Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Recently I had the opportunity to meet a couple of young farmers from around the Yarrawonga region. Obviously the main topic of conversation was that of water policy and the cost of water on the temporary market. Normally when I go to meet the farmers to discuss the cost of water it's because the prohibitively high cost of water is stopping farmers from farming, as the profits simply aren't in dairy, horticulture, rice or cropping to be paying $600 a megalitre to buy the water in to your farm in the first place.

My experience two weeks ago, though, was totally different. Here I was talking to young farmers with permanent water, highly efficient farms and zero losses, so they should have been able to go about their farming without a care in the world. The problem is that they get out of bed every day, work their farms, use their tractors, use their equipment and their machinery, start their pumps, look after the stock, and engage in all the local trades that are needed to run a farm—mechanics, electricians, agronomists, transport operators, grain merchants, plumbers to help with the pumps. They can do all that, have a good year and maybe make $150,000 in profits, or they can sit on their backsides, sell their water on the temporary market and maybe make $500 or $600 a megalitre—$400,000 for doing nothing—and disengage totally from the rest of the community. When we have a situation where it's more profitable to your sell your water, sit on your bum and do nothing than it is to grow feed for livestock then we have a serious problem in the market, and it's one that needs to be addressed. (Time expired)