Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Medicare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This legislation arises because of the Turnbull government's incompetence and lack of commitment to the Murray-Darling Basin water plan. Coalition members have never been enthusiastic supporters of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and it was only ever achieved because of the leadership and hard work of the member for Watson in 2012. It has always been my concern that a future coalition government would gradually scale back the plan, or drag out the implementation of it, particularly the environmental returns and the additional 450 gigalitres of water that was to be allocated at the request of South Australia. My concerns have proven to be justified. That was particularly the case when former Leader of The Nationals and member for New England was given ministerial responsibility for water and for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. He had no interest in delivering the Basin Plan, and that became abundantly clear from the outset.

South Australian Labor MPs and senators flagged our concerns at the time that the member for New England was appointed the relevant minister. We anticipated that he would not support the plan as it was proposed by the member for Watson when it was implemented. South Australians never expected a fair Murray-Darling Basin deal from the coalition government, but nor did South Australians expect the level of mismanagement and incompetence that has brought us to this legislation. The only reason this legislation is before parliament is the Turnbull government's incompetence, and, quite frankly, the Turnbull government's indifference to the plan.

When the Four Corners program alleged water theft in New South Wales, the Turnbull government refused to back a judicial inquiry. That would have been the only inquiry that would have got to the bottom of what was really going on with respect to water theft across the basin. It seems the government didn't want the truth about the water theft to be revealed. The Four Corners program claims proved to be correct and subsequently, I understand, charges have been laid against several irrigators. Even worse, however, the New South Wales Ombudsman issued a damning report against Water New South Wales. How water theft could occur without being noticed by Water New South Wales is beyond comprehension. But, even worse, Water New South Wales wrongly claimed to have issued 105 penalty infringement notices and to have initiated 12 prosecutions between July 2017 and November 2017, when in fact, I understand, no such actions had ever been taken. Whatever water theft has taken place, we will very likely never know the full extent of it.

The mismanagement is not limited to water theft alone. There are also allegations that, under the watch of the former minister, water purchases were made by the Commonwealth at above-market prices or for water that can never be delivered or even measured. These are serious allegations that involve tens of millions of dollars. An article written by Anne Davies and published in The Guardian on 2 March 2018 reports on those allegations:

One of Australia's largest cotton companies, Eastern Australia Agriculture (EAA), sold water rights to the federal government in July last year for $79m and then booked a $52m gain on the sale.

The deal, which was done without tender, will raise questions about whether the government paid over the odds for the water in southern Queensland.

Details of the water buyback were released to the Senate … The documents included valuations by Colliers International, which were used by the Department of Agriculture to price the water from EAA. But unlike an earlier release of documents, the valuations were heavily redacted.

In one unredacted comment, Colliers warned "there is no true market" for overland flows—the type of water rights the federal government was proposing to purchase—and that "trading was limited to sales only to the commonwealth". It warned valuing this sort of water was "very complex" because sellers were likely to seek compensation for associated structures used to harvest the water.

…   …   …

The documents also raise the question about whether Colliers, the valuer, had a potential conflict of interest. Twelve months before, in September 2015, it had been retained to sell EAA's two huge properties in Queensland—Kia-ora and Clyde.

EAA is a private company, which is controlled by a number of investment funds including a large Hong Kong fund, Pacific Alliance, via a Cayman Islands registered company.

…   …   …

The deal for $79m was signed in July last year, allowing EAA to report a large uplift in the value of its water rights. It booked a $52m gain on the water rights sold and a $40m uplift in the value of its water licences.

…   …   …

A senior water researcher at the Australia Institute, Maryanne Slattery, said the average price paid for water licences in the Lower Balonne between 2011/12 and 2016/17 was $1,500 per megalitre and the maximum paid in that period was $2,200 for two trades.

The government paid $2,745 per megalitre.

…   …   …

The Guardian reported last year on the sale of water by Tandou … There are questions about the reliability of the water rights purchased for $78m because of extractions further upstream. The Guardian also revealed the government relied on a valuation provided by the NSW government and ignored its own valuation.

Last week the Australia Institute raised questions about another buyback in Queensland, which involved a $17m purchase of 10,611 megalitres of water in the Warrego valley in March 2017.

Joyce paid more than twice that paid by Labor when in government, a purchase he had criticised because little of the Warrego—just 6%—flows through to the Darling.

These are murky deals, overseen by the member for New England when he was the water minister, which I believe the Australian National Audit Office should investigate.

It appears that the New South Wales government is now attempting to legitimise the capture, storage and ownership of overland water by issuing new licences to landowners who have been taking overland water from the basin for free. Two immediate concerns arise from that proposition. Firstly, any water taken out of the basin ultimately diminishes the amount of water that flows downstream. I know that those who support the New South Wales proposition will argue that this water was never really accounted for and that it makes no difference to the amount of water that flows into the river system. Environmentalists dispute that, and so do I. Whatever water falls in the basin to some extent ultimately flows back into the river system, whether it be underground or above ground, and in any event, acts as important environmental water for the wetlands and other environmental assets already within the basin. To simply say that this water is not relevant, shouldn't be counted and therefore does not matter to the health of the basin system is absolute nonsense. The fact that it already happens with apparently no control adds to my concerns. The issuing of licences, which in turn will have a monetary value, will trigger a rush of landowners to claim additional overland water rights.

Secondly, unlike other licences, where the amount of water taken is easier to manage, the measuring and regulation of overland water is near impossible to do. When a system becomes too complicated, regulatory measures are inevitably ineffective. In the future we will see further disputes about how much water was taken, whether the person or landowner who took it had the right to do so, and what impact it has on downstream farmers. I understand that, as a result of those propositions, downstream farmers are already expressing concerns about what water may ultimately flow to them.

Parliament should not waver from its commitment to delivery of the basin plan in full as proposed in 2012. The livelihood and security of over two million Australians depend on that basin plan. I understand that around 35 separate projects have been identified that can deliver the water savings that in turn can then be returned to the river to achieve the ultimate 2,750 litres we'll be looking at and subsequently the additional 450 gigalitres. I accept and understand that it will take some time to implement those projects, because they require the expenditure of funds and the carrying out of considerable works, but there is a proposition that those works will deliver the plan as it was intended. Labor supports that pathway, but if the water savings cannot be made then other alternatives will have to be considered. No Murray-Darling Basin community will ever be spared if the basin is not sustainable. What is required with respect to management of the basin is common sense and fairness to all, regardless of which part of the basin they live in.

For South Australia, being at the end of the river system, delivery of a sustainable basin plan is absolutely critical. Since Federation, South Australia has been negotiating with upstream states for a basin plan that provides some water security. In 1969, then South Australian Premier Steele Hall publicly debated with then opposition leader Don Dunstan the merits of establishing the Chowilla Dam just north of Renmark in South Australia for the purpose of securing South Australia's water supplies. That was almost half a century ago. Premier Hall's preference was the construction of the Dartmouth Dam in eastern Victoria. The Dartmouth Dam was subsequently constructed but didn't secure South Australia's water supplies. South Australia today still faces uncertainty because, being at the end of the stream, it relies on water flowing across the border, and that water will flow across the border only if the plan is implemented in full. If it's not then we will be in the situation where we were a decade ago, where no water whatsoever was flowing out of the mouth of the river system into the sea.

The basin plan was agreed to in 2012 after a gruelling process—a process which included a committee of this parliament, which worked for six months. Indeed, I was a member of that committee. We travelled around the basin and met with communities right throughout it in order to try to reach some consensus. Finally, that report came back to parliament and the minister acted on it with the legislation that was ultimately agreed to by this parliament.

It was a gruesome process, but we achieved a plan. That plan must now be implemented, and it should not be undermined in any way, because it is the plan that remains our best hope of long-term sustainability for all basin communities. We accept that the basin communities are an important part of the nation's economy. We accept that so many communities depend on a sustainable plan. We accept that so many families rely on a sustainable basin plan, but we also accept that we have national environmental assets that also rely on a sustainable basin plan. That's why it's important that we remain committed to the plan, and why Labor has agreed to support this legislation.

Damian Drum (Murray, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Water Amendment Bill 2018. I'm pleased to hear that the Labor Party are moving to support this legislation, because that wasn't the case as little as a month ago. Prior to the South Australian state election and the Batman by-election, the Labor Party took the view that it wanted to oppose this legislation, purely for political reasons.

We understand that—we understand that they wanted to change their mind when they were battling the Greens in Batman. We understand that when there was a state election the Labor Party wanted to take a different view, irrespective of what that does to the more than two million people who live along the Murray-Darling Basin. For Labor to be chopping and changing their view on water policy, irrespective of that, we now arrive at the situation where this bill, based around the correction in the Northern Basin Review, is going to be put through the parliament, supposedly with the support of Labor.

What we have with the Northern Basin Review is a plan that was implemented as part of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 2012. Here we are now, six years later, where we have had the review handed in, looking at the damage that was caused to some of those southern Queensland and northern New South Wales communities, very clearly acknowledging that we have taken too much water out of productive agriculture and that we have caused too much damage to those communities. In doing the research, it was acknowledged that there needs to be a correction from the environment back towards productive agriculture to the tune of 70 gigalitres. Instead of taking 390 gigalitres out, it was recommended independently that we take 320 gigalitres out and that there be a 70 gigalitre correction towards productive agriculture.

That's the report that the Labor Party let hang for 12 months without one word of criticism. Then the Greens political party started playing politics with a disallowance and, all of a sudden, the Labor Party started supporting that. Now that it's been corrected and it looks like it's going to be passed through the parliament, at least that's a positive.

The next thing we have to work through are the 605 SDLs, effectively looking at the 2,750 gigalitres—the amount of water that has been set aside for the environment; taken out of active agriculture and put toward environmental outcomes. Again, it has been scientifically and independently observed that we can actually save 605 gigalitres out of that 2,750 because we can find smarter and better ways of reaching these environmental outcomes. We can use science and technology to create exactly the same outcomes, if not better outcomes, and actually use 605 gigalitres less to achieve the same outcome. We hope that in the next short while it will also be passed through the parliament here.

It then leads us to where the previous member, the member Makin in outer Adelaide, again stands up in this House and puts the view of the South Australians in relation to water. 450 gigalitres was the amount that was the so-called 'up water'. We hear Labor saying that they want to have the plan delivered in full. I agree with them: let's deliver the plan in full. But when you want to deliver the plan in full you have to apply a social and economic test—a social and economic benefit or neutrality test—to the 450 gigalitres. We have to make sure that the social and economic test actually has the first part of that test in it—that is, the social side of things. When you read what's in the actual Murray-Darling Basin Plan, when it talks about neutral or improved social economic outcomes, the filter that they have on this is impossible to read. It talks about what fits within the neutral or improved socioeconomic outcomes, and it states in 7.17 (2) (b):

The efficiency contributions to the proposed adjustments achieve neutral or improved socio-economic outcomes compared with the outcomes under benchmark conditions of development as evidenced by:

(i) the participation of consumptive water users in projects that recover water through works to improve irrigation water use efficiency on their farms …

So that is talking about water efficiency projects. In (ia) it states:

… the participation of consumptive water users in projects that recover water through works to improve water use efficiency off-farm …

So we are talking about on-farm and off-farm water efficiency projects, and:

(ii) alternative arrangements proposed by a Basin State, assessed by that State as achieving water recovery with neutral or improved socio-economic outcomes.

But, in all of that, it is totally ambiguous at to was to what is socio-economic neutrality or benefit. And yet, this is the actual point that will come down to deciding how this 450 gigalitres of up water is somehow miraculously delivered to the environment.

What nobody is prepared to do at the moment is actually say, 'What is the socio-economic cost of having communities go without water so that water can become an environmental flow?' Recent studies on the Murray-Darling Basin, in the southern Basin, look at the job losses associated with the loss of water. We can talk about the Mildura region to start with. Since the start of the Basin Plan, Mildura has had a loss in irrigated production of 38 per cent of its employment; in the Merbein region, irrigated production employment figures are down by 50 per cent; in the Swan Hill region, irrigated production decreased by 53 per cent; in the Kerang-Cohuna region, irrigated agricultural production employment figures have decreased 43 per cent; in the Pyramid Hill-Boort region, employment in irrigated production has decreased by 66 per cent; in Hay, employment in irrigated production has decreased by 41.4 per cent; in the Shepparton region, employment in irrigated production has decreased by 41.6 per cent; and in the Kyabram-Tatura area employment in irrigated production has decreased by 41.6 per cent.

So, when you have a plan that has taken water away from communities and you can see very clearly the amount of job losses associated with taking that water away from productive irrigation and the flow-on jobs associated with those losses in employment, it becomes a sad state of affairs—when you have one side of politics, the Greens and Labor, who refuse to acknowledge the social cost of losing that amount of water and who refuse to acknowledge the cost of having those job losses—unless somebody is able to rewrite the social and economic detriment and the social and economic neutrality clauses in a way that means we actually have to go in there and look at the socio-economic costs. We actually have to go in there and look at the social and economic costs, because, when you read the plan in the way that I just read the plan, what it says is: 'We've got this social and economic benefit or neutrality test,' but in the definition it's just an economic test. They're more or less saying that if you wish to have a million dollars' worth of water and you sell it for a million dollars and run away and go and do something else with that million dollars then everybody's happy. But what we have seen, with previous Labor policies, are indiscriminate buybacks, where they simply go into the market and buy water at the cheapest rate possible. People are always going to find willing sellers—especially in industries like the dairy industry at the moment, which is under severe pressure. The governments of Australia are always going to be able to find willing sellers.

To think that you can have no community pain, loss, or detriment is absolutely farcical. It's incredibly disrespectful to the irrigation communities—the two million Australians who live up and down the Murray-Darling Basin—because those irrigation communities rely on agriculture. They rely on the farmers making their revenue, so that those farmers can then come into the cities, towns and community centres and buy the services and goods that they need, so that that money can swim around in the communities in the way that we all know it does.

However, what we have at the moment is uncertainty, because nobody is prepared to acknowledge that there is this filter, this rider, associated with another. What we've just read out are the job losses, already, in the respective regions, and the hurt and pain associated with those job losses. What we're looking at now is actually inflicting further pain and further job losses because we don't want to understand that there is so much hurt and detriment to communities when we take water out of those communities.

We need, as a collective, to start putting people ahead of politics. We need to start putting people's opportunity to make a living ahead of this out-and-out push for a quantity of water. When is the environmental movement—when is the Labor Party—going to start talking about environmental outcomes instead of talking about an amount of water? We have to go to the environmental movement and say, 'We're happy to sit down and talk to you about environmental outcomes. What are the major environmental outcomes that you want to achieve, not just for South Australia but for the entire Murray-Darling Basin?'

The environmental movement have been poisoning all irrigators because of a Four Corners show that suggested that there were people in the north of the Murray-Darling Basin who were stealing water. Well, they've been charged, and they'll get their opportunity to defend themselves in court. But let's not tar all of the irrigators along the Murray-Darling Basin with the same brush, because the vast majority—99.99 per cent—have never been charged, and never will be charged, because they're totally law-abiding irrigators who simply follow one of the most honourable professions ever invented: they grow food and fibre from nothing and they sell that food and fibre, hopefully, for a profit. But at the moment, it seems as though all irrigators are potentially being poisoned by an argument that wants to see all irrigators through the lens of: 'They are people who just steal water and effectively ruin the environment in the process.'

As I've said many times in this House, water policy is the most important issue for my electorate. We need to put a proper social and economic filter across the remaining 450 gigalitres of up water. We heard the previous speaker speak in disparaging tones about the former Leader of the National Party, Barnaby Joyce. Barnaby Joyce wrote to the then minister in South Australia asking him: 'If you know how we can deliver these 450 gigalitres without causing social and economic hurt and detriment, even to your people in South Australia, then you tell me how you can do it. If you think there's a way that we can get another 450 gigalitres without hurting all of these irrigation communities, you tell me.' That's why he knew that the then minister of South Australia—and thank goodness he's gone—was absolutely holding the progress of this plan up simply by being obstinate and pig-headed, swearing at people with profanities in front of all types of people in the main street of Adelaide when he didn't get his way. That was because he thought that South Australia was being poorly handled.

When are the environmental movements in South Australia going to start talking about environmental outcomes instead of talking about this quantity of water. At the moment, we have environmental outcomes like that they want to keep the Lower Lakes fresh. Well, the Lower Lakes were never fresh naturally. They were only fresh when men put the barrages in back in the thirties. That is not a natural outcome. They want to keep the Murray's mouth open. Again, it is not a natural outcome. If you leave the river to nature, the mouth closes over in most dry stretches and then it reforms or reopens itself again at the next flood. Flushing the lower reaches of the Murray River is a fantastic objective. If we can have environmental water assist with that, then we should do that. But we can't just go down this path where we want to talk about a quantity of water that causes so much pain to communities without having environmental outcomes that can be achieved.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business (House)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to indicate the opposition's support for the Water Amendment Bill 2018, which has been moved by the government. The purpose of this bill is to allow the government to bring forward again an instrument that was previously disallowed. When that instrument was disallowed, and Labor had supported the disallowance, I immediately came into the chamber and said that we were seeking to negotiate a series of issues with the government. I gave an immediate indication that if that negotiation ended up being successful then we were happy to revisit that disallowance motion.

In the normal course, the government would not be able to simply reissue that instrument. The Water Act 2007 doesn't allow it without going through a full, fresh process of consultation. Given that the negotiations ultimately were concluded in a positive way, Labor now stands ready to support this bill without amendment and to facilitate its passage through both houses. To that end, I'm not even moving a second reading amendment. This is something that is the product of a direct negotiation with the government and something that we therefore support in full, without compromise and without question.

I was listening to the speech from the member for Murray just before me. I do believe he has faithfully put forward views from his electorate. They are views that I certainly heard in a series of community meetings during the time that I was water minister, which were put with equal passion by members of his community and sometimes with language that was somewhat more forceful and, occasionally, using a series of adjectives that he referred to a previous water minister from a different state as having offered at different times. There's a reason why there's real passion on this issue. It's because the situation that Australia has found itself in, after 100 years of the Murray-Darling Basin being managed as though it were not connected, has meant there is no ideal solution for anyone or any interest up and down the basin. Every step forward has meant compromise. That is a reality of what is in front of us.

I've come in today with a copy of the Basin Plan. It was being quoted in the previous speech, and I said, 'Quick! Grab me a copy. I want to walk in with it.' If I were to write down my ideal solution for the Murray-Darling Basin, this would be not be it. If I put forward my ideal solution for how to deal with the Murray-Darling Basin, the simple answer is that we would have ended up without a plan, and we would have ended up without any national system to be able to get specific targets that we would work towards. This was not a document that I started with or that my department started with or even that the authority started with. We all remember the document that the authority started with. I'd been water minister for a couple of minutes, and the guide to the plan appeared, and I discovered that instantly I was being burnt in effigy all around the basin by different communities that had an understandably strong—

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Digital Transformation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sounds very sensible!

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business (House)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You used to be responsible for my safety! I'll remember that interjection. But the Basin Plan meant that, when we got there, it ended up quite different as a result of a series of community meetings, small meetings and consultation, where I don't think anyone would argue that the consultation was anything but real. People saw the document change as it went through and saw, effectively, the architecture of a critical compromise. Two parts of that compromise were, in fact, the subject of the different disallowance votes in the Senate.

There were three major moving parts. The first was the Northern Basin Review. I ordered that there be a Northern Basin Review, and I'll be honest: what the authority came back with were numbers that surprised me on the extent to which they changed what the earlier advice from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority had been. It didn't surprise me, though, that the numbers had changed. When Craig Knowles headed up the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, we talked about it at some length. The south of the basin—and those members here in the chamber who are from basin seats all know this backwards, but I'll explain it for the benefit of the House—is highly regulated. For water to flow, it's being released from dams and weirs. There'll be an extent of flow, but largely we have in the southern basin a river system that is now, in many ways, a set of interconnected dams and weirs. That's largely how the water works. In the northern basin you have a much flatter system and a system where, when there's heavy rainfall, it flows and, when it flows, every time much of the water will flow in a slightly different fashion to how it did previous time. That is something that's seen in the southern basin when you get an overbank flow, but largely in the southern basin the water is far more predictable. That meant that, when we and the authority were determining for the purposes of the plan what the northern basin numbers should be, there was a high degree of uncertainty because, as the years of data build up, those numbers will always be subjected to new information and the water will continue to flow differently in the north. Therefore, when some people say, 'How could Labor ever support reduced numbers?' the concept of the original numbers in the north always relied on the best available data, but we wanted it reviewed because there were always going to be more questions in the north than there were in the south. That's the reason for the Northern Basin Review.

But, when I say the numbers came out differently to what I'd anticipated, why is Labor then supporting them? There is a really simple principle here: I believe having an independent authority is essential. We will never resolve anything in the basin unless we accept that the independent authority, when it makes a call, must not then be litigated gigalitre by gigalitre by this parliament. We've established an independent authority and, once we start litigating each gigalitre of the recommendations they come down with, it's effectively all over in terms of whether or not we'll ever have a plan for the basin and whether or not we'll be able to deliver those sorts of outcomes.

For that reason, it was important to accept that whether the numbers were what I thought they would be or not wasn't actually the point. We need to have an independent authority. They were the numbers the authority came back with, and my view was, and I made it clear, that in any negotiation with the government—I acknowledge the minister responsible, the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, is now at the table—at no point were we trying to alter what the authority had recommended.

Damian Drum (Murray, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why did you disallow it?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business (House)) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Without turning it into question time, although I'd love a world where I was in a position at the dispatch box to answer questions from the backbench—if you want to bring that on, I'm there for it. Why did we disallow it? As I explained earlier—you might have been reading, but you were here in the chamber, Member for Murray—because at that point the negotiation had not been concluded with the government and I came into the chamber, immediately after the disallowance vote, and reported to the chamber our willingness to deal with it again. It is only possible to deal with it again in the exact same terms by pushing this legislation through both Houses. We are here for that, with no amendment, not even a second reading amendment. Any further questions, I'll be here at two o'clock.

The next part is about the compromises, effectively, within the plan—you've got the Northern Basin Review, and then there were two other areas where the numbers that were put forward in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan were seen to have to possibly change in the future. One was the 450 up; the other was the 650 down. I'll deal with the 650 down first, because we had the disallowance on that not long ago. The plan specifically allowed for there to be an alteration of the numbers in the plan by up to 650 gigalitres if—if—states could put forward projects which, on completion, were viewed to deliver the same environmental outcome with less water. So when people have said, 'Well, where's the Labor Party on issues of getting the same environmental outcome with less water,' the entire 650-gigalitre flexibility within the plan was exactly that. It was put in that for that purpose. And when some from the environmental side said, 'How on earth could Labor not vote to disallow that regulation,' it was foreseen. We would not have had a plan if we hadn't put that in. I want to pay credit to Peter Walsh, who was the Victorian water minister at the time. His coming forward with this part of the plan was an essential part of brokering the entire agreement.

But make no mistake: you don't get identical environmental outcomes with these projects. You get equivalent outcomes, taking into account some very specific and limited definitions within the plan. The simplest example I can give is something like Hattah Lakes. It's a beautiful environment site—I've gone kayaking there; you kayak when the water is there, through the river red gums—and it's quite a spectacular place. It naturally would have got its water from overbank flows, overbank flows that occur much less regularly because we have irrigation districts and dams. That's why the overbank flows occur much less regularly. There are two ways of getting the water there: either you release Commonwealth environmental water from dams, a large amount all at once, and get the overbank flow on its way to Hattah Lakes—it floods every farm in the way and takes out whatever they might have had in the ground so that by the time it arrives at Hattah Lakes it's picked up whatever chemicals and nutrients were in the farmland and deposited that at the environmental site—or you use a much lower amount of water, still environmental water, and you pump it there directly. You get a similar environmental outcome—not identical; there will be small environmental sites along the way that get no water because it was piped—using a fraction of the water that would have been required through an overbank flow. They were the sorts of projects that were envisaged in the 650 gigalitres.

Only today, the Nimmie-Caira project has been reported. I have shared some articles. It was reported on the ABC last night, and I saw it in The Guardian today as well. The Nimmie-Caira project was advanced by New South Wales. A series of property owners wanted to get out, and they were happy for their land to be managed for environmental purposes. As a result, in the irrigation districts, particularly in areas like Griffith, it's made a significant difference. The water for the environment that is required will be much lower as a result of what looks like the particular success of the Nimmie-Caira project.

I will give credit to the former water minister for New South Wales Katrina Hodgkinson. She brought this project forward. When she first brought it forward, there was some hostility from within the Commonwealth about it. I went through some extensive briefings with New South Wales. I thought there might be a way of making it stack up. I asked Commonwealth officials to look at it more closely. They went through it, and we've ended up with a significant project that has now been welcomed by environmental groups as well, regardless of all the hostility at the beginning. Also, I might add, the Nari Nari Tribal Council will now play a major role in the management of the property.

Within the basin, this will become an iconic environmental site, I suspect. It needs active management. I understand that there's been a significant problem with wild pigs in the interim while the management arrangements are being sorted out. These are the sorts of projects where the plan, through its entire structure and through that availability of 650 gigalitres being made through other measures, is allowing environmental outcomes in ways where you obviously still need some water but less water than you would otherwise need if you were only relying on overbank flows. So when people argue—and it's representative of what comes out in different communities—'Why is it only water that's being demanded?' it's not. That flexibility was in the plan. I might add that the plan allowed flexibility of up to 650. The regulation that has come back from the authority and signed off by the minister only took that to 605.

As to whether all these projects ultimately stack up, there's a reconciliation process that happens, from memory, in 2024 or thereabouts to determine whether or not the projects have delivered the outcomes that were envisaged. A lot of these are major engineering works, and all projects of this type vary during the time. Some of them may turn out with better outcomes and some of them may turn out with worse, but that verification will happen. If they end up falling short, I will be clear for the sake of transparency, and I've said it publicly before—and this is not a shared view across the chamber, but the plan allows this sort of flexibility anyway. If there is a gap—and there might not be—Labor would bridge that gap through buyback. The government would have, as I understand it, a different approach in bridging that gap. I think I've represented everyone's positions accurately on that.

The other area of flexibility is the 450 gigalitres up. I previously described the 650 down. We would not have got the agreement from the irrigation communities or the upstream states were it not for Peter Walsh advancing that. In the same way, we would not have got the agreement from South Australia were it not for the additional 450 gigalitres of what's often referred to as up water. Even though we disagree on the simplicity of the clause, I was pleased earlier that the member who preceded me, the member for Murray, read out the full clause, because often the Basin Plan has been misrepresented in this place and people have said that the only test is that, if you want to get this extra 450 gig, you need to do it in ways where there are no social or economic downsides, whereas the plan is quite specific in adding that if you do it through the voluntary participation of irrigators in improving their on-farm infrastructure—if that's the method of acquiring the water—then that will be taken as evidence that there were no social or economic downsides.

That was put there for the 450. The 450 has been in doubt for some time. In dealing with Australia's minister for water, I made clear that we did need to be able to see progress on the 450, because, just as there would have been no plan without the 650 down, there would have been no plan without the 450 up. And a sensible way through on this always involves that challenge—which this building historically hasn't been great at and probably over the last decade has been worse at than it used to be—which is finding an outcome where everybody accepts some compromise, because we know that's better than having no outcome.

I want to pay full credit—I won't overdo it, because it won't help him—to the minister for water. There have been compromises for each of us in working this through. But what has happened is that we have now faced the moment where the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was ready to fall apart and we have made sure that it didn't. That is a critical thing and something that will be a lasting legacy for the work that he does as a minister.

I should take the House through some of the elements of that agreement and I should let the minister know that, before he got here, I said, 'We're not going to move any amendments, and I'm not even moving a second reading amendment—not the normal sledge that we put in; there is that much cooperation. But a lot of the elements of the agreement won't otherwise come before the parliament unless they're explained, and I think a lot of this happened in the minister's second reading speech as well. Six areas are covered: strengthening of protection of environmental flows, strengthening compliance with basin water laws, improving confidence in northern basin review data, strengthening the SDL adjustment mechanism, improving outcomes for First Nations Indigenous people, and addressing the social and economic impacts of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Firstly, on strengthening the protection of environmental flows, this wasn't really questioned in a big way until the Four Corners revelations last year. These were revelations that alarmed pretty much everybody except those who were responsible for them, because water theft isn't just doing the wrong thing by the environment; it's doing the wrong thing by your neighbour. It's doing the wrong thing by all the irrigators up and down the system who keep to the rules. The allegations we saw were serious allegations of water theft. The Australian taxpayer has spent an extraordinary amount of money on environmental water. It now stands as a very significant Commonwealth asset—a very significant asset. The concept that what was designated environmental water to be flowing down the system was being pumped back up into someone's dam alarmed everybody who believes in keeping to the rules. And I include the vast, vast majority of irrigators in that. But it did put forward a demand, as these negotiations went through, that we needed to be able to provide that confidence.

The whole plan is underpinned by what came before it. I wouldn't want this speech to presume in any way or for people to think that all of this began somehow with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan being put in place. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan wouldn't have been possible were it not for the Water Act. The Water Act was brought through by a water minister who's now Prime Minister of Australia, during the time of the Howard government. That wouldn't have been possible had there not been years of negotiation with the states through a ministerial council that was established under the Keating government. This issue was raised in the Federation debates. Only then, the South Australian issue, when they were raising it, wasn't for the purposes of the environment; it was actually a navigation issue, because they could no longer get the vessels upstream. All of this work has a very long history to it, but it's all now underpinned by the concept of there being a water market—a market where you can trade back and forth and you know what you have purchased. When the Commonwealth purchases environmental water, it knows that it will be used for environmental purposes, not be pumped back into somebody's dam.

The agreement includes mechanisms to protect those environmental flows, and I've had good meetings with the New South Wales government and their minister, Minister Blair, in seeing progress there. There is still more work there, but there is significant progress in goodwill, which I want to acknowledge. There is also the establishment of a Northern Basin Commissioner, which I know the minister has been continuing to work on and which will allow there to be an independent person. Why do we need this in the north and not in the south? For the reasons I referred to previously: the extent of regulation in the south means that what we saw in the north—well, I certainly can't imagine how somebody would be able to do something like that in the southern basin, but a Northern Basin Commissioner makes sense.

Strengthening compliance with basin water laws: the government will implement the key outcomes of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's review of compliance and enforcement. New South Wales has committed to the implementation of the Water Reform Action Plan and we've got the development and delivery of a Basin Compliance Compact. The new Northern Basin Commissioner will also monitor and advise on implementation and compliance commitments. The government is also committing an additional $20 million, which will help with monitoring, metering and measurement. I think a lot of people in the southern basin were astonished at how many things that had just been part of living in the southern basin were yet to be there in the north because of the hydrology, because it's so flat and because it's not a regulated system in the same way.

If I were to point to anything being a key weakness that I would have liked to have secured in the original Murray-Darling Basin Plan and that I failed to secure—that I wasn't able to deliver on—and which I've got to say will be to the credit of this minister and this government in securing, as a principle, it is about First Nations people in both the northern and southern basin. For a long time they have been arguing that they didn't only want to have a right to land in different sites but the land didn't have its full meaning unless there were also some rights to flow—some rights to water. The government has done this for the first time. I'm not sure about the extent to which other countries have done this yet internationally—I don't know the answer to that. But this is certainly groundbreaking in our history, and I suspect, globally, that it's not something that a lot has happened with.

The concept of cultural water will now exist, and money has been put forward for various groups to be able to have their own entitlement to water. It won't be owned by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, it will be owned by them and used by them, and they'll make decisions about how annual allocations are used. I won't know how; I'll find out after the event. They'll make their own decisions on that, as they should. But it is a fundamental shift for those groups. Some groups, even with this, are reporting it as though it were trying to buy them off and sign them up to the agreement. It was never conditional—never conditional from the government and never conditional from us. It does mean that a step has now been taken in a direction which is groundbreaking, and I give full credit to everyone involved, including those opposite.

If I read out this whole thing, I won't give anything else to the speech, so I will mention, then, point 4:

Improving confidence in the Northern Basin Review data.

Where I said earlier that the numbers surprised me, part of the agreement is allowing much more penetration of that data, which is important and which I think will only benefit the authority as well—that sort of transparency and sunlight.

The SDL adjustment mechanism is being strengthened in different ways, and, in particular, the government is now commencing the work on accumulating that 450. People needed that show of good faith that it was starting, and it will start. Exactly how it's got to what the projects are I don't think will ever stop being an issue of contention in different directions. But, given it had been put into doubt about a year and a half ago, having that back on the table and starting is critical.

In saying this, I've spent more on the negotiation than I have on the outcomes. I want to make clear that it is understood—and I don't want to be accused of brushing over any of this—that none of this is easy for anyone. Even though a whole lot is being done to try to make the adjustment have as little impact as possible, none of this delivers a zero-impact outcome. For many communities that has already meant significant hardship and different challenges which communities have responded to in different ways. The alternative is unthinkable, because eventually the river turns up at the negotiating table. We might all think we're uncompromising, but it wins when it starts negotiating back. We need to have a healthy working basin. It will never be a 100 per cent natural system again. I think anyone who wants to argue that it should be a completely natural system at the lakes at the end has to argue for a natural system the whole way up, and I've never met anyone who then wants to go to that next stage of the argument. It will be a regulated system, but it can be a healthy system. It will be a system that works for the environment and for the communities that depend on it. We've now got to the moment where that was in jeopardy, and parliament is showing its capacity to deal with it, so I thank the minister.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to rise today to speak in the debate on this legislation, the Water Amendment Bill 2018, that has been introduced to get the Murray-Darling Basin Plan back on track. Before the member for Watson leaves, I will recognise that he is one of the few people in this place that understands water. We might not always agree on how we use it, but he does understand the process. One of the frustrations in this place is I've heard a lot of speeches made by people who don't understand water but understand the politics of water. The challenge in this place is to have science and common sense win, and not be trumped by politics. We nearly saw that happen, and I'm glad that we're back on track. I want to have that on record.

There are others in this building who haven't covered themselves in glory. I can point to Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who has made some absolutely ridiculous contributions during this entire time. Senator Penny Wong and Senator Cory Bernardi have also not covered themselves in glory through this whole process. The big challenge we have in here is when politics trumps science. The Northern Basin Review, which I'm probably more familiar with than the rest of the basin, due to the fact that my electorate is pretty well encompassed by that northern basin, came from several years of study, science, negotiations and inquiry by an independent committee that was set up to do that. To get to a point where it was to be implemented, and then to be trumped by the South Australian election, was deeply frustrating to me.

As someone who represents a third of the Murray-Darling Basin—I believe I would probably have the largest section of the basin in my electorate, from the Lower Darling to the reaches on the Queensland border where the Dumaresq meets the Macintyre; it's a very complex issue, and different communities in my electorate see this issue differently—it's very frustrating to come to a position on this where truth goes out the window. I have seen some absolute nonsense being portrayed on social media and even reported in the media. For example, a couple of months ago, just after the Four Corners program, the local paper in Broken Hill, the Barrier Daily Truth,ran a front-page story that said that in 2012, the water minister, Barnaby Joyce, changed the regulations in the Murray-Darling Basin system and allowed irrigators to take whatever they want. Well, in 2012, the water minister was the member for Watson, Tony Burke. Barnaby Joyce was a senator from Queensland who had no responsibility for water. I pointed this out to the editor of the Barrier Daily Truth and on page six the next day there was a small retraction. But the seed was sown that there was somehow large-scale government corruption in managing the river system. Quite frankly, I think the member for Watson's contribution may have put some of that to rest.

To get to this point has required an enormous amount of goodwill and hard work by the states and the territories within the basin, as well as the Commonwealth, as well as the communities, as well as the individuals and the environmentalists and the irrigators right across the basin. They have put an enormous amount of work into this. For the northern review to be portrayed as a fresh grab by irrigators to get more water is a long, long way from the truth. Water reforms started in this country long before the basin plan came into action. In New South Wales, the reforms back probably 25 or 30 years ago saw a lot of water removed from the irrigation industry, with no compensation to irrigators. In some of the early stages of the basin plan, and when Senator Wong was the minister, the buying of large licences willy-nilly devastated towns. In the north-west of my electorate, the town of Collarenebri lost its major and probably only serious employer. Over a hundred jobs went with the stroke of a pen when Senator Wong purchased the water from Twynam Pastoral Company's Collymongle Station. Purchases made without taking into account the interests of the local communities are still impacting on those communities. Collarenebri, quite frankly, will struggle to recover to any form at all. It certainly won't recover to its former glory.

Water is the lifeblood for everyone. The Murray-Darling Basin, particularly the Northern Basin, is not a fixed piece of plumbing. It is not something where there is a set amount of water every year and it's just a simple matter of allocating a certain percentage for production, a certain percentage for the environment and a certain percentage for residential communities. It's an ephemeral stream. The electorate of the minister sitting here next to me is a large catchment for the Darling River. From memory, it hasn't had run-off from 2012. That was the last run-off that came out of western Queensland. The water from the cyclone we had earlier this year, which is now reaching Lake Eyre, goes down through the Channel Country in western Queensland and into South Australia and is not part of the Murray-Darling Basin. A small part—one river—got a catchment and got water from that cyclone. As a result, the Culgoa River is running through into New South Wales, into the Barwon and into the Darling, and that water just last week reached Wilcannia.

In conjunction with the state government of New South Wales and the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, a series of environmental flows have been let go from various dams in the upper catchment to hop onto the tail of that flow to continue it for a longer period of time. To allow this to happen, irrigators in the electorate of the member sitting next to me, and in my electorate, forewent the entitlement they could have had. What frustrates me is that there is no credit or recognition from the environmental lobby that that's actually happened—that there's water now heading to Menindee from Wilcannia. Cooperation between state and federal governments, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder and irrigators is enabling that water to flow down to the river. I believe that deserves some form of recognition.

The deal that has been done by the member for Maranoa and the member for Watson is, I believe, a good compromise. Part of the compromise that is going to be of great benefit to my communities is the Indigenous water—the water for Aboriginal communities. Unless you go to those places, you will not understand the importance that the river has for those communities. If you go to the communities in Bourke, Brewarrina, Wilcannia and Menindee when there's water in the river, they are different places from when the river is dry. Those communities exist because of the river. I think that allocation of water will be helpful. We have now got over this speed hump in the process, which has stopped a lot of other things happening from the state governments as well. The environmentalists, in their great charge to try and blow this up, have actually stopped some projects that are of great benefit to the communities that they are supposed to be helping. I'm very hopeful that we're getting to a point where we'll see an allocation of funding for a weir at Wilcannia, which is long overdue; the re-engineering of the Menindee Lakes so that it has the ability to hold more water; the cutting off of Lake Cawndilla from the system; and the purchase of water from Tandou, which will mean that Lake Cawndilla will only fill when there is a flood. With the re-engineering, more water will be held in Menindee to provide for the communities who live in that area.

The other part of this legislation is about compliance. If there has been theft, then it needs to be dealt with in the appropriate manner. But I want to point out that Four Corners is not a court. Four Corners is a program that provides entertainment for people. It can present facts in a way that it wants but that is not necessarily balanced. I believe this is part of a larger scheme to actually attack the cotton industry in Australia, and irrigation in general. There are court proceedings in place, and I won't comment on them because it would be inappropriate. Until those findings are dealt with through the proper judicial manner, I think we have in this country a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

In defence of the irrigators and the cotton industry in my electorate, we have just seen a very, very good harvest grown on less water per kilogram of cotton than anywhere in the world—certainly much less than we would have used in that area. Part of the whole process that the member for Watson was talking about with the re-engineering of the Trangie-Nevertire scheme and the Narromine and other schemes in the Macquarie valley is that we are seeing huge yields of cotton grown, with much, much less water. The lining of the channels has reduced the wastage by up around 90 per cent. We are seeing efficient use of that water. Quite frankly, with the season we're having, the only income of those towns is coming from the water generated by the irrigation industry. There is this idea that we need to get rid of cotton in Australia. We grow cotton in Australia because we have an ephemeral system. When you've got water in the dam, you can grow the crop. We've tried permanent plantings at Bourke, and that ended up very badly because in a dry season those trees ultimately died.

Congratulations to the minister, the member for Maranoa, on pulling this off. I have acknowledged the member for Watson for this process getting back on track. The communities in the Murray-Darling Basin have absolutely had it up to their back teeth with water reform. They have been going through this process for three decades now, and for it to be derailed by pure base political pointscoring from South Australia is one of the lowest, most appalling acts I've seen in my 10 years in this place. I thank the minister for getting it back on track, and I know the communities right across the basin want to get this reform done and dusted so that they can get on with their lives. Thank you.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Water Amendment Bill 2018, and I do so as a passionate South Australian. South Australians have held the River Murray and the river environment very close to our hearts, because we live in one of the driest states in one of the driest continents on this earth. We're at the bottom of the Murray, where the mouth is, so basically it is really important for us in South Australia, and we are passionate about environmental flows in the River Murray and the sustainability of it. As I said, we are totally dependent on the River Murray.

It's not that long ago that we faced one of the worst droughts that we've ever seen in this nation—and it won't be the last time either. We know, if you look at the history of Australia, that droughts occur and recur continually in this country. We in South Australia all remember the Lower Lakes, where you could basically walk across this wonderful water landscape that used to exist down at Gawler, Meningie and other places. It was devastating to go down there, to see the boats, the jetties et cetera just sitting on sand, and basically to be able to walk across from Gawler to Hindmarsh Island, a place that normally has ferries going to it, boats and all sorts of water activity. You may say that we're talking about water activities, sports et cetera, but the reality is that, if you have a good flow, you know that the river is environmentally sustainable. You know that things are working upstream. It's not just us down at the bottom end that worry about the river. We need an environmentally sustainable river that can go on to do the things that it's done for us for 200 years, for our growers and other people that make a living off the river. But we have to do it in a sustainable way.

We've been arguing for many years, as we heard the member for Parkes talk about earlier—since Federation—about getting a system in place that will ensure that we get those environmental flows and we get the sustainability of the environment, and at the same time looking after communities that are dependent on the river from up top right down to the bottom. To do that, you need a national plan. To do that, you need to be on the same page with every single state and with the users of the river—the growers, the irrigators, the environmentalists and the whole lot. For a hundred years, we haven't been able to find that balance. Since Federation, the River Murray has been the focus of a lot of debate. If you go through the Hansards in this House, you will see debates that date back to Federation. That shows that it is a concern not just for South Australians but for all of Australia, because without an environmentally sustainable river we'd never be able to sustain the irrigators and the growers, the people who make the food that feeds us. So it is very important.

That's why we had the agreement in 2012—and we heard the member for Watson talk about it—where we resolved a hundred years of conflict, a hundred years of states playing off on other states with their own interests. When Labor put the plan in place, it was to deliver a healthy river, a sustainable river, a river that would sustain us for many years and sustain the environment for many years, which is so important. We on this side of the House delivered a plan for the recovery of 2,750 gigalitres for the environment and an additional 450 gigalitres of water for the environment from on-farm infrastructure. The plan includes a mechanism to allow that 450 gigalitres of water to be added, as well as a reduction of up to 650 gigalitres if the health of the environment isn't jeopardised. So you'd have to make sure that the health of the environment isn't jeopardised before that happens. And you need to test the plan, that it's got environmental targets that need to be delivered. You don't just pull that water out; you test the plan as well. So the 450 gigalitres came with a funding package of $1.77 billion that Labor delivered in 2012. That was part of the plan and the agreement. The funding is for on-farm water projects that provide the Commonwealth with the water and the money to remove constraints in the basin to allow the water to get to where it's required.

What we saw was the former Deputy Prime Minister put that 450 gigalitres of water for the environment in doubt, and that was a big thing for South Australians. We heard a lot of debates around that area at the time, because that was part of the agreement. That was part of the handshake agreement that had been put in place through all the negotiations that we heard the member for Watson talk about earlier. For South Australia, taking out that 450 gigalitres was a big issue. I'll go through that again: because we're at the bottom of that river, we're at the bottom of the river system, it is so important to ensure that we had those environmental flows, that we were able to do the things that we needed to do to get that sustainable river.

The package of measures agreed with the government overcomes that problem by locking in that 450 gigalitres, and it's locked in again. What we had was that it was originally locked in, then it was taken out, and now we've gone back to that through the negotiations. But, through this, we've lost another five years while we've tried to get to a better place. We made it clear in our negotiations with the government that we sought the following: assurances around the government's commit to deliver that extra 450 gigalitres of environmental water, those efficiency measures; assurances that the concerns regarding the quality of projects to deliver the 605 gigalitres of environmental equivalent outcomes should be resolved; and the need for taxpayer-funded environmental water to be used for environmental purposes.

We also had a comprehensive response to allegations of corruption. We all saw the Four Corners program not that long ago about allegations of water theft in the northern basin. When you're using taxpayers' money to put all these things into place to ensure that the environmental sustainability of the river takes place for the benefit of all Australians, for the benefit of everyone who is doing the right thing, then to see this was very sad. After all the work and the negotiations that had taken place, to see these allegations of corruption and water theft was one of the low points in our history. We had so many committed people on both sides of this House working to have a sustainable plan, as well as people involved in environmental groups, growers and irrigators, so to then see this happen was very sad. One of the other things was Indigenous consultation and engagement in water planning and governance.

If the outcomes aren't delivered then the plan itself says this will be resolved to deliver for a better environment. The plan is designed to deliver a healthy river. That's what we're all aiming for. A healthy river ensures that we are able to continue to grow our food products, continue to do what we do along the river that sustains us as a nation. That is No. 1. Without a healthy river, all that will finish and we'll have nothing to benefit—not our industries, not our food producers. Absolutely nothing, which will be devastating for the environment.

We've heard representations from all sides. I've heard some really good debates here today, including by the member for Parkes and the member for Watson, with some similar arguments happening on both sides. We know that some irrigators want the plan to go forward to access the funding for infrastructure projects under the programs to help deliver that 450 gigalitres of water. Other irrigators want to see the 605 gigalitres of projects to happen. And then you have others who don't want the plan at all. The debate took place across the extremities of all sides, and we saw it while this debate was going on. Some just want the 605 gigalitres for projects and not the 450 gigalitres for projects, so it's very complex, depending on what your interests are. But what we need, as I said, is a national plan that looks after the interests of the river so that we can continue in the best possible form and the best way to keep on using it for our sustainability. The Murray is just so important to the health of this country and to the nation's food security.

The deal that we have today will help to reverse some of the damage that has been caused, but we need measures in place so that when the next person comes along and wants to cause a bit of a ruckus or damage to this particular plan, and decides to destroy the deal, they are not able to do so. That is so important, because this plan will sustain us for the next 100 years. I suppose that my job as the member for the South Australian seat of Hindmarsh is to make sure that the horrendous impacts from the droughts that we saw affecting South Australia and most of the nation back in the late 1990s and 2000s are never experienced again—to be able to put measures in place that will ensure that we have the water required for our sustainability.

What I mean by that is that we need to be prepared for the next drought, because there will be a drought. There is no doubt that there'll be another drought, and we need this plan to help with that—to ensure that we are insured against the next drought that's going to hit Australia, whenever that might be. This is in addition to better environmental flows, which this plan will help with. Again, I want to thank the former Labor government and the member for Watson for that.

Also, South Australia, especially, has put measures in place for the next drought. We have a desalination plant. It gets a lot of criticism from people, but the reality is that when the next drought hits that desalination plant will be able to produce enough water for the entire metropolitan city of Adelaide—that is 1.1 million people. That will be water that won't be taken out of our flows and out of the River Murray. That is really important, even though we hear a lot of criticism about it. Measures like that may cost a bit, but they absolutely ensure that we do all that we can before the next drought decides to hit, whenever that may be, and provide water security.

It's only a matter of time, as I said before, when the next dramatic climate change event happens. We all know that climate change is real—I know there are others who don't believe in it—but droughts made by climate change are going to be prevalent, not just here but around the world. We need security: farmers need security and certainty, and our city planners need certainty as well. And, of course, our constituents—the people who we represent here—need the same thing.

So I welcome this legislation to the House. I look forward to working with this parliament and others to ensure a healthy, fairer and vibrant river system. Let's be remembered here as the generation that protected the River Murray, not the generation that sold the Murray to the highest bidder to the detriment of the entire ecosystem.

Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Water Amendment Bill 2018. It's my pleasure in this debate to represent the constituents in my electorate of Farrer, who are primarily irrigators in the Murray River, the Murrumbidgee River and the Lower Darling.

It's very easy to talk about the basin plan from a distance away, and I understand that every Australian feels a sense of ownership, belonging and purpose when it comes to environmental water and, indeed, to the farmers who make their living, principally, from that environmental water. Few people have lived with this debate for as long as my constituents and those in the member for Murray's electorate, and I pick those two because I think it's fair to say we have been the most hurt, the most affected and, arguably, the most damaged by water policy that has failed us for so long.

But I am pleased that we have arrived where we are today, and I want to reflect the support of many of my constituents, the communities that rely on irrigation, for the agreement that the minister has made with the opposition to put the basin plan back on track—to deliver, principally, the SDL adjustment mechanism for the southern basin—and also to introduce a note of anxiety about what is commonly described as the '450 gigalitre up water'.

As the opposition spokesperson, the member for Watson, has mentioned many times, those two are inextricably linked, even though the 450 gigalitre up water was added to the basin plan in 2012. So there was a sense of concern about where this plan was heading. Then, when that measure was introduced, there was a sense of alarm. Some of that has abated, but we watch and note with interest. So that is the caution that I observe today, and I want to say that my communities are going to watch the implementation of the expressions of interest around the 450 gigalitres of additional water with great interest, and scrutinising that will be my job on their behalf.

As I said, this bill revisits the disallowance motion that was lodged in the Senate earlier this year. On 7 May, the coalition government reached the agreement, which we are supportive of, with the federal opposition, to deliver the basin plan in full and on time. The agreement will see the implementation of critical amendments arising from the sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism and the Northern Basin Review. It will provide certainty to irrigators, communities, investors and the environment alike, and it will allow those communities to look to the future.

As I travelled the electorate earlier this year and talked about the impending disallowance motion and what might happen, I think the most common piece of feedback—apart from the exhaustion that all of us reflect when we've debated water for so long, particularly those farmers who've lost water and are adjusting to a future with less water—was the uncertainty, which can cripple any investment program, particularly those as substantial as those for some of the farms in the Murray and Murrumbidgee valleys. The bill is a key, therefore, to unlocking millions of dollars of investment, not just to deliver those new environmental projects, important though they are, but to add value to the commodities that are now being grown very successfully. There are not just horticultural commodities, and rice, which we're used to. With the price of sheep and lambs where it is, people are actually growing pasture on irrigation, which I certainly haven't seen for many years. There is the introduction of cotton further and further south, with new plant breeding. The expansion of almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts, particularly in the Murrumbidgee, is very exciting.

The successful delivery of the SDL adjustment means that 605 gigalitres less water needs to be recovered from irrigators and communities without comprising basin plan environmental outcomes. As a result, the government has all but completed the task of water recovery in the southern basin. Unlike the opposition, we all stand behind no further buybacks—and that outcome comes as an enormous relief to the communities that I represent. The successful delivery of the amendment also opens the path to recovery of an additional 450 gigalitres, as I mentioned, to achieve enhanced environmental outcomes, with neutral or improved socio-economic outcomes through water efficiency projects.

So, in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, we know that the additional 450 gigalitres is essentially a task for us, and that's why we are so concerned about it. We know there's lots of language around the social and economic impacts, and we see that in the context of the Murray-Darling Basin's investigations, reports and deliberations over the years, which have demonstrated how much our communities have lost.

I don't like looking at agriculture in terms of what's lost; I prefer to look at what is gained. I would never talk these regions down. They do have a bright future. But they have lost a lot of water, and they have expected that that would be it.

So I just want to reflect on what those social and economic impacts have been. I know that you can put substantial dollar figures on these things, and what do they really mean? But I have looked at much of where this information has come from, and it has come from the authority itself. There has been an economic loss of $120 million at the farm gate—I'm talking about the Murray Valley—a 30 per cent decrease in rice production and a 21 per cent decrease in dairy. The average climatic scenario, which is the standard reference point, suggests that taking 20 per cent out of the consumptive pool through water buyback has led to an average increase in temporary allocation market prices of $70 a megalitre. This is close to doubling what would have been the market price, so, if you're buying water, that is an enormous impost. Reducing the size of the consumptive pool by 20 per cent increases prices in average seasons from $130 a meg to nearly $200 a meg. That increases the number of years when rice growers will sell rather than grow from seven years out of 20 to more than 10 years out of 20—I'll come back to that.

Murray Irrigation now delivers on average around 750 gigalitres a year compared with 1,350 gigalitres prior to the millennium drought—a huge drop in water to those farm producers. The decrease in farmgate production flows on to another $77 million loss in value-add and the loss of a total of 678 jobs, with 471 lost in the contraction of irrigation itself and a further 207 lost due to flow-on effects. This represents $21 million in lost salaries across the region. There have been population declines from 2001 to 2016 of 45.6 per cent in the Wakool community, 15.8 per cent in the Deniboota community, 32.5 per cent in the Denimein community, and 20.4 per cent in Berrigan and Finley.

I certainly have always pointed the finger at Labor for these dramatic socio-economic effects. Obviously they are not totally responsible. We in this parliament all had to take the steps that were necessary under the Basin Plan and the Water Act. But the way that the Labor Party recovered water through the horrendous Swiss cheese buyback and the disregard for the fabric of the community itself was really felt in some of the areas that I've just mentioned. As I've always said, if you have to recover this amount of water, why wouldn't you consult with the communities about the best way to go about it rather than launch the sorts of buybacks that perhaps created winners in some individuals—no communities, that's for sure—but created an awful lot of losers?

The problem with an approach where the government is paying for water is that you will have unwilling sellers but you will always have willing sellers, many of whom leave the district and therefore don't provide the jobs and the value-add. I'm concerned that with the price of temporary water as high as it is now and, indeed, the price of permanent water higher than it's ever been—we had a sale of permanent water at a water auction at the Riverina Field Days in Griffith recently, and it made $5,000, which is unheard of and, we suspect, is going to permanent plantings including walnuts or almonds; I think it was almonds—we're creating the haves and the have-notes when it comes to water. Those who have a permanent water entitlement can probably sit back every year and sell it, as some of the statistics I've indicated show, but those who have to buy it in every year are crippled by the uncertainty about the cost, the affordability and even whether they would enter the farm production process in the first place given the increase in those costs. I think that's actually been a ramification of the Basin Plan that no-one really expected. If I go back all those years to all those experts I talked to, I don't think any predicted that the price of temporary water would go as high as it has, and that does sound a note of real concern.

Just to finish with the 450 gigalitres of up water, as I said, it will be my job as the local member of the communities of Griffith, where they burned the Basin Plan, Deniliquin, where they're clearly more affected than anywhere else, and the Lower Darling, where viable, vibrant horticultural producers are looking at adjusting out so that further environmental flows can be delivered down the Darling river, to look very closely at any expression of interest that is released around the 450 gigalitres of up water to make sure that it isn't just about individuals but actually about communities, because if, in this process, we lose community trust then we really have failed. At many points along this road, we have lost community trust, but when I had the strong feedback from my constituents about the fact that the Basin Plan was back on track, and I heard the approval from both sides of parliament for that, I felt a sense of that community trust. As custodians of that we have to be really careful that we don't lose it again. If we launch any sort of approach into the basin that is seeking to capture water and tick a box that says 'socio and economic consultation and effects are neutral or positive' but they actually aren't really—if we do that and we don't do it well—then that trust will fall apart.

I am concerned that within the plan—and certainly intrinsically as part of the 450 gigalitres—there is a flow target at the South Australian border of 80,000 megalitres a day. Anyone anywhere in the southern basin, whether they are farmers or officials in the state or federal departments—perhaps I shouldn't say the federal department, but certainly the state department which is actually out on the basin understanding the day-to-day flow of the system—will tell you that that is completely impossible. We have to be pragmatic about this. If it can't be delivered, we have to acknowledge that it can't be delivered and South Australia has to acknowledge it can't be delivered. The opposition spokesperson on water has to acknowledge that it's unreasonable to place it there. If you have to deliver 80,000 megalitres at the South Australian border, what are you doing to the communities upstream to deliver it? How can you possibly push that water down a system with locks, weirs and the Barmah Choke—and even post the works that will be done at Menindee down the Lower Darling—and not sacrifice the farms and the communities upstream?

Effectively, the New South Wales government can't allow that to happen. The New South Wales government are the keepers of the final decisions on what projects happen on the ground. If there are genuine third-party impacts, they will wear them and they will be responsible. I know that as we get closer to this process from where we are now we will focus very much on what this actually means on the ground for riparian funding, for irrigator allocations, for the price of water and for the communities that depend so much on all of this.

I congratulate the minister for landing the deal that we were most worried about earlier on in the year. I congratulate too my constituents for coming on board and supporting all of us with a Basin Plan that looks to a brighter future.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have learnt a lot when it comes to water, particularly since the introduction of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan many years ago. It is true that, prior to the plan, the water wars did create a lot of uncertainty in our communities. There were those who thumped the table and said, 'You can never have our water.' There were those who thumped the table and said, 'We should completely end all forms of cotton growing or rice growing because they take too much water from the system.' We've come a long way from those days, from the days when people burnt the plan in protest. I want to acknowledge in this contribution on the Water Amendment Bill 2018 the mature role that these communities and the irrigators in the agricultural sector have played. They have said to all of their political representatives: 'We need to remove the politics from water. We need to focus on the plan and on the regions.' There's been a real acceptance and even an embrace in many of these communities of the positive impact the plan is making.

I want to acknowledge the work, particularly in the southern basin region, that communities and farmers in the agriculture sector have engaged in to really modernise and reduce their water impact. It is quite remarkable when you walk on farm and see the change that is occurring. Yes, we got some things wrong. Yes, in the early days there were projects that probably weren't the best projects. But as we grow in this plan and really mature we are learning more and more about the best way to become more water efficient and to return more water to the system.

I've had the opportunity to meet with rice growers and with cotton growers on farm. What you learn when you are on a header or on a picker does go a long way to really help understand where our growers and our farmers are coming from. Take cotton for example. Today they've reduced their water usage in the southern basin by about 40 per cent. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has also helped unlock water in the region. Farmers who previously did not have a water entitlement or access to water can now purchase water on the temporary water market.

I do note that, whilst this plan doesn't look at the water market, there's work that we need to do in another space around the impact of the water market to truly ensure that it is a fair market. The idea of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is we do need to have steps in place. It does need to be a robust plan that is able to reflect changes to the environment, changes due to drought and what may or may not be impacting on our rivers. Many people may not know this, but Bendigo is one of the electorates that is at the base of the plan. Whilst we are not on the Murray, we are very much part of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Water has always been a strong concern in my part of the world. We know that our river systems do not have the same inputs that they once had to the Murray. Because we are having drier seasons, the Campaspe and the Loddon are not delivering what they have previously. There are discussions that we have regularly with the catchment management authorities in our part of the world about what we're doing.

As has been outlined, the amendment that is before us has been about us in the federal parliament coming back together in a bipartisan way and engaging about how to get the plan back on track. Nobody for a moment should pretend that this is an easy area of public policy. It isn't just about bipartisanship in this place; it is also about asking states to partner with us on how to deliver and manage the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Being from Victoria, all of you would know the comments of Lisa Neville, the water minister, who said 'not one drop more'. Lisa Neville is the water minister for Victoria and champions the best interest for Victorians. Equally, the same could be said about South Australian water ministers, New South Wales water ministers and Queensland water ministers. That is why it is so critical for us to have a plan that sits over the top of all of our states and works in collaboration. We cannot have a proactive plan that is about achieving outcomes for the system without the engagement of the states. It's just as important to have the states at the table as it is to have both sides of politics in this place at the table.

What also has been delivered in the plan is a commitment around the funding package to help deliver the 450 gigalitres that has been so talked about. We know that this will come through voluntary on-farm water projects with the Commonwealth, and calling for expressions of interest is the first stage. We also know, through work and conversations with the communities and the constituents engaged, that they have some innovative ways that they believe that they can help contribute towards achieving this environmental water outcome. That's the key point I was really wishing to express in this: in the years in which we've had the plan enacted, there has been real engagement, maturity, innovation and transparency that has come from a lot of the communities and the stakeholders engaged about how they can contribute and deliver.

I will be honest: I've met with a lot of dairy farmers and they have real concerns in the Murray region. Some farmers—and you can't hold this against them—sold out in the early days and sold their water entitlement. This is the Swiss cheese effect that we're talking about. In a particular area, you may have lost quite a few people in the system, and then the maintenance of the system that's left is left to the few dairy farmers that might be there. That is a real concern. We have to look at transition; we have to look at how we can help those areas. You can't hold it against the farmers, some of whom were crippled with debt. The banks put pressure on them, they had a water entitlement and so they sold it. With the farmers who are now left, we need to work with them to ensure that the ongoing cost and maintenance in those irrigation systems is fair. How do we make sure that the cost of that is fair?

Then you look to what's going on in the Riverina, and how some of the communities in the Riverina held back a bit and then proactively engaged on how to ensure water efficiency and energy efficiency. They really, really are driving the innovation in this space. There is an opportunity. What Labor is saying is that, 'Well, we can all work together on achieving good outcomes for irrigators and farmers at the same time as achieving good outcomes for the environment.' Transparency is paramount and compliance is paramount. We need to ensure that there is integrity within the plan. There are different interests; just take the states alone. They come to this from very different places. So ensuring that we have transparency and accountability and ensuring that we have compliance are paramount.

I know that in the southern basin, the area closest to me, there was a lot of concern about the issues being raised on what was going on in the northern basin. There were impacts further downstream because of the reports they were hearing about the northern basin. These were starting to concern communities. That is why it's good to see the movement by the New South Wales government and this government to ensure compliance and also transparency, giving those people in the south the security and the confidence in the plan that they need.

Metering funding is critical so that we know how much water is being used in the north. Again, it's to ensure that confidence and transparency going forward. Also, there are: having the modelling being done made available to the public; ensuring that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has the resources that it needs and the expertise that it needs; and ensuring that there is genuine peer review in any work that's put forward so that we can have the confidence in the system going forward.

It is an area of public policy, as I have said, that is vexed and hard to navigate. For 100-plus years we've struggled with it as a country. It's one of those core issues when we debate state rights. But what was agreed in 2012 really put us on the path to resolving this conflict, and only through continued engagement and dialogue can we actually achieve and deliver what is necessary to keep the health of our river and our river system, not just for today but for future generations.

It's also great to acknowledge that in this set of reforms there is funding to assist our First Nations in the north and south basin to acquire water entitlements for cultural reasons. Cultural water is important. I know the engagement with our First Nations around the Gunbower area has really helped to drive changes in how the water is managed by the catchment management authority. It might surprise some environmentalists, but quite often the farmers and the local elders were on the same page about when the water should flow through the Gunbower network and systems.

There are a lot of those lessons, and I think that the point I'd like to end on is that the plan exists to restore health to the basin for all of those reasons: economic, social, cultural and environmental. We can all coexist. It is about open dialogue; transparency; supporting a just transition and funding towards those areas; encouraging innovation; and supporting the good work that's being done and building on those lessons. I understand that those opposite do sometimes like to reignite the wars for political reasons, but that doesn't do much to really help the situation. I do want to acknowledge the efforts that have been made by the minister to rebuild the bridges in those areas.

Unfortunately, not all of the members on the other side come to this debate with that level of maturity. The member for Murray should really reduce the politics in this space and get back to being bipartisan and working with all parties to deliver a just transition in his area. Our agricultural communities and our regional communities have so much opportunity. We do need to work with these areas to ensure that we have strong investment and that so that there is a plan for these areas going forward. Just seeing some of the transformations going on in the Riverina—there are some great things going on in that part of the world that other parts of Australia can really learn from.

Transparency and accountability are critical to the survival of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Working together in a bipartisan way can deliver on all four key factors—environmental, social, economic and cultural.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm happy to rise to speak to the Water Amendment Bill 2018. I do so as a member for a South Australian electorate, South Australia always having had a particular interest in the health of the Murray-Darling Basin, and also as a former water minister—albeit for a matter only of several weeks—and as a shadow water minister during the last term of parliament who understood, I think, the fragility of this plan and the importance of bipartisanship and agreement between the two major parties to keep on track a plan that was so hard fought.

I'll come to the processes that have led us to be considering this bill. The bill is quite specific. The bill allows for the Northern Basin Review instrument—the Northern Basin Review being an element of the plan—to be remade and to be tabled again in the parliament. But, more broadly, this bill reflects an agreement between the major parties, notably the minister who's at the table today and our shadow minister, the member for Watson, essentially to get the Murray-Darling Basin Plan back on track. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that this plan was, for a period of time, hanging by a thread, and with it was also hanging by a thread the best possible chance our nation has of returning this incredibly important river system to a sustainable, healthy condition for now and the future.

The scale of the achievement that's enshrined in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is difficult to overstate. It was incredibly hard fought and follows literally decades of disagreement and conflict around the way in which the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was managed. But it focuses on one of the most important environmental and economic assets that this nation has. About 40 per cent of the nation's agriculture is dependent upon the health of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, feeding into about $19 billion of our GDP. Those figures are probably out of date; it's probably substantially more than that now. Particularly importantly—I say this as a resident and a representative of Adelaide—it delivers drinking water for about 1.3 million or more Australians. So this is an incredibly important environmental, social, cultural and economic asset, and the scale of achievement, as I said, in finalising and then delivering the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is really difficult to overstate.

The history of this basin has been one of political conflict, conflict within industry, conflict between industry and environmental groups, and essentially overextraction—extraction at levels that have seen a steady, inexorable decline in the health of this incredibly important national asset. That really is the history. The present and the future have added to that level of overextraction and mismanagement, I think, of what essentially is a national asset fought over between states. Added to those pressures is now the pressure of climate change and a drying trend that you, Deputy Speaker Irons, would certainly see in Western Australia, particularly the Wheatbelt of Western Australia, but that we also see in the south-east of our continent.

I just want to remind members of some of the work that the Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO have done around rainfall and stream flow rates in the south-east, including in the Murray-Darling Basin area. The bureau and CSIRO publish every two years what I think is an incredibly important, user-friendly report called the State of the climate report. In the 2016 State of the climate report there was a particular focus on rainfall and stream flow rates in those key growing regions of Western Australia, or the south-west of the continent, and the south-east of the continent, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin. I just want to remind members a bit about what the CSIRO and the bureau said is happening in those regions to add additional pressure to the pressures that have been on this system, on the Murray-Darling Basin, already for many years because of overextraction. In their report of 2016, the bureau and the CSIRO said:

There has been significant drying across southern Australia, especially across the cool April-October growing season—

which is a particular pressure on our farming communities. The report said:

The recent drying across southern Australia is the strongest recorded large-scale change in rainfall since national records began in 1900. This decrease, at an agriculturally and hydrologically important time of the year—

the peak growing season—

is associated with a trend towards higher mean sea level pressure in the region … A known response to global warming is an increase in mean sea level pressure across southern Australian latitudes … This means that years with lower-than-average growing season rainfall are expected to be more frequent than in the past. Southeast Australia—

which obviously takes in much of the basin—

had below-average rainfall in sixteen of the last twenty April-October periods since 1997.

Perhaps more important for irrigator communities than rainfall data, though, as the minister would appreciate very well, is the streamflow—the amount of the rainfall water that actually reaches the river system. The bureau and the CSIRO particularly focused on streamflow rates, which are dramatically down in the south-west of the continent, in your state, Deputy Speaker—I won't go into that, because it's not covered by the Murray-Darling Basin Plan—but also down very dramatically in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The report says:

The reduction in rainfall across southern Australia is amplified in streamflow.

Obviously, rainfall needs to be sufficient to saturate the ground before rain then flows into the river systems and is available to irrigator communities. The agencies say:

Since the mid-1990s, streamflow in the southeast is around half the long-term average. During the same period—

since the mid-1990s, obviously—

streamflow in the Murray-Darling Basin was 41 per cent lower than average and in some basins in the west and central regions of Victoria, such as the Campaspe Basin, streamflows have declined more than 70 per cent.

If we were not able to start to get the controls on extraction in the basin that you see in the plan, these pressures would arguably place communities across the river system, and the environmental health of the river itself, in perilously dangerous condition.

I am a representative of South Australia in this debate. South Australia has been making demands since the 1890s for this basin to be managed better and better. At the constitutional conventions, as followers of these debates would know, Charles Cameron Kingston, who was perhaps the leading constitutional convention delegate from South Australia, argued that because the basin crossed then colony, and soon to be state, lines, it should be managed by a national government. It was then an incredibly important national asset, as it continued to be right through the 20th century. South Australia, as so often happens to be the case, got done over by the big states yet again. The upstream states, New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, particularly, were able to continue to extract water from the system as much as they wanted.

It wasn't until the federation drought, over the course of the turn of the 19th and into the 20th century, that pressure really built for the upstream states to come to the table and start to talk about a better management system for this critical water source. That happened in 1902, only a year after the creation of the Commonwealth and really at the point where the federation drought began to break. My great-grandfather was a signatory to the River Murray Water Agreement of 1914, which resulted from that coming together. It took 12 years to get an agreement. It took us a fair bit of time, as well, to get the basin plan agreed to by the member for Watson and different states. It's always been thus. It took 12 years to get the River Murray Water Agreement of 1914 signed, which my great-grandfather signed on behalf of South Australia. It resulted in significant infrastructure being built—locks and weirs in the river system—and secured minimum monthly flows to South Australia from upstream states.

But there really wasn't much progress from then. For the following 100 years there was not much progress whatsoever in a system that would better manage this critically important economic and environmental asset. Since that time, it was essentially a matter of ongoing dispute between the different states, particularly with South Australia, as the downstream state, feeling that it was in a fight against Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

Water reform did progress under prime ministers Keating and Howard. Internationally, I think our water market arrangements are seen as some of the best, some of the really exemplary water market arrangements anywhere in the world. But we weren't able to translate that foundation of a water market into better management for the basin until the member for Watson was able to finalise the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, in 2012. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan, at its heart, seeks to return the system to environmental health, because everything hangs on environmental health—industries and the health of the communities across the river system. Nothing will work if the river is not returned to environmental health. That is why we have argued against the, I think, inexplicable decision by Prime Minister Turnbull to give responsibility for the implementation plan to the agriculture ministry. This was something that Prime Minister Howard understood was not the right approach. This was something that Prime Minister Abbott understood was not the right approach. For some inexplicable reason, only able to be explained by base politics, Prime Minister Turnbull decided to give the then minister, the member for New England, responsibility for implementing a plan he had railed against year in and year out. We say that this should be a plan managed by the Department of the Environment and Energy and the Environment portfolio, because industry, communities and the environmental health of the system depend upon returning this system to a sustainable and healthy condition.

The core element was returning 3,200 gigalitres, or 3,200 billion litres, of water to the system. That was the core element and the central position of the plan. For some, for example the Greens party, the perfect was the enemy of the good. They thought it should be more than 3,200, so, often true to form in these policy areas, they voted against the plan. I understand that they've been railing against it in the Senate, in the other place, over the course of the last couple of weeks. Members of the National Party, including the current Deputy Prime Minister, voted against the plan as well. On the fringes—the far Right and the far Left—there was opposition, but, fortunately for the system and for the nation, there were enough sensible heads at the centre on both sides of politics to recognise this was our only chance of returning the system to a sustainable and healthy condition.

Within those 3,200 billion litres was a core condition, particularly for South Australia, and that was the additional 450 gigalitres. The member for New England had made his position clear before, and since, becoming the minister with the responsibility for this plan: he did not regard that as a favourable term. He made it clear that he had no real intention of implementing that critically important part of the plan, and that has been a central element in the undermining of confidence in this plan. I want to say that that is probably the key reason why the plan has been put back on track by the minister and by the shadow minister, the member for Watson, over recent weeks. The government wasn't really committed to the plan, as evidenced by the position the member for New England had for many years about the 450 gigalitres of so-called up water. Compliance was not being taken seriously, as seen most obviously in New South Wales. And there simply wasn't enough scrutiny on the so-called SDL adjustment projects—the sustainable diversion limit adjustment projects—with the 605 gigalitres of down water. There wasn't enough scrutiny for people to have confidence.

All of those elements and all of those concerns have been dealt with by this agreement between the minister and the shadow minister. There's a good package of measures, which I think gives a much clearer commitment to that additional 450 gigalitres, linking payments for those states that have SDL adjustment projects and linking payments for those projects to their cooperation with the 450-gigalitre process of so-called up water. There's better compliance in this package, particularly in the northern basin. There's better scrutiny of the SDL adjustment projects, including through technical workshops that the authority will run with groups like the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, and, as the member for Bendigo said when she spoke before me, there's much better support for cultural water outcomes for Indigenous Australians in the basin area. I want to reiterate that this plan, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, is far and away our best chance of returning the river to a healthy and sustainable condition, and we cannot let that chance slip away.

Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Water Amendment Bill 2018 and to once again place on the record that federal Labor will stand up and will fight for a healthy Murray River wherever and whenever we need to. It's particularly the South Australian members of our federal Labor caucus who have shown that we are passionate about making sure that we have a healthy, strong and vibrant river, and we know that that is just not possible unless you ensure that the river is healthy all throughout.

When I stood in this place to make my very first speech, I made a commitment to the parliament and to the people of Adelaide that I would stand up and use my time as a member of parliament to fight for the River Murray. I'm here today to say that I intend to do that until my last speech in this parliament, because we know how critically important the river is. We know that we need to get the plan back on track, and we need to get it back on track now, which is why federal Labor have been working with the government to achieve these compromises and to make sure that the plan can proceed. We know that this plan has been worked upon for not just years or decades but a century. People have bickered about the River Murray. As South Australians, we see the result first when the Murray is not working, when consensus is not reached and when we don't have an agreement. We see it particularly in times of drought, as the member for Hindmarsh outlined to the House earlier. We also know that after a century of fighting, of different jurisdictions putting their own interests ahead of the interests of a strong and healthy River Murray, there was a historic agreement reached in 2012. We are proud that the member for Watson led those negotiations, and we are proud that it was a federal Labor government that finally saw a way forward and an agreement.

That agreement was put in great jeopardy in part because of the member for New England holding the water portfolio. This is the member who famously told South Australians if they were concerned about the health of the River Murray to just move to where the water was. We have also seen some horrendous examples of water theft, of corruption and of water being diverted away from our river system. After this evidence of water theft and corruption, we saw that, once more, the National Party, particularly the member for New England, were prepared to play politics, to say one thing to the national media but to say the complete opposite in their own communities when talking to irrigators. This was particularly so following the evidence of the water theft and corruption when the member for New England was recorded saying in a pub: 'I'm glad it's our portfolio, a National Party portfolio, because we can go out and say, "No, we're not going to follow on that".' He also went on to say, 'We'll make sure that we don't have the Greenies running the show.' Today my message to the National Party, to the member for New England and to anyone who tries to stand in the way of a healthy Murray River is that there are no jobs in a dead river. There are no jobs upstream; there are no jobs downstream. We know that we need to fight to ensure that the mouth of the river stays open and that we have the necessary environmental flows to ensure that the whole ecosystem is protected.

I know that there are some challenging elements of change for communities. I absolutely acknowledge that. But we have worked for far too long, for far too many decades, to see this plan fail. That's why the Labor Party were prepared to sit down, to compromise, to work with the government. We're really pleased with this package. We're pleased to see that the 450 gigalitres of environmental flows will be delivered. We're pleased with the commencement of recovering the 450 gigalitres through an expression of interest, that there is an assurance that the 605 gigalitre projects will be delivered by linking the payments for supply measures with efficiency measures for environmental water and that, if the 450 gigalitres isn't being recovered, the funding for the 605 gigalitres of projects won't be provided.

The member for Murray accused us of looking at short-term politics. Let's make this very clear: the Labor Party's position is about a long-term commitment to a healthy Murray River. We fought for it, we delivered a plan, and we are not going to see the politics that is being played by some put that plan in jeopardy. We will get it back on track and we will work with the government constructively to make sure that happens. We have seen that the South Australian community and, I must say, the South Australian media, including The Advertiser, have done a great job in putting pressure on members of parliament and on members of the government to ensure that this plan is delivered. But I have great fears. The draft redistribution in front of us at the moment shows no marginal seats in South Australia. I know that those opposite have only been encouraged to come to this plan because of the electoral consequences if they do not.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.