way through.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You need to rule some things out pretty soon, Tony.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do appreciate the comments that are being made about the levels of anxiety within communities.

I will now go to the claim that was made that the seeking of legal advice is just an excuse. I absolutely, in the strongest terms, assure you that that is not the case. Just work the issue back from first principles. I think there is a view that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has not adopted all three principles—of a healthy river, of acknowledging the importance of food production and of acknowledging the importance of strong regional communities—in a way that they are valued equally. If there is a view that they have not done that, but their argument for what they have done is based on their interpretation of the act, then it would be senseless for me to do what the member for Murray said and say, ‘I know you think that is what the statute says, but just get on with it and do something different.’ They quite rightly would say to me, ‘Minister, you’re asking us to act contrary to our interpretation of the act; we can’t do that.’

But, given that there is a legitimate argument that is going on at the moment in communities—and, from all reports, among members of both sides of parliament in this chamber—as to whether the interpretation that is being given to the act by the authority is right, then I believe the responsible way for me to deal with that is to get legal advice and to give the commitment, before I have even seen it, that I intend to make that advice available to the authority and to make it available generally. I think that is an important commitment in transparency, because a lot of people are now looking around and saying: ‘Do we need now to open up the Water Act? Do we need to go through a whole lot of processes which we all know full well would lead to further delay and further uncertainty?’ But people are coming to the debate with the best of intentions, because they are worried that issues that should be taken into account might not be taken into account.

We need to find out whether or not there is a basis for that entire discussion to happen. Whether we use the phrase ‘healthy river, food, strong communities’ or the phrase ‘triple-bottom line’, we need to determine whether that is reflected in the act, as I think most members of parliament believed it was when the Water Act was implemented. I think most members of parliament believed that. I have gone through the speeches of members of both sides of the House. I look forward to different opportunities of quoting various speeches that have been made by members, and in particular—let us face it—many members from the other side of the House. There are some quotes there about what people believed and why people supported the Water Act and about issues of structural adjustment that people were willing to take on.

I do not think any of us should walk away from this. If we go through this entire process and then we end up with no reform, from my meetings with irrigators and farmers groups and from conversations that I have been having for years and having with a particular intensity in recent days I tell you that no-one will thank us. No-one will thank us if we end up delaying an almost identical decision by a few years because we could not get the politics of it right.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Stone interjecting

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Murray, I am approaching this debate with a level of a goodwill that is not always reflected in a MPI. I am in particular very mindful of the mental health challenges in many of these communities. I have always had a passion to make sure that we do not act in a way that adds to those. That is why I say that where there is a genuine policy difference by all means have the debate and have it vigorously. But where the only difference is which side of the parliament we happen to fall on, and we decide that we want to rev an issue up, we need to be careful. These sorts of issues can cause a high level of anxiety. Have the argument when the fear is based in the facts, but please do not present a guide to a draft as something that is more than it is.

I want to go to some points that were made by the member for Murray about the extent to which water buyback will be done in a strategic way. There was always set aside by the coalition an amount of money—it was in the order of $3 billion—dedicated to water buyback. Regarding the principle of how you do it, there are cases where it can be done in a smart way and strategically and cases where you have to go through your value-for-money propositions by using the water market. We have challenges with the water market. Most people recognise that it is a very immature market in many ways and there are issues about probity and the use of brokers. Irrigators have asked me to have a very close look at whether there might be extra levels of protection that we can bring into that market, and I am looking closely at that.

Additional to that, if you are buying from the market, and you decide that you want to buy from all the irrigators and a particular part of an irrigation region so that we have no risk of stranded assets and you do that at an inflated price through the water market, some of those people will take the government money at the inflated price and then—as is perfectly their right—buy the water back at a lower price. The water market allows you to do that. There are cases, though, where a full strategic approach can be used.

I have referred previously to the discussions that I had in a Trangie last Friday. The member representing Parkes would agree that it is a really good example of how a strategic buy can work. It can only be done with the full cooperation of the Irrigation Management Authority, because if the changes are going to be strategic, with some channels closed off, then it needs to be driven locally. That is the only way that that can be done sensibly. It cannot be done in every case. In these situations, you end up with smaller levels of gigalitres being made available than what you might get through a straight buy back. But you do get a high level of strategic value and you get very little change in terms of productivity. That is a project that I have looked closely at.

Subsequent to that meeting on Friday, I had the opportunity—because quite a few of them have been around here—to talk to a number of the other management authorities of irrigation schemes throughout the basin to talk about whether or not those sorts of approaches might work for them. They will not work in every area. But there is an extent to which you can do some strategic alignment in parts of the basin. But there is also an extent to which it is right and proper to take advantage of the water market and to approach it that way.

If anyone wants to say that it should be all infrastructure and no buy-out or all buy-out and no infrastructure, I will have arguments with them. It is always going to be a mix. We need to make sure that anything we spend is a sensible spend of money. We need to make sure that, simply because a project is put forward by a government or by an authority, we do not just grab it straight away without doing due diligence. So long as we are prudent and are mindful of those three objectives, we can get this right and have a healthy river system, strong food production and strong regional communities.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the member for Murray in this very important issue. In my short period of time in this place, this is clearly the most pressing and urgent issue and the issue of greatest concern to my electorate that I have ever covered. I want to go through the minister’s response. I will start with the last part first. On the visit to Trangie last week, I agreed that it was a good proposal. It is part of the $5.8 billion that was set aside for infrastructure. I only wish that we had more of those to look at, because it is a good one. It is a shame that it took so long to get there. I also might say that it is a shame that I was not aware of your visit, because I would have been more than happy to have taken part in that visit and might have been able to enlighten you on other things about my constituency that you might not be aware of.

This MPI is about the management of this process. The minister spoke about this being the first stage of a long process—well, possibly not the first stage, but a stage in a long process. There are large alarm bells ringing at the moment. Where the fear and anger in the basin stems from is people not knowing whether this is a process that is going to lead to a different result to that envisaged in the first place. The reason I say that is that last night in Senate estimates the CEO of the basin authority, when asked about the socioeconomic study and what effect that might have on the end result and the water needed for the environment—the 3,000 gigalitres minimum—the answer was, to paraphrase: ‘No. Basically we need that 3,000 gigalitres.’ That was in Senate estimates last night.

That indicates that, regardless of the consultation and the work that will be done in the future by a regional Australia committee, if the basin authority have decided they need to remove that level of water, what is the point? That is the concern of my communities. I acknowledge, Minister Burke, your answer in question time about getting legal advice on whether the authority are looking at this within the correct parameters, whether they have interpreted the act correctly. In hindsight, Minister, I think it would have been good to get that advice some time ago, because the level of anger and unrest currently in the basin is unpalatable. My feeling about it, with my limited legal background, is that the authority have misinterpreted the act, and if that is the case then we have seen a lot of unnecessary anger and upset.

The other part of the mismanagement I would like to talk about is what has happened previously. Just for the interest of the minister and others, the electorate of Parkes probably has the largest geographic area of any electorate within the Murray-Darling Basin. Within my electorate I have the McIntyre, the Border Rivers, the Barwon-Darling system, the Gwydir, the Namoi, the Castlereagh, the Macquarie and, since the redistribution, the Lachlan. Many people do not realise that there is an idea that the Murray-Darling Basin is a large, connected capillary system of water whereby if you do something here, something pops up over there. The case is that it is a lot different. Several of the rivers in my electorate do not actually make their way into the Darling and subsequently into the Murray. The Gwydir goes into the wetland and the Macquarie goes into the marsh area. Indeed, as we speak today, Minister, there are environmental flows going down the Gwydir. I know one farmer who has 5,000 acres of wheat under water from an environmental flow from a wetland. The premise and the visual images of people seeing empty river beds was from 10 years of drought rather than from mismanagement and overallocation to farmers. What concerns me is the way this matter has been handled.

Why did Mr Taylor in his initial press conference, if he were speaking about an ordered, factual process, mention so many times opening the mouth of the river? Why did he say, ‘We need to keep the mouth of the Murray River open?’ I surmise that is because he was giving a visual image to the larger metropolitan audience of ‘This is happening,’ whereas I suspect in your time in this portfolio, Minister, your understanding is that it is a far more complex issue than that and that actions that are taken in one part of the basin will necessarily affect others. Indeed, I believe we have seen actions, certainly in my part of the basin, that have had a political result rather than a physical result. For example, take the purchase of Toorale station at Bourke. Toorale Station employed 100 people. It accounted for 10 per cent of the revenue of the Bourke Shire Council and it was certainly a large part of the social and economic fabric of the Bourke community. The purchase of that water was not a large amount for a large amount of country. I spoke to one of the people previously associated with that property. Recently, I flew over it. It is a wasteland. Weeds are abounding, feral animals are all over it. Off the top of my head, I think it cost the federal and state governments $26 million to purchase that property. The purchase of Toorale Station was supposedly going to be of some benefit to the people of the Murray downstream. It had no benefit to them. At best, the water would have got to the Menindee Lakes and evaporated there. We had a huge flood in south-west Queensland at Christmas time that we are all aware of. Senator Joyce spoke about how many megalitres of water were going past his front doorstep every day. But only a percentage of that water got to the other end because, once that water leaves the river, it does not come back. So the idea that large amounts of environmental water are going to solve all the problems is not right. It will not happen. You physically cannot get that water down the river because the nature of the river is such that, once the water leaves, it will not come back.

Another large purchase made by Minister Wong was the purchase of Twynam. Part of that purchase was Collymongle Station at Collarenebri, clearly the largest employer for that town. In excess of 100 people worked at Collymongle Station in its heyday. It has magnificent infrastructure. It is a showplace. It has its own cotton gin. It is a magnificent place. The town of Collarenebri will never recover. I would like Minister Burke, and even Minister Macklin, to come with me to Collarenebri and see the devastating effects of a water purchase, which has already happened, on a town that will not recover. We have already had a lot of this pain through drought and if it is environmental flows that we are after, without any further activity, the rivers are awash in my electorate. The member for New England will go crook because the dam is actually in his electorate, but I use the water. Pindari Dam is at 100 per cent. I think Copeton is currently in excess of 30 per cent. It is a huge storage. Keepit is, I think, at 60 per cent capacity. Burrendong is at 100 per cent. That is the water that feeds the Macquarie and the Macquarie Marshes. Without any further pain, we are already getting environmental flows down the river. The Macquarie Marshes are currently brimming. Indeed, I had a phone call from a farmer this week who was concerned about erosion because of the amount of water that is now coming out of a dam, going across his property, because the marshes are full of water. This result affects people. I am terribly concerned that the debate we are having is about garnering Greens preferences from city voters who, with the best of intentions—I am not directing this at you, Minister; I am talking about the process in general—want to save an environment without having any understanding of the effects on the communities. (Time expired)

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

I also would thank the member for Murray for bringing forward this matter of public importance today. Like the minister, I wish to use it as an occasion to invite the opposition to reflect on how this debate about a matter which is undoubtedly of national importance is to be conducted. By that I am referring to the need for the bipartisan spirit that was reflected in the legislation that was passed by the Howard government, by the Liberal Party and the National Party when last in government, in 2007. I invite the opposition to reflect on how that bipartisanship brought to bear on an issue of national importance can now be recreated. It has been sorely lacking in the last few days since the release by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority of the Guide to the proposed Basin Planwhich is what it is.

We have had all sorts of what appear to be wilful misreadings of the legislation that was passed by the Howard government and, I regret to say, a great deal of fearmongering, a great deal of misreading or misrepresentation of what this guide to the proposed plan actually is, and indeed the spreading of misinformation about the process. This MPI helpfully raises the process for implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin plan and it is worth bearing in mind just how we came to be in the present situation where, on 8 October, this guide to the proposed plan was released by the authority.

I take it that very many factual matters about the environmental state of the Murray-Darling Basin, about the preciousness of the basin as one of our most important environmental assets and about the status of the basin as the food bowl for the nation are simply beyond question. They are not in dispute between the major parties in this country. I take it as a given that there has been poor management and the lack of a national plan—certainly up to the passage of the legislation in 2007—and I take it as a given that the health of the basin reached a critical point over the past decade, that there has been devastation of precious wetlands, that many of our irrigators went out of business, that we have had algal blooms and acid sulphate soils that make much of the water unusable to farmers and destructive to the environment and that the way in which we have been sharing water in the Murray-Darling Basin is not working to support the long-term viability of rivers or of rural communities.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And we’ve had the worst drought on record for the last 10 years.

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

The member for Murray mentions the fact—and everybody in all of the basin communities is aware of it—that we have had the worst drought in recorded Australian history over the last 10 years, and that dreadful drought has of course massively reduced the availability of water to irrigators throughout the basin. Indeed, it has reduced the availability of water to irrigators throughout the basin to a far greater degree than any of the proposed reductions that are mentioned in the guide to the proposed plan that is presently under consideration in communities.

Of course there is concern in the basin communities. Of course there is concern about any proposal which might see, through governmental action, a reduction in water allocations, just as in those same communities—and this was referred to by the member for Parkes, representing his communities—there has been concern about the lack of water that has been caused through the recent years of drought. I take all of these environmental concerns and indeed all of the concerns about continued viability of basin communities to be a given and, indeed, as having led to the passage of the legislation which established the process which is now being carried out.

We have a proposed plan that is being prepared by an independent authority. It is not a proposal from the government; it is a proposal from an independent authority. The way in which the authority is going about this process—a process envisaged by the legislation passed by the Liberal and National parties when in government—will provide an additional opportunity for consultation and engagement. It is actually in addition to the statutory process and is going to inform the drafting of the proposed plan.

Public community consultations for the guide will run until mid-November. There are over 12 months to run in this consultation before the minister is presented with the plan at the end of 2011. We have had an announcement from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority that it will commission work on the socioeconomic impacts of possible sustainable diversion limits, and that work is scheduled to be completed in March 2011. We have had the commissioning of the parliamentary inquiry, which is going to be chaired by the member for New England, and that of course is an inquiry that will be able to seek input from regional and small towns throughout the basin. It will have a strong focus on understanding the legitimate concerns that everybody in these communities have about proposed changes to water allocations. It is appropriate that the member for New England, whose community is in the basin, is chairing this particular parliamentary inquiry.

To go back to the process which is the one that is now in train, the authority will release its proposed basin plan next year. I repeat: the legislation that was supported by Labor in opposition and passed by the Liberal and National parties in government provides for 16 weeks of consultation following the release of the proposed basin plan next year, and the process continues. Every single one of these steps is an opportunity for everybody affected—for everybody in this place, for everybody throughout the Australian community and particularly for everybody in basin communities—to comment on and to participate in what will come to be the final plan.

The next step is for the authority to present a final plan to the ministerial council, which includes representatives from each of the basin states, and that ministerial council will then consider the proposed plan. At that point, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities can ask the authority to reconsider issues or make some changes. The minister then is required to sign off on the final plan. But that is not the end of the process. As the minister made clear in question time earlier this week, after signing off on the plan the minister tables it in the parliament, where of course it is a disallowable instrument—it may be disallowed by either house. In order to become the final plan for the Murray-Darling Basin, it needs to be signed off—and it will certainly be after debate—by both houses of this parliament.

It is hard to imagine a process more carefully designed—and this is why Labor supported it in opposition—to give every possible opportunity to basin communities and everybody throughout Australia who is concerned, as we must be, about the environmental sustainability of the Murray-Darling Basin and the continued economic viability of basin communities. It would be hard to imagine a process that gives more opportunity for consultation, more opportunity for participation and more opportunity to ensure an end to what the member for Murray, speaking not on the matter of public importance but just before question time on the address-in-reply when I happened to be here at the table, referred to as ‘governance failure for decades’. I take that to be an accusation she levels not only at Labor governments of the past but also at Liberal-National party governments of the past.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mainly.

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

Mainly perhaps, but that is only because there have regrettably been more Liberal-National Party governments over the last century than Labor governments. This is what we are dealing with. In less than a century, water extraction from the rivers in the basin has increased by 500 per cent and the governance failures are sought to be overcome by the legislation that establishes the framework. I repeat the call that I started with. I call on members of the opposition not to engage in a wilful misunderstanding of this process, not to engage in hysteria and not to engage in misinformation, because these are complex policy questions which are best resolved in a measured way.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note at the outset that the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and the Parliamentary Secretary for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency are asking for bipartisanship from our side of politics on the basis that the Labor Party have always been bipartisan on this issue. I recollect otherwise. In fact, I asked the Parliamentary Library to find out how the vote went on the original legislation. On 14 August 2007, when the Labor Party were in opposition, when it came to the vote on the question ‘That the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question’—in other words, that the wording of the motion goes back to its original form—the Labor Party voted in the negative. There were 73 ayes and 52 noes. Interestingly enough, the current environment minister was absent from that vote, so he may have been a bit lucky on that occasion. But I think it is a bit disingenuous of the government to now ask for total bipartisanship and understanding from us when they did not do the same for us in the first place. So let us first get out of the way the fallacy that Labor have been bipartisan on this issue.

I come from South Australia, and I have always known that there is a need for a sustainable river system. In fact, probably before the minister was born we in South Australia started doing the work to make the river system more efficient. When man landed on the moon, we in South Australia were putting pipes in so that we would not rely on channels. We started this over 40 years ago. In South Australia we have become world leaders in water use efficiency—our efficiency is up to 98 or 99 per cent, which is world-class standard—and we have achieved that because we have worked on it for over 40 years. We realised long before anyone else in Australia that we needed to replumb the system, so that is what we did. One of my New South Wales colleagues was actually quite shocked that under the plan we in South Australia have been treated exactly the same as the other states—that is, we face a 26 to 37 per cent cut depending on whether we are required to return 3,000 or 4,000 gigalitres to the system, according to the basin plan report. I will come back to that figure later.

In South Australia, we certainly recognise that requirement, but in being treated the same as the other states we think we have been treated unfairly. It is not just me who thinks we are being treated unfairly; the Labor member for Makin in a speech to parliament yesterday said exactly the same thing. I refer members to that speech, because I think it was quite measured and sensible. The Labor Premier of South Australia also believes we have been treated unfairly, as does Senator Nick Xenophon. I think that is a legitimate argument, because we in South Australia will have no more capacity to replumb to get those cuts. We have already done it, Minister, so we have not got that capacity, and we have not been rewarded for the more than 40 years of good work we have done in our state. I accept that we do need a sustainable river system, but under the Howard plan we purposely allocated twice as much for infrastructure as we did for buybacks, and it seems to me that the lazy politician’s answer of ‘Just buy back; spend the money’ is what the previous government did during their term. I hope they change their mind on this, because that is not the only answer. You will not have a balance if you do not spend twice as much money on infrastructure as you do on buybacks so that we can use our water better to get more crop per drop. We need a greater focus on replumbing the system.

We in South Australia do not care if that money is spent in Victoria, New South Wales or indeed Queensland or the ACT, because we know we will be better off with a system which does not recognise state boundaries. We in South Australia will be better off for it, so we think that is the way we need to go. We were very disappointed because we set aside $400 million or so for the Menindee Lakes reconstruction. I believe Labor promised that before the 2007 election and it has not happened. Unfortunately, we are now in the situation where it is pretty hard to do those works under nine meters of water. It is going to be a lot more costly, so we missed an opportunity. We need to make sure that we spend the money on infrastructure.

I also want to come back to this figure of 3,000 or 4,000 gigalitres. There is a concern out there because people have not been convinced by the science or seen the scientific background to say that the need is for 3,000, 4,000 or 7,600 gigalitres. That may well be the case—I do not know. I have not seen the scientific knowledge that has been put down as the basis of the reason why we have to go for those figures. I very well remember six or seven years ago when the Murray-Darling Basin Commission was promoting 1,500 gigalitres—not 3,000, not 4,000, not 7,600 but 1,500. In fact, the then executive officer of the Murray-Darling commission said we ‘probably could not handle any more than that right now’. We have to make sure we get the science right. I also remember six or seven years ago when the Wentworth Group were talking about 1,500 gigalitres. It is very important that we get this figure right, because there are a lot of communities out there scared that they are going to be decimated—and I accept what the minister is saying, that it is only a guide to a plan, but people are concerned about their futures and they are rightly emotional at the moment. That is the thing that we have to deal with, because every member in the Murray-Darling Basin—well, there are no Labor members in the Murray-Darling Basin. I was very disappointed when the new minister got up. You gave a contribution which, as usual, was reasonably sane and sensible but you only had eight members from the government behind you.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Really? I’ll talk to the whip about that.

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think you should talk to the whip about that one because it is unfortunate, but it shows that it is not really an issue for Labor. It might be for the minister, but it does not seem to be in the ethos of the Labor Party, unless you are from South Australia, to believe that we have to actually do something about the Murray-Darling Basin.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Dr Stone interjecting

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I went to the meetings. Of course, like anyone, you get attacked: ‘What are you doing about it?’ But I will try to stay sane and rational about the whole basin plan. I know it is a tough decision. I know these are tough reforms, but we cannot stop. But we do have to take into account the social and economic results of any possible changes.

I have to say I was very disappointed to learn in Senate estimates yesterday that apparently consideration was not given to those issues until the day that the report was released. I think that is appalling, because section 20 of the act clearly says they have to take account of the socioeconomic problems that may result from this. So I am really concerned that we have got this far and we do not have all the information. I am not going to blame Rob Freeman or Mike Taylor. I think they are very good public servants and I know they are doing their best under pretty tough conditions, and I know they are going out there and talking to people. There is a lot of anger and they are dealing with it as best they can. But we need to have all that information so we can make rational decisions about whether we need 1,500, 3,000 or 4,000 gigs returned to the river and whether we can spend a lot more on infrastructure, which was the original plan of the Howard government—the $10 billion plan. That was on the basis that there would be the same amount of food produced because you could produce it with less water. That was the basis: that the gigalitres you lose in buybacks is returned to the growers. That was a very sensible plan. I still believe it is the best plan and I hope the government is still committed to it. (Time expired)

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was interesting to hear the member for Barker talking about the history of this issue and the idea of the 1,500 gigalitres as recommended by the science. I can remember when I was shadow environment minister and Simon Crean was Leader of the Opposition and Labor in fact adopted a policy that we should see—over the course of a decade, let me say—1,500 gigalitres returned to the Murray-Darling Basin based on the scientific evidence of that time. It is regrettable, I think, that we did not see action taken at that time to return those 1,500 gigalitres to the Murray-Darling Basin. Indeed, the previous government talked about 500 gigalitres as the first step, but that largely did not eventuate either. It seems to me that as a result of that inaction the position has deteriorated in the meantime.

Let me also observe at the outset that one thing that will strike anyone listening to the Murray-Darling debate is the idea that the silver bullet to solve the population problems of Australia’s big cities—Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane—is to move people to rural and regional Australia. It is an idea that does not really stand up to scrutiny. On the one hand, we have the Murray-Darling Basin Authority saying that the environment has not had sufficient environmental water for decades, leading to environmental decline which now threatens the economy of the basin—the economic and social viability of many industries—and on the other hand we have members opposite saying that action to put water back into the Murray-Darling will lead to the depopulation of rural communities. If you think about these issues at all, it becomes clear that the Murray-Darling region is already stressed and in no position to absorb population from the capital cities.

Nearly 40 years ago, Peter Howson, the then environment minister in the Liberal-Country Party government of William McMahon, presented a report to cabinet about the declining health of the Murray-Darling and the need for action to protect it. Forty years on and we still have those opposite crying, ‘It’s too soon; we need more time.’ They always cry out for more consultation. Indeed there will be much more consultation concerning these matters—as the minister and the parliamentary secretary have pointed out—but the truth is that this problem has been well known and well documented for the past 40 years and those opposite had an abundance of consultation during their 11½ years in government. What we never got from those opposite was any action to protect the river system or anything to address the problem.

If patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, consultation is the last refuge of the policy bereft. Those opposite have been calling for more consultation because, frankly, they have nothing. They are clueless on this matter. State conservative governments created the problem years ago, handing out licences to extract water from the Murray-Darling which were simply unsustainable. And, having created this problem, they are now bereft of any way to solve it. Having no answers of their own, they run interference on the government’s attempts to solve a problem which they have created. It has been said that:

Our greatest waterway, the Murray-Darling Basin, is under immense strain …

                        …                   …                   …

It is heartbreaking to read weekly stories about the Murray’s plight: water levels falling below the end of irrigation pumping pipes, the risk posed by rising salinity and acidity …

                        …                   …                   …

The clock is ticking on the opportunity to ensure the environmental fruits and economic benefits of the Murray-Darling Basin are not lost or endangered forever.

and that:

Australia was one of the first signatories to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Significance, but anyone could be forgiven for thinking our governments have not done absolutely everything in their power to protect our own ecosystems. What is preventing the government buying back more water licences?

I have to confess that none of the comments I have just made are original to me, though I would cheerfully associate myself with them. They are in fact statements made by the South Australian Liberal Senator Birmingham. Senator Birmingham is an intelligent man and a South Australian. I have never come across a South Australian who was not acutely aware of the risks facing the Murray River. Indeed, Senator Birmingham’s comments must have found favour with the Leader of the Opposition for he is now the opposition spokesman on the Murray-Darling. Some of his other observations, which I also commend to the House’s attention, are that:

The upstream states are extracting more water than can rightly be defended …

and that:

Increased water extractions over decades left the Murray-Darling system critically stressed …

                        …                   …                   …

The Murray-Darling needs a national plan for water use, delivered by an independent national authority, with the teeth to act.

The House should also remember, when we are debating an opposition motion attacking the government for endeavouring to return water to the Murray-Darling, that the Leader of the Opposition himself, in one of his first acts as opposition leader, described the Murray-Darling as the nation’s biggest environmental problem and proposed a referendum to put responsibility for the Murray-Darling in the hands of the national government. To my way of thinking that is a reasonable proposition, but it is very hard to square with what opposition members are saying here this afternoon. They now choose to ignore the abundant evidence of the seriousness of the Murray-Darling’s environmental problems.

Just last summer, yet another outbreak of toxic algae crippled the health of the Murray-Darling. In towns like Yarrawonga in Victoria, people were advised to avoid contact with the river or risk gastroenteritis and eye and ear complaints. We know from Australia’s National Dryland Salinity Program that, within 50 years, the water of the Murrumbidgee, Darling and Murray rivers may be too saline to irrigate most crops and that salinity in the lower Murray is projected to rise by 50 per cent—and more than 100 per cent in many smaller rivers—in the coming 50 years.

In 2001 we learned that, if things go on the way they are, Adelaide’s water will not meet World Health Organisation guidelines on two days out of five by 2020. I know some people think that Adelaide’s water is already pretty much undrinkable. We know that 16 of the basin’s 35 native fish species are now listed as threatened. Whether it is salinity, algal blooms, dying river red gums, endangered fish species like the trout cod or the Coorong, the Macquarie Marshes turning into basket cases, or the mouth of the Murray kept open by dredging, symptomatic of a system on life support, everything points to an unsustainable state of affairs, where inaction is not an option.

This is not just a question of the environment. A healthy river system is essential to support agriculture and drinking water. As the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has said:

The real possibility of environmental failure now threatens the long-term economic and social viability of many industries and the economic, social and cultural strength of many communities … the nation risks irretrievably damaging the attributes of the Basin that enable it to be so productive.

In short, we risk killing the goose that lays the golden egg. This is not a choice between irrigators and the environment. Either we protect the river or we kill the goose that lays the golden egg. There are no jobs from a dead river. It has been said that we are reaching a tipping point. If we keep flogging the horse, the horse will die and we will be left in the lurch.

The Murray-Darling river system is like a bridge which used to carry cars but in recent years has started carrying B-double trucks, and is starting to crack and subside. In 1920, the amount of surface water diverted for consumptive use was about 2,000 gigalitres per year. By the 1990s the number had risen to 11,000 gigalitres per year—a more than fivefold increase. If a bridge is starting to crack and subside, you do not say to the B-double trucks, ‘Because we’ve let you cross this bridge until now, we’re going to keep on letting you do this and take the gamble that the bridge won’t collapse completely, becoming useless to all traffic.’ The responsible thing is to say, ‘We might have made a mistake.’ You fix the bridge and you work out what weight of traffic it can withstand. It is the same with the Murray-Darling. You need to reduce the amount of water being extracted from the river, reduce the load it is expected to bear and work out what load it can sustain without collapsing.

Finally, I want to say that I have listened with considerable interest to the remarks made by the member for New England, both about the issue of the Murray-Darling and about the idea of tackling climate change by storing carbon in the soil. I think it might be possible to link those ideas. There are clearly significant sums of money involved in both restoring the Murray-Darling to health and in tackling climate change and I have no in-principle objection to industry paying farmers, or taxpayers paying farmers, for their help in tackling these problems on the proviso that the benefits are real and accrue to the environment—paying landowners to look after the land by planting mallee which stores a lot of carbon, or other native vegetation which tackles salinity, can make sense. We need to look after our rivers, our soils, our native vegetation and our wildlife much better than we did in the last century. I hope we are now going down that path. (Time expired)

John Forrest (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There can be no more important issue of public importance, when one represents Murray-Darling Basin communities, than the subject we are discussing now. Whilst I was assured by the earlier contributions from the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities and the member for Isaacs, I do have to make two specific rebuttals in response to other contributions. First, though, I have to rebut the contribution the member for Wills has just made. His message may be electorally favourable in a constituency like Wills, but it is contrary to popular opinion in my electorate. I invite Kelvin to come up, like many Melbourne visitors do, to my place. They arrive and they say: ‘Oh, we were told the river was dead. We were told it was full of salt.’

I want to back up what the member for Barker said in his contribution, and it is what I said in this place on Monday. I commend the minister to read the contribution I made. The irrigators that we represent resent the lack of credit given to them for the progress that has been made. The truth is contrary to the assertion of the member for Wills about the last 30 years. In fact, I launched my consulting engineering practice on the back of what has probably been one of the most significant solutions to the problems: investment in infrastructure. The principle of irrigation that we learnt from the Israelis was ‘less water, more often’, but to deliver an outcome like that you need modern infrastructure. You need a system that can supply irrigation comparable with that of the urban supply we get to our homes and suburbs, where you switch it on. You do not have to ring up and order it. If the member for Wills is simply saying, ‘We are frustrated the process has taken too long,’ I will accept that, but if he is accusing former governments, no matter what their colour, of not doing something about this huge challenge then that is untrue. As I said on Monday, I was born and raised in the soldier settlement district of Red Cliffs and I remember the fact that as a young fellow my relatives could not spray their citrus crop in the daytime because the high salinity destroyed the leaves in the crop. They had to spray in the evening. Well, from there we have moved on to under vine, under tree and even trickle irrigation. This is the kind of thing I am currently hearing from my irrigators.

The member for Isaacs made the accusation that those of us who represent these communities are scaremongering. Frankly, I have been spending more time than I have in the last eight or nine years—and I mentioned this to the minister before this debate started—trying to keep them calm. I am encouraged by the remarks the minister has made about the emotional stress that every one of us representing these communities is currently confronted with. To be frank about it, I am dreading the Mildura meeting on Wednesday because what the communities want to express is their frustration. They are not hearing the assurance that we have heard in the last few days at the table—that this is a concept, a guide. We are being slapped around a little bit about the ‘this is where we want to pitch to’. But I go back to my speech on Monday, Minister, where I asked the House to consider our ancient history. What the Romans did the first time they built a fortified city was secure their water supply. Now I know I am making a principle related to my engineering background here, but it is true. From that water supply they were able to maintain their sanitary disposal processes. So they secured their water supply but not in the way that we do it in the Murray-Darling Basin. They used sealed channels. They used engineering principles—aqueducts and tunnels through hills—and they stored water in enclosed systems.

When I first arrived in this place I was speaking on, and moving private members’ resolutions about, the risk that climate change was having on our community. I was the first person to speak about it back in 1993-94, and I was ridiculed. So for me to be referred to, as has happened, as a climate change sceptic is completely unfair. I am interested in this subject—in outcomes that secure the future environmental viability of our rivers. I live on the river, and so do my communities, and we have seen huge progress. Irrigators not do not have to make a decision on when they irrigate based on salinity. They have sacrificed a lot of their allocations to achieve that, and all they are asking for is some credit for that.

Two examples of the frustration I have experienced in the last two or three years relate to two proposals. One of them is the Wakool irrigators who in bulk have decided they want to go back to broadacre agriculture and hand in their licences for compensation. There is 40 gigalitres in the Wakool region, but have they been able to bring the former minister and the department along with the concept? Do you think they are worried about what happens to the person who does not want to sell their water station? They have agreed, and it has taken a lot of emotional community consultation to agree, as a whole, to sell their water entirely. Wakool is in the region of the member for Farrer. It is very close to where I live and many of those irrigators out there are old clients of mine, so I have stayed close to that suggestion. But it still has not happened.

In my speech on Monday I also mentioned the Wimmera irrigators. Their problem is with the piping of the Wimmera-Mallee and the constraints of the last eight years in not having water. They have made their own decision—all of them—to sell their water. There is only one purchaser, and that is the Australian government. There is no other purchaser. So they offered a first quote, asking for $1,600 a megalitre—and there is 30,000 megalitres there. They were told by the departmental representative that it was not value for money. So they reduced their bid to $1,100 and were told that was not value for money. They have had meetings where they are asking, ‘Do we have to go lower?’

That is not fair, Minister, and I would like to find a way for your intervention into that, separate to the issue that this report has created, because, when we built the Wimmera Mallee pipeline as a community, with the local community funding a third of it, the Commonwealth government funding a third of it and the state government funding a third of it—a good model—we all decided that it was worthwhile investing, in some stages, between $7,000 and $9,000 a megalitre. That is how much value we as a community put on water. It is different to the Murray system; it is not high security. The benefits of that are currently being realised. With an extremely stressed river in the Wimmera, we now have water going to Lake Hindmarsh, and the Glenelg is a beneficiary as well—wonderful environmental outcomes. Government members accuse us on this side of scaremongering and not wanting to be part of it, but we have history behind us indicating that we are supporting the intention.

The member for Barker has made suggestions asking how realistic the target is. We can massage that, but I want the government—particularly you, Minister—to understand the traumatic state of mind for my irrigators, particularly in horticulture and particularly associated with Sunraysia at Mildura. I cannot get leave to attend the meeting. I hope my growers will be assured that the best place for me to be is here on my feet convincing you, because I need you, Minister, to develop a favourable outcome to this. Visit Sunraysia—and I invite the member for Wills to come up to Sunraysia. It breaks my heart, as someone who as a young fellow grew up in the region and went away for a university education, to drive around that district now and see dead vines and dead citrus trees. I do not want to see any more of that. I want to see them delivered an efficient supply scheme at a price that they can afford and for them not to be asked to contribute too much to the value of that infrastructure.

We have achieved that at Robinvale so far. I am pretty proud about that. It is a Second World War soldier settlement district. We have achieved it at Woorinen, which is closer to Swan Hill—a First World War soldier settlement. And I continue to put the argument that it was governments of those days that created these irrigation districts, for the right reasons, to give people returning from war a future, and I think it is right now for governments, after over 100 years, to rehabilitate the system and give them a modern supply system, which our competitors overseas have. In my days as a consulting engineer I used to host visits from the Israelis, who said, ‘In our country we cannot waste water like this,’ and we used their irrigation technology. That is all we are asking for: some recognition as irrigators in that region of the pain we have already endured. And we are looking for assurances that the government—particularly you, Minister—is going to get this one right.

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

The discussion has concluded.