David Littleproud (Maranoa, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can say categorically that in no way, shape or form could the coalition support this bill, the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023. This is a breach of faith with Murray-Darling Basin communities and it is a breach of faith with this parliament. This legislation was brought in under the previous Labor government in 2012, when the member for Watson was the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. What they are doing is tearing down the very legislation that they put in place and opening up basin communities to the trauma that they faced in 2012. These communities had stoically moved on and were prepared to accept their lot to be able to say that that was the end of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. But, in one of the nastiest and most callous pieces of legislation, this government wants to reopen the trauma for communities right up and down the basin.

In 2012 there was a Basin Plan that asked to recover 2,750 gigalitres in a bipartisan way. That bill was agreed to by both sides of parliament. In addition to that, after the agreement of 2,750 gigalitres, the then minister, the member for Watson, who is now the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, added an additional 450 gigalitres to be recovered for the environment. He did something very smart and something I very much respect—he made sure that the additional 450 gigalitres had a social and economic neutrality test. Even the member for Watson at that point knew intrinsically what would happen to basin communities if you ripped another 450 gigalitres out of the consumptive pool—you'd tear away their economies and you'd destroy their very essence. We already saw that with what 2,750 gigalitres would do.

Proudly, we have recovered over 2,100 gigalitres, and we are on track to recover the full 2,750 gigalitres. And, proudly, we had an agreement with all the states to find a way to have that neutrality test that the now industrial relations minister put in place to give protection to regional communities. That was agreed to by all the states and the Commonwealth, and this has been torn up by one of the most callous governments that couldn't care less about regional Australia. This will destroy regional communities. The fact that there is not even an acknowledgement of the recovery of over 2,100 gigalitres and the impact that that has had on the regional communities up and down the basin shows the callousness and the nastiness of this legislation.

This is actually going to go even further than that original 2,750 gigalitres, and we agreed, in extending the time lines. I've got to say that that bipartisanship that was struck in 2012 was extended when I was water minister in 2017, and I worked with the member for Watson to make sure the legislation that he put in place was finalised. One of my biggest parliamentary achievements was to make sure that the SDLAM was put in place and that the Northern Basin Review was legislated. What that meant, particularly for the SDLAM, was that we could use infrastructure, rather than the blunt instrument of buybacks—a lazy, blunt instrument that destroys regional communities—to recover water.

You know what? Everyone sits there and goes, 'The farmer gets the money.' That's well and good, but the farmer toddles off to the coast, and what's left behind are the regional communities that were once there to support them. It's about the machinery dealers, the agronomists and the irrigation shop. It's actually the cafe and the hairdresser that also lose. That's what happens when you have buybacks. It's a blunt instrument that does nothing but destroy regional communities. What the member for Watson and I were able to strike with the SDLAM mechanism meant that we could recover that water with infrastructure. That's common sense. That was a bipartisan approach that we were able to put through this parliament to make sure we gave protection to those communities.

I'm proud of the fact that, before me as water minister, the then water minister, the member for New England, was able to put in place another safeguard mechanism, which was a cap on the number of buybacks that could be taken up—up to 1,500 gigalitres of the 2,750 gigalitres. That gave protection and that meant that there was investment confidence in putting in infrastructure for the recovery of water for regional communities, rather than using the blunt instrument of buybacks. That is how parliament should operate: by understanding what happens out there in the real world, not the ideology of what happens in here.

I paid tribute to the member for Watson, while I stood on that side, for the bipartisan way that he worked with me in making sure of the SDLAM and the Northern Basin Review, and they mean that, in my part of the world, in Queensland and northern New South Wales, we only had to recover 320 gigalitres, rather than 390 gigalitres, because the science said so and because we had the common sense to use the infrastructure to be able to deliver that water back to the environment. We worked together as a parliament. The now minister for water was in this parliament in 2012 and voted for the original Murray-Darling Basin Plan, for the SDLAM and for the Northern Basin Review. She sat in here, with bipartisanship. Now, in laying basin communities at the political altar of the Labor Party, the minister is prepared to tear all that up and tear apart the livelihoods of people up and down the basin. What sort of government governs for just one part of this country and just thinks about the capital cities and how this may look?

The practical reality is that this will decimate communities. In fact, the government doesn't even understand the practical realities of delivering this water. An additional 450 gigalitres on top of the 2,750 gigalitres is near impossible to deliver without environmental damage. There is this little thing called the Barmah Choke, and it's what they call a physical constraint. It's a physical constraint in how you deliver water down the Murray, down to South Australia. If you put too much through that Choke, what happens is this thing called a flood. What happens is that it destroys the environment where that water floods out over. In fact, when I was water minister we had trouble with the Commonwealth water holder letting too much water out, with perverse environmental outcomes, across the Barmah Choke.

This is where common sense and reality don't meet the ideology of what this government is doing. This is all about ideology. The additional 450 gigalitres are really in essence what we are arguing about. What we are arguing about is honouring an agreement, honouring what we sat in this parliament and agreed upon. But to turn your back on that and to turn your back on basin communities is something that is all about politics rather than the care and understanding in what this is going to do and what you signed up to. Where is the integrity of this government? In fact the Prime Minister was also here and signed up to the Murray Darling Basin Plan 2012. He signed up to the amendments that I put in place to ensure that the Basin Plan could be completed in time. But now they want to turn their back on that and walk away.

We agree with elements of this bill around extending time for the delivery of the Basin Plan. There's been commentary from the Minister for the Environment and Water saying that the National Party and the Liberal Party have been sabotaging this plan. Well, 2,100 gigalitres have been recovered, and, yes, they recovered most because they used the blunt instrument of water buybacks. They couldn't care less about regional communities, so what we did was put a cap on it and then we went to infrastructure. That was the sensible way that has got us to 2,100 gigalitres and will get us to 2,750 gigalitres if we give the states time. But let me tell you about the sabotage piece. The infrastructure hasn't been completed. I don't know where the environment minister has been, but there was this little thing called COVID. Unfortunately, what happened was much of that infrastructure couldn't be built.

The states couldn't build it, although the money had been set aside and projects had been brought forward. There is an acknowledgement that some of those projects haven't gone all the way through to fruition. We appreciate that, but the states have been collaborative in their efforts to continue to bring forward new projects to deliver the 2,750 gigalitres. That is the magic number, and that can be delivered with infrastructure. We are saying we need to give the states more time to build that infrastructure. It has been delayed because of this little thing called COVID, even though that seems to be an oversight in the politicisation of this by the environment minister, who happens to live in Sydney and has very rarely gone anywhere near a basin community. When she does, it is by invite only, which goes to show the actual transparency of this and actually embracing of basin communities. Their livelihoods are going to be ripped apart, but we had a members in speeches in the previous debate talking about people being exploited for wages. Well, this government is exploiting regional communities.

This government is exploiting the livelihoods of regional communities by taking away the very tools they need to make a living. But yet, with a smile on her face, they are prepared to take away their livelihoods because we are just political collateral. What sort of government does that to their fellow Australians? What sort of government cares that little about regional Australians and the tools that they need, despite the amount of heavy lifting that they have done for this environment in putting 2,100 gigalitres back through the mouth of the Murray? No congratulations, no thanks, but just, 'We want more.' What sort of government does that to their fellow Australians? What sort of government wants to tear away at a nation's food security? What sort of government wants to continue to drive up food prices because our farmers don't have the tools to produce your food and fibre? Yes, you can turn up to Coles and Woollies every Friday to do your shopping, but there might not be as much on the shelves as there was because we don't have the tools to be able to produce it. How can the government understand an agricultural production system if they are not prepared to get out of Sydney and sit there and listen to basin communities, sit there and listen to the supply chain companies about the challenges they are facing? Instead, we have an environment minister that tucks herself away in Sydney, hides away and won't even talk to basin communities. What sort of government does that to their fellow Australians?

There is a commonsense way through this, and I had a bipartisan way with the member for Watson. We worked collaboratively to get that legislation through, and I am very proud of the 450 gigalitres. I'm also proud of what he did when he was minister to understand that we needed a safeguard mechanisms for the 450 gigalitres, the extra water, to make sure that regional communities won't hurt. He did the right thing by this nation, and he did the right thing by basin communities by putting in place a social and economic neutrality test. I'm proud to say that in December 2018 I got every state to sign up to that test. That was akin to getting peace in the Middle East. South Australia signed up to the neutrality test. They understood that not only South Australian communities but communities right up the basin to Queensland were going to be impacted if we didn't put that in place. So they gave us that commitment, and we worked together.

Now we have a government that is going to breach that confidence with the states and with us and what we achieved in a bipartisan way. Our parliament should be better than this. Our parliament should understand the impacts for every Australian. It's not about a political headline. We were able to get that neutrality test, and the environment minister walks in here and says we've only recovered two gigalitres of it. That's because you have to prove the social and economic neutrality test. If the environment minister put the energy into delivering the infrastructure to recover the full 2,750 gigalitres that we all signed up to, we'd all agree to sign up to that. This parliament did that.

To come back and change the goalposts and change the rules for these basin communities—what sort of government does that? It's a government that doesn't care, that doesn't understand and that is prepared to put them on the altar of political expediency. That's an Australia that we should not be proud of, and we can be better than that. So let me make this clear: the coalition can't support this political facade that is going to destroy communities. Study after study after study—economic studies everywhere—has shown the economic impact on our regional communities, and the minister comes in and says, 'Well, I'll give you some sort of economic package.' She can't even quantify it. She can't even justify it. But we don't want it. We just want you to deliver the plan, the 2,750 gigalitres, and get out of our lives.

The 450 gigalitres, the neutrality test, should stay to give that protection. But then to open up buybacks to achieve those 450 gigalitres plus what's left of the 2,750—they don't like what the states have done—means it could potentially be in excess of 700 gigalitres. The minister can't even quantify how much that's going to cost the Australian taxpayer. It's somewhere between $5 billion and over $20 billion. Who's going to pay for that? The Australian taxpayer is going to take it in the neck, and then they're going to take it in the neck the second time around when you rip away agricultural production and up goes your food price. Those people sitting out there today in the cities who have the comfort of going to Coles and Woolworths are thinking things are tough at the moment. Well, wait until you rip away the very tools that we need to produce your food and fibre, because you'll pay. You will pay and you should pay because this government has got it wrong, and farmers shouldn't have to bear the cost. You'll bear the cost, and that's because of an ideology that doesn't meet the practical reality.

The environmental outcomes of this can be achieved with common sense and infrastructure, not with buybacks. We are waiting for this government to come back to the table in a bipartisan way, as I did in 2017 with the member for Watson and as we did in 2012 to let this through, which was one of the hardest decisions—I wasn't here—I would suspect any coalition government had to sign up to. We had the courage to say that we needed to do something and we needed to use the common sense and the solutions that would protect our regional communities. Never in our wildest dreams would we think that, one day in the future, a government that is still riddled with the same members who put this in place would walk away from the very piece of legislation that they put in here.

Where are their values? Where are their morals for them to do this to regional Australia? Those who sat in those chairs on the Treasury benches and designed this legislation and put this through in a bipartisan way then come and change the rules. Where are they? Where is the minister for environment? Where is she to come up and to justify her decision about changing the very legislation that she passed in 2012? You've got to ask where is the ticker. This is more about politics than anything else. So we can't support buybacks on the 450. We can't support removing the buyback cap on the 1,500 gigalitres. It will decimate communities. I've seen it myself in Dirranbandi and St George.

When I was a bank manager out in St George, the first job I did was a mortgagee in possession for the local council. They were selling the last block available in Dirranbandi. It sold for $500. I was there for two years. Water developments were going on. Cotton was coming through. When I left two years later, the last block in Dirranbandi sold for $15,000. That's not a lot to you people in the city, but to the people in Dirranbandi that was big. It was investment in a new motel. The pub got redeveloped. A machinery dealership turned up. An irrigation shop turned up. And then, in 2012, along came the Labor government. It was riddled with the same people as this one. Dirranbandi went down. It had 500 kids in the school and that went down to 100 overnight as soon as the Murray-Darling Basin Plan came in.

So don't you think we've taken the pain? Don't you think that the hurt that you've inflicted already is enough? Don't you think that we deserve a fair go? Don't you think that regional Australians, those in the basin, should have the same opportunity to get up in the morning, make a living and be given the tools to be able to do it and not have them taken away because of some ideological whim? That's not the Australian way.

The Nationals and the Liberals can't stand anywhere near this. This is a line in the sand. It is a line in the sand for regional Australians. We've had a gutful. Ever since the Albanese government got in, we have been in their firing line, whether it is taking away live sheep, whether it be what we could see in the new cultural heritage laws about our ability to go about and produce your food and fibre or whether it be about the biosecurity tax. We have a government that are going to tax their very own farmers so that their foreign competitors can bring their product in and put it on the shelf to compete against Australia farmers. How do they make this stuff up? This is the ideology that has come through.

The most disappointing, most callous and nastiest thing about all this is that everybody on that frontbench that sits across from me was here and asked for bipartisan support in 2012, and they got it. Now they've come back and just ripped us apart. What sort of party does that? That is how regional Australians and those up and down the Murray-Darling are feeling tonight. There's no confidence. People up and down the basin are scared. What government makes their own people scared? They don't see a future, because they have gone through this before. They don't deserve to go through it again—not because of a government that set the rules originally. How can we ever trust them to even cut a deal to be bipartisan in any way if we know that one day they'll come back and change the goal posts. That speaks volumes about the Albanese government.

To make this clear, we have had a gutful. Victoria have already said, 'We're out.' I hope that Queensland has the courage. I hope my lot in Queensland in October next year when they get rid of Annastacia Palaszczuk say, 'We're out too.' This takes political courage, but, more importantly, this takes national leadership. Every state should say to this government, 'We're out.' If you really care about where your food and fibre comes from, if you are worried about the price of living, if you are worried about food security, you should be out. This isn't just for us. Every person in this country, no matter where they live, is going to cop this in the neck. If you take away our tools to produce your food and fibre, you'll have to pay more and you should pay more. Farmers shouldn't do that, but our communities shouldn't have to foot the economic and social bill for it.

To make it clear, this is one of the most callous things I have ever seen in my seven years here. It is disgraceful to think that we have a Prime Minister and a water minister that asked for bipartisan support in 2012 and now have just ripped the guts out of us. That is not the Australian way.

Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make my contribution on the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023. The Albanese Labor government is working to ensure that we pass on Australia's environment, our land, sea and rivers, in better health to future generations. We're acting to protect, repair and manage nature so it grows stronger. That includes managing the water resources of our most productive region, the Murray-Darling Basin, to withstand longer and deeper droughts, more frequent floods and bushfires, and everything else that climate change will throw its way.

Irrigated agriculture in the basin produces about 15 per cent of Australia's food and fibre, contributing $8.6 billion to our economy every year. The basin is valued for its productivity and also its beauty, and its tourism is worth $11 billion. It's home to 2.3 million Australians, and more than three million people drink its water each and every day. It's home to 16 internationally significant wetlands, 35 endangered species and 120 different species of waterbird. The Water Act 2007, passed with bipartisan support, and the Murray-Darling Basin Plan 2012, adopted by the Australian government and all basin states, sets the amount of water that can be taken from the basin each year, leaving an environmentally sustainable level for the rivers, lakes, wetlands, plants and animals.

The Water Act and the Basin Plan set two water recovery targets: firstly a target of 2,750 gigalitres to bridge the gap to long-term average sustainable diversion limits; and secondly a target to recover 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water, a condition of South Australia's support for the plan. These works built on cooperative works to save rivers pushed to the brink by the millennium drought. It came from a period of environmental catastrophe, and it was designed to avoid another catastrophe from occurring. Basin governments, including the Australian government, signed onto the plan—a promise to the Australian people that we would work as one to protect what was valuable. The plan was developed to manage the basin as a whole connected system, including by setting sustainable water extraction limits.

Unfortunately, successive governments who took up the plan were unable to fully implement and achieve these targets. Those opposite spent the best part of a decade sabotaging the plan whenever they could. They blocked water recovery programs, tried to cut the final recovery targets and tie up water-saving projects by imposing impossible rules. In nine years, they delivered two gigalitres of the 450-gigalitre target. At that rate of progress, if you can call it that, the plan would be complete sometime around the year 4000. What might be news to those opposite is that we don't have that long and neither do the rivers.

Sir Angus Houston, Chair of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, has provided advice that unequivocally finds that full implementation of the Basin Plan will not be possible before 30 June 2024. Sir Angus's assessment was that, while much has been achieved in the decade of implementation, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority remains deeply concerned about key aspects of the Basin Plan's delivery. Although over 2,000 gigalitres has been recovered, the shortfall by the original 30 June 2024 deadline is expected to be over 700 gigalitres, which is 1½ times the size of Sydney Harbour. Implementation is now at a critical juncture, and it is important that governments act to overcome these challenges inhibiting the full delivery of the plan as soon as possible.

That's why the Albanese government ran a series of consultations this year. Consultations were undertaken with primary basin stakeholder groups, including irrigated agriculture, industry, local government, communities, environmentalists, First Nations and academics. Consultation was also undertaken with the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council with ministers from New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory. At the February 2023 Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council meeting, ministers asked officials to develop a package, including accountability measures and work programs, to deliver the Basin Plan in full. Many aspects of the package, which were negotiated over several months by basin governments and announced on 22 August 2023, are reflected in this bill.

In addition, the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water ran a five-week public consultation process from 29 May to 3 July 2023 seeking additional innovative ideas which would contribute to delivering the Basin Plan in full. They collected 131 submissions during the consultation process. The submissions captured a range of ideas and views, including support for extending the Basin Plan deadlines; allowing a wider range of options to achieve recovery targets; and improved use of science, data, information and technology. Key concerns raised in the submissions included the need for greater community involvement, including with First Nations people, in decision-making; program design; and addressing socioeconomic impacts of water recovery. These will be further explored through consultation with communities as the program rolls out. The package also includes funding for transitional assistance programs where water purchasing occurs.

An exposure draft of the water market reform measures in the bill was released for limited consultation with basin states and peak bodies of affected stakeholders, including irrigation infrastructure operators and water market intermediaries, in July 2023. The water market reforms are broadly supported by stakeholders, recognising the regulatory gap that currently exists in water markets. Further consultation will be undertaken to assess the regulatory impact on affected groups in the development of related regulations and legislative instruments. This will allow stakeholder feedback to appropriately be included.

We have heard calls for greater flexibility in achieving water recovery targets, calls to extend time frames and calls for investment in measures that deliver tangible environmental outcomes. These insights inform the agreement struck between basin jurisdictions last month to get the plan back on track. Basin water ministers worked hard and in good faith in recent months on the package of measures. We agreed on the need for more time, more money, more options and more accountability.

We know the next drought is just around the corner. The threats to the health of our iconic rivers and the people, plants and animals that rely on them are increasing. It is more critical than ever that our rivers are managed in the interests of nature as well as the interests of communities and industries. If we are to pass the Murray-Darling on to future generations in better health, we must finish what we started.

This bill makes sensible and practical amendments to the Water Act 2007 and consequential amendments to the Basin Plan 2012. The purpose of the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 is to amend the Water Act and the Basin Plan to implement the Basin Plan in full, including recovering the 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water. We are also implementing the recommendations of the Water market reform: final roadmap report to restore transparency, integrity and confidence in water markets. This fulfils an election commitment to work with basin governments and stakeholders for the delivery of water commitments in the Murray-Darling Basin.

We are doing this by holding basin jurisdictions to their commitment to deliver environmental outcomes equivalent to those that would have been provided by the 605 gigalitres of water through supply and constraint easing measures. We have also insisted that the 450 gigalitres of additional water—which was the basis for South Australia agreeing to join the plan—be delivered. We have also identified and are rectifying the cause of the delays in the delivery of projects that ease constraints, consistent with the constraints management strategy. These measures will restore integrity and confidence in decision-making by working with the basin jurisdictions to ensure market surveillance and other integrity functions are conducted. We are also working towards requiring all water market participants in the Murray-Darling Basin to have a unique common identifier, to enable trades to be traced and traders to be identified. We are extending Basin Plan time lines to achieve water recovery targets and time lines for states to deliver water infrastructure projects that will keep water in productive use.

We're also removing the overly restrictive rules so that we can recover the 450 gigalitres of water for enhanced environmental outcomes and getting rid of the cap of voluntary water purchases. These changes are necessary to deliver on the agreement struck between the Murray-Darling Basin water ministers to provide the long asked for certainty to basin stakeholders.

This bill also introduces a suite of water market reforms that will bring integrity and transparency into the system. Basin water markets have grown in value and complexity, outstripping the current rules in place to manage them. These staged reforms mean those buying and selling water can have confidence that the market is operating fairly. Everyone is subject to the same rules, and everyone has access to the same information at the same time.

The bill removes restrictions on the recovery of water, such as a cap on voluntary water purchases or buybacks, and extends time lines. This includes water-saving and efficiency projects being delivered by the basin states, allowing the government to deliver our election commitment to deliver the basin plan in full. The Albanese government has promised that it will always fight to protect our environment. This legislation is another example of continuing that promise. I commend the bill to the House.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I like the member for Werriwa, the previous speaker, but unfortunately she, like so many of the other Labor members, will come into this place for this debate and read from the notes that they have had provided to them by Labor's dirt unit. And that is an unfortunate fact. It's almost like AI listening to the Labor members, many of whom do not have in one sense a stake in this game—and this is an important game. But, in essence, every single member in this place, and in the Senate over there, has a stake in this debate. I'm not reading from any notes because it's in here, it's in my heart. It's also in here, in my head.

Why everybody has a stake in this debate is because three times a day, every day, every member will sit down and have something to eat. And that something to eat will be provided by a farmer. That farmer will come from Griffith or Shepparton in the member for Nicholls' electorate, or Deniliquin where Senator Perrin Davey has probably forgotten more about water policy than the collective wisdom of all of those opposite will ever know. Or it will come from elsewhere, like Renmark or some of the mighty irrigation areas of South Australia. Heaven help them if they come from Victoria though, because Victoria's not part of this plan. It's not part of the Labor Party's new, 'Let's get the basin plan in, done and legislated'. Victoria doesn't want a part of it.

What we have is a policy, a piece of legislation, going to the parliament with no Victoria. A map with Victoria taken off it. And why would that be so? Well, don't ask me, I don't know the answer to it. Ask the water minister. I see the member for Hunter chortling away there—and he's right to chortle! He's right to laugh. It is laughable. It is preposterous that you've got a government wanting to implement a plan without a key state. Absolutely ridiculous.

I talked about this in the Federation Chamber the other day and referred to a book I purchased. The book was published in 1888. It's about Australian exploration, written by Ernest Favenc. I promise you it's the only part of the speech I will read. It hasn't been produced by the coalition's talking-point department, if there is such a department—I don't know; I give most of my speeches from my heart and from my head. But it states:

In many districts of the inland slope, the rivers have sandy beds, incapable of retaining the water for more than a few months; whilst running parallel with them on either side, are chains of lagoons that often run dry through the floods not being excessive enough to overflow the banks. These lagoons are, as a rule, well calculated to hold water, and could be brought under the influence of ordinary floods, instead of being, as now, dependent upon extraordinary ones; thus atoning for the insufficient retaining power of the river bed.

The present great need of Australia is the conservation of water, and the irrigation works which have been already commenced on the banks of the Murray River, coupled with the recent discoveries of an apparently unlimited artesian supply on the arid plains of Western Queensland, testify alike to the recognition of the want, and to the ease with which it may be met. One inevitable rule of settlement is that population follows water; present prospects therefore amply justify the hope that at no very distant date the one-time "central desert" of the first explorers will be the centre of attraction for the fast-growing population of the coast line; and that in the merging together of the peoples of the colonies, now separated by merely imaginary boundary lines, will be found the one great help to the fulfilment of the desire of every true Australian, a Federated Australia—a grand result of the indomitable courage, heroic self-sacrifice, and dogged perseverance of the men of all nationalities, who have established a claim to the proud title of "Australian Explorer."

They knew in 1888 what we should know now. They were doing in 1888 what we should be doing now—that is, putting infrastructure in place, building dams, helping line the channels and making sure that the insufficiencies, perhaps, of the geography are aided by human endeavour, to meet human want and human need, to make sure that our irrigation communities can be the best that they can be. That's what we did as a coalition, and it irks me no end—it angers me—when those opposite say that we did nothing in nine years.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You did!

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, we did not, Minister Rishworth. We worked so hard, with states, to make sure that water recovery was there. We made sure that we put the infrastructure in place. As the infrastructure minister and Deputy Prime Minister, I gained an extra $3½ billion for the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund. Tasmania—the Liberal state of Tasmania—came to the table and built Scottsdale dam. And I have to say that Minister Bailey was interested in what we were doing in Queensland. I'm only sorry that we weren't able to progress that. Certainly the Nationals in New South Wales had ideas too: to lift the wall at Wyangala Dam and Dungowan Dam—and I know how much that means to the member for New England. Victoria? Well, they just said, 'Climate change will be such that we don't want to build any more water infrastructure, because we're not going to need it anyway'—a ridiculous notion.

Then, of course, we've got the newly minted New South Wales Labor Minister for Water, Rose Jackson, saying, 'We're not going to increase Wyangala Dam wall,' and, despite the floods which have beset the township of Forbes half a dozen times in the last dozen years, 'We're not going to build any flood mitigation for them; we'll just build better roads so they can escape more quickly.' I mean, have you ever? Anybody who's driving their truck along the Newell Highway at the moment, remember that when you vote next. Remember that when you're driving along the Newell Highway, one of the busiest freight corridors in this country, which has been shut for weeks and months on end because of the flooded Lachlan. Remember that Rose Jackson, the water minister in New South Wales, said that. Quite frankly, she wouldn't know what she's talking about when it comes to protecting regional communities.

Then we have Minister Burke, who last week in question time maligned the National Farmers Federation, when he said:

As an organisation, they often provide very good advice on policy, but they've never been that good when it comes to the rights of workers, historically.

That's what he said about the NFF. Then we had the member for McEwen, who yelled out across the chamber on 5 September when the member for Dawson was on his feet, declaring that the backpackers were 'scab labourers'. I'm, quite frankly, sick of how the government, its members and its ministers treat people in regional Australia who grow food, who grow fibre, who boost exports and who make sure that we are fed three times a day, every day. This stuff's important. Water is vital.

I have to admit that I did cross the floor and move the disallowance motion on the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We remember.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, we remember. I'm glad that you remember. There are two other members in the chamber still who crossed the floor with me. One's the member for Kennedy, Bob Katter, and the other's the member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt, the Greens leader. He crossed the floor for different reasons than I did. The others were the member for Murray, Dr Sharman Stone, and the former member for Hume, the late Alby Schultz—God rest his soul. We sat over there, where Minister Rishworth is sitting now, and we voted against the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

I realise the plan's important. I do. I get it. Don't raise your eyes, Minister Rishworth; I do. Don't pull faces; I do get it. But I'll tell you what—the plan did not include at that time the 450 gigalitres. Even Minister Rishworth will admit that that is extra. That's over and above. It was never part of the plan. It was never part of Prime Minister John Howard's plan. It was never part of the now Labor government's plan. It was not. It was a promise made by Julia Gillard at Goolwa prior to the 2013 election. It was. How is the government now going to possibly get 450 gigalitres—a Sydney Harbour's worth of water, almost—flushed down the system? Don't worry about the infrastructure! Don't worry about the roads or the bridges or the caravan parks or the river communities! Let's just flush that water down the system! What's going to happen to it? It's going to flood out the mouth of the Murray. The mouth of the Murray wasn't even put on the original maps, because, when they were drawing the coastline of Australia, it was sandbanked up, because that's what happens. There are pictures of the Murray completely dry. We don't want to go back to that situation, and we're not going to.

We hear so often from those opposite about how all the animals will disappear and the fish will go. Let me tell you—they do bounce back quicker. Recent history and ancient history have shown that they return far faster than the farmers will. There will be farmers who will sell their water as part of the buybacks. Buybacks is dumb policy. It's lazy policy. It's Labor policy. Yes, go and offer big prices for water! Distort the water market! That's what will happen. The river communities will suffer because farmers will. Debt-stressed farmers will sell their water, and then there will be less people going to the local hairdresser, less people going to the local club, less kids going to the local school. It all has a ripple effect—pardon the pun—on those irrigation communities.

I don't know why 'irrigators' is such a dirty word in this place. It just seems to be. I don't understand why farmers aren't ever applauded for the work that they do. But you'll get members opposite, ministers opposite, who will come here with their sheath of notes, stand there and just read, line for line, never looking up. That's what the Labor dirt unit wants. What we need is to have a real debate where people just get rid of their notes, talk from their heart, talk from the head and talk from their experience about why water is so important and why water is so vital. Let's applaud our regional communities. Let's applaud and let's pay respect to those farmers who get the dirt under their fingernails. They strive so hard to grow the food and the fibre for our nation and many others beside. There's the challenge to the Labor members—and there are plenty of them—when you come in to speak, scrap your notes.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Run out of content, have you?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I haven't run out of content and I never will, but I won't be like you, Minister Rishworth, and just read from the notes. I will speak from the heart because I know what this means to my community. I know what this means to regional Australia. I know what this means to our nation and our exporters, to those people who went to those desert plains and turned them into gardens of Eden. I know what it means to them. I know how important it is to them, and I know how much this will affect them if this plan goes through unaltered in this place and over there in the Senate because, quite frankly, some of those country communities will just have to close their doors. That will be it for them. Yes, we'll get in all the foreign food, and our grocery prices will go up and the cost-of-living crisis will get even worse. Will those members opposite care about that? I don't think they will. But they will get pats on the head when they go to the Labor dirt unit: 'Well done, you read the notes well. Good on you, excellent, good job.' That is what we face.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am going to respond to the member for Riverina, but I will do that respectfully by using his appropriate title. I was here when the member for Riverina crossed the floor and moved a disallowance motion. But what I also remember in that debate is that it was not a choice between farmers in South Australia and drinking water for Adelaide and, indeed, the environment because in the millennium drought we all remember dairy farmers being run off their land because the quality of water was so poor along the lower end of the river. There was absolutely no decent quality water, so that is why in that millennium drought we had farmers in South Australia coming together with the people in Adelaide who were looking at their drinking water running out. Of course, people were seeing turtles die, animals die and fish die all along that river. That did not have consequences for only the environment but had consequences for the people who made their living from fishing. People came together in South Australia because there was a lack of consideration and appreciation for what we faced at the end of the Murray Darling Basin.

I made the point then and I continue to make the point that a dead river is good for nobody. It is not good for farmers, it is not good for the people in the communities that rely on it and it is of course not good for the environment. The action that we took back then in government and the action that the Minister for the Environment and Water is taking now with the Water Amendment (Restoring our Rivers) Bill 2023 is absolutely about ensuring that we have a sustainable river system for the long term—long-term vision, long-term planning.

I heard the shadow minister refer to getting technology advice from 1885, I think it was. That just shows how the opposition has not come to grips with the absolutely dire straits that the Murray Darling is in, and the impact and the effort that we need to put in to make sure that this system survives. Of course, we heard a lot about dams—a lot of money for dams, just not a lot of dams built by those opposite. When we were last in government, we invested in water infrastructure. In fact, it was an absolute pleasure to visit a number of farms that were growing oranges in the Riverland and watch our $400 million investment—and that was just one of the many investments we made—in on-farm irrigation. It was looking at smart technology and it was looking at responsive technology that meant farmers were able to control their water use. They were able to monitor the soil moisture and use the water in the most efficient way possible. That is progress, that is real investment in technology and on-farm infrastructure, and that is exactly what our government did when we were last in government.

This government is now having to clean up the mess that was left by nine years of inaction. Those opposite never recanted the 450 gigalitres. They never recanted that. They were just silent on it. They said, 'Maybe we'll try.' They didn't reject it—they did not reject it—but they didn't actually deliver it. 'If we just stay silent, if we don't say anything, people might forget.' But the people of South Australia have not forgotten, and they want a government that will take action to protect, repair and manage this vital natural resource and all the ecosystems that go along with it, but also all the communities.

We need this to be sustainable in the long term. Quite frankly, to hear the member opposite make comments that this side of the House doesn't care about farming communities—that is why communities right across South Australia banded together in that millennium drought; they knew something needed to be done for the long term. If we did not manage this resource appropriately, then we wouldn't have something for the long term. Unfortunately, it has taken the election of this government to start repairing the system again and to start actually enabling the national plan, which was left to go to rack and ruin by those opposite.

South Australians repeatedly faced water ministers under the former government who were actively working against them and against the underlying Murray-Darling Basin Plan when it was agreed to in 2012. Watching the coalition infighting, we saw the progress of the plan stall. They didn't have the courage to repeal it and stand by their convictions. No, they just sabotaged it. We know that the National Party did try and amend the Water Act without the support of the Liberals in the Senate during the last term of parliament. Once again, that division, that infighting, led to a lack of action in an area that we needed action to occur.

We know that there is absolute division embedded in the opposition when it comes to water buybacks. But we need a plan, and that does involve water buybacks. It does involve investment in infrastructure. It does involve bringing state and Commonwealth ministers together to make progress on the Murray-Darling plan as we outlined. I would like to commend the minister for water for the leadership that she has taken from day one of becoming a minister. She has sought to get this plan back on track.

The plan was built on the principles of cooperation and to ensure we do not face a situation like we faced in the millennium drought. I hear the member opposite sighing. I think he forgets just how serious that was. There were plans to start trucking water into Adelaide. He might not care about Adelaide. He might not care about South Australia. But our only crime was being at the end of the river system, and the members opposite wanted to punish us for that, and to hell with the consequences for the people of South Australia.

Basin governments signed on to the plan with a promise to the Australian people that they would work together in the national interest—not in their own state's interest, not in their own partisan interest, but in the national interest to ensure that future generations will still be able to rely on this natural resource that we enjoy today.

This basin is incredibly important for its productivity—its agricultural productivity and its tourism productivity—and for its beauty that many people enjoy as well. It has a natural habitat, of which the member opposite so callously said, 'They all die. They'll just come back. I don't care if they all die—if the birds die, if the fish die. Doesn't matter; they'll regenerate.'

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I didn't say that.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, you were having a good verbal yourself. You gave it a good crack.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You quote me correctly.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You asked others to speak off the cuff. That's exactly what I'm doing. Of course, this is built on a plan. Our 'restoring our rivers' bill will make sensible and practical amendments to the Water Act 2007 and the consequential amendments to the Basin Plan in 2012, so we can get back to the job of fixing this river system. We will implement the plan in full and finish what we started.

The minister for the environment has driven new consultations with the basin stakeholders and basin governments where support for the plan has been renewed. There are calls for greater flexibility in achieving water recovery targets and calls for greater investment in measures that deliver tangible environmental outcomes, and this bill delivers on those calls. The bill also delivers what the former government could not or would not; they just ignored it. Essentially the bill removes the overly restrictive rules so that we can recover the 450 gigalitres of water for enhanced environmental outcomes. These changes are necessary to deliver on the agreements struck between the Murray-Darling Basin water ministers to provide the certainty long asked for by so many across the basin.

I think this bill is critically important and builds on the work already done. The bill also introduces a suite of water market reforms that will bring integrity, fairness and transparency to the system. The amendment reflects the growth in the value and complexity in the current rules that are not fit for purpose. The bill will deliver staged reforms that will mean buying and selling water can occur equally, and with confidence that the same rules apply to everyone.

Whether you are a farmer, an irrigator, a conservationist or one of the 2.3 million residents in the regions on the Murray-Darling, this river system is there for all who rely on it, particularly—I feel like there is a bit of deja vu here—for the residents of South Australia, for people that are at the end of the Murray-Darling system. We should not have to bear the consequences of constant infighting, constant partisanship on this and a lack of cooperation. This is a national resource. It is one that so many different people rely on, and it needs to be treated with the importance and the reverence it deserves. That's why I call on all, whether they are in the Greens party, the National Party or the Liberal Party, to rise above the partisan politics and do what's in the national interest—to return the Murray-Darling Basin to its full potential, to ensure its sustainability and ensure that future generations and communities can enjoy this natural resource.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am the member for Nicholls—someone from a critical, food producing basin community. I've been here for just over a year and I've seen some damaging legislation introduced by the Albanese government. I think it won't be too long before Australians start to realise, even more than they are now, how damaging some of this stuff is and that when you attack businesses you attack the fabric of Australian society. But this bill, the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023, takes the cake as the most damaging piece of legislation this new government has introduced. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the basin works and how basin communities work. What the original legislation was designed to do and how it worked is extremely disturbing.

What does this new legislation do? It recants a lot of the stuff the then Labor government initially put forward back in 2012. It does one thing that we agree with: to give an extension of time for what we call the SDLAM projects—the sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism. The SDLAM projects are about using infrastructure to get water to environmental assets more effectively and efficiently. Unfortunately, the states haven't had time to get the full range of projects up for a variety of reasons, including floods and COVID, and they needed extra time to do it. This legislation does that, and we support that part of it. But there are other elements of this legislation which we fundamentally cannot and will not support, because they are destructive not only to the basin communities and the economies of those basin communities but to the environmental assets in our basin communities. I will explain that shortly.

By removing the cap on buybacks, people just don't understand the damage that it will do. I'm going to try and explain this. When the Commonwealth government waltzes into a community and says, 'We're buying the water,' they're taking it out of what we call a consumptive pool. They're taking it away from production. If people get upset that Canadian super funds or Eddie McGuire, or whoever it is, might own water, at least when water is traded amongst entities who are in the water trading business, it's still there for farmers to buy to grow something with. When the Commonwealth enters the market, the water gets bought and is taken out of business. Then it's stored in Eildon or Hume and sits there.

A certain amount of that has been done, and my community has borne so much pain. When the water goes, so does the food or fibre that it produces, and not only does the food or fibre that it produces go but also all the economic activity that surrounds that produce. I'll give you an example. A megalitre of water is used to grow pears or apples. Apples are my favourite at the moment. Those apples are grown and picked. They're then taken into a pack house. They're sorted. They're packed. All the people who are employed in that process, up to that point, derive their economic future and their jobs from that process. Then the boxes get on a truck. Many of them go to other parts of Australia. All the people who handle that produce, whether they're the marketers, the people who are stacking it at Coles or Woolworths or wherever else, or the people who are involved in selling the produce—some of it goes onto ships and is exported—all the money that comes to Australia and benefits Australians from that process is gone when the megalitre of water goes away from consumptive agriculture and into the environment. That's what buybacks do.

A better way was found through on-farm irrigation efficiency projects. I've been involved in this personally, so I believe I know what I'm talking about when it comes to this. What we tried to do and what the government helped do was to say to the farmer, 'Okay, we'll give you extra money for the water—more than you probably would have got by selling it back—but the deal is that you have to use that money to put in a more efficient irrigation system so you can grow more with less.' I was involved in that with a company I worked for with subsurface drip irrigation, but many farms put in overhead pivots and improved flood irrigation—that was good because you could use less water to grow the same amount of produce. It was a good system. But buybacks are damaging.

This government wants to go back into the buyback business. What they're doing by going back into the buyback business is going back into the smash productivity business, back into the grow less food for Australia business, back into the risk of importing Chinese apples and peaches and God knows what else business. I didn't think I'd see a responsible government in Australia wanting to do that. The issue we have right now is that most of the basin plan has been done and is being done with the original 2,100 gigalitres that's already been either bought back or got back through the more responsible way of on-farm irrigation efficiency. That water has come out of communities like mine, so I don't really appreciate people over there saying that the plan has been sabotaged. You want to see a sabotaged plan, come to the Goulburn Valley and see what pain that water leaving has caused. But now we are where we are. The people of the Goulburn Valley appreciate that we needed Commonwealth water for environmental outcomes. So we have been prepared to wear some of this pain. We have been prepared to do it.

But the additional 450 gigalitres had a socioeconomic neutrality test. So the deal, we believed, if you can believe what the previous Labor government did—and the coalition government locked it in with some of the Labor states, by the way—was that that 450 gigalitres could not be taken away if it had a negative socioeconomic impact test. I've said this a few times in this place: what does 'socioeconomic' mean? It's society and its economy. So that means if it has a negative effect on the society in a basin community—that is Shepparton, Echuca or Yarrawonga—and the economy in those places then that water can't be taken. If you can find a way to do it without impacting on those basin communities' society and economy then let's do it. I think there are opportunities to that. We don't want to see South Australia miss out, but you've got to be able to do it without impacting on the society and the economy. That's the socioeconomic impact. That was the deal. That was the deal we all thought we had.

Now we come into this place and the Minister for the Environment and Water says: 'The socioeconomic impact test is gone holus-bolus. Let's go in and buy that 450 gigalitres back and, if it damages your society, Member for Nicholls, if it damages your society, Member for Riverina, or if it damages your society, Member for Farrer—guess what?—we don't care anymore.' What do you think it feels like in a place like the Goulburn Valley to hear a government say that? It's pretty rough. There is such a better way to do this. I wish people had the compassion and the intelligence to think about how we could get this done in a much better way.

I just want to explain for these irrigation systems that have been running for over 100 years and have a legacy of great impact in terms of food production, iconic businesses like SPC and Tatura Milk, a bit about how they work. It basically works because people own licences to pump out of rivers or extract water from channels, but if the dam gets low in the dry times that we inevitably have then you'll get less of your allocation. Yield is at 100 per cent at the moment. The river is very healthy, by the way. I don't know where this alarmism that the river is not healthy is coming from. But I know that there will be dry times and Eildon or Hume will reduce in their capacity. What happens then is there's an system that irrigators automatically get a lower percentage of the water that they own. So they might get 60 per cent of the water that they own. That's critical because what happens then is that orchardists who have trees that needs to be irrigated no matter what can buy water from the dairy farmer, who can say, 'I can make more money selling my water to the orchardist and I'll buy hay instead of growing pasture.' That's the delicate balance in the system, and that's what makes it work. If we remove so much water from the irrigation system that there's not enough to be traded between the perennial planting, which is the apple tree grower, the orange tree grower or the almond grower, and the farmer who has the ability to grow annual crops, such as pasture or rice, the fundamental balance of the irrigation system won't work anymore. The $2 billion in infrastructure that has been put into the Goulburn-Murray Irrigation District will become a waste of money because the whole system collapses.

Those are the incredibly damaging economic, societal and business effects of this callous, unthinking legislation. But there are also some environmental impacts. The lack of understanding is just unfathomable. If you try to push all that water down the river system to improve an environmental asset further down, you damage environmental assets such as the Goulburn River or the Murray River that's in my electorate and other people's electorates. The river will run too high at the wrong time of the year and it will damage the bank. The catchment management authority have shown me this. Before I came into this place, I had politicians on tinnies—National Party people, Labor people and Liberal people—looking at what these high flows were doing to the bank. How much worse is that going to get if you try and shove 450 gigalitres down the river system? The Goulburn River, which is the most beautiful river—it's the river I grew up on; it's a place of real importance to me—will turn into a channel. It's not a channel; it's a river. There's so much more thought that needs to go into this.

This legislation does not understand what it will do both to the environment and to society. This is a real tragedy. People in my electorate are calling this the Alamo. They're saying that this is it. They're saying this is an existential crisis. This is really serious stuff. I've got a fruit cannery called SPC in my electorate. They got going in 1918. I've had old war diggers telling me what they went through when they were serving in World War II, Korea or Vietnam. The greatest moments of their life were when they got their ration pack and pulled out a tin of SPC peaches, because it was from home, it was from Australia and it was healthy food. They've been doing this for so long. If you go into a supermarket now there's the SPC product. I always try to buy the SPC product. It's so important. But next to it there is the Chinese snack pack. God knows what environmental impact, economic impact or socio-economic impact that has had. Do we want our peaches and our kids' food to come from this country or do we want to bring it in from China? I just ask you that. It's not a scare campaign. That's what will happen if damaging legislation like this goes through, and I oppose it fundamentally.

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

I'm very proud to be speaking on the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023, being a South Australian and having witnessed our last drought not that long ago. I saw the Murray mouth, down by a town called Goolwa, which has lakes that go into the Murray mouth before they actually go out to sea. I was able to walk across those lakes and see dead fish and dead sea life on the bed of the river. That was less than 10 years ago.

I recall the campaign that was run in South Australia not by the Labor Party or by environmental green groups but by the entire state population of South Australia. The local paper, the Advertiser, ran a campaign holding each and every MP and senator in South Australia to account on what they were doing to save the River Murray. It wasn't that long ago, and that memory is still clear with all South Australians. So I'm very proud to be standing here today speaking on this particular bill.

I know there are strong sentiments on both sides about this particular bill, and we just heard the member for Nicholls speak. The reality is that, if we don't get the 450 gigalitres flowing back into the River Murray so we can have a sustainable river, there will be no industries in years to come. No doubt, as day follows night, there will be more droughts in this country. We've seen droughts over the years, but the droughts that are to come are definitely there, and it will decimate the river and therefore decimate the communities on the riverbanks.

Debate interrupted.