Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill. There's no doubt that water reform is difficult, and it's very important in this debate that we don't just succumb to emotion and that we focus on reality.

We shouldn't underestimate what has been done in this field since John Howard first put the Water Bill on the table in 2007 and committed $10 billion of funding to the reform of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, putting the power back with the Commonwealth and investing heavily in infrastructure projects that would return water to the environment without necessarily getting rid of those communities that it supports, on the way down, with irrigation. It's worth reflecting that the adjustable maximum sustainable diversion runs normally at around 10,000 to 11,000 gigalitres per annum. That is, of course, as the name would suggest, adjustable.

The Murray Darling Basin Plan originally put in place, as I said, by John Howard delivered the $13 billion funded. It secured—well, it has all but secured—the 2,750 gigalitres extra for the environment, and there is currently another 605 gigalitres of savings that are associated with supply measures and infrastructure that are supposedly underway at the moment. It's also worth reflecting that that 2,750-gigalitre figure is roughly a 25 per cent decrease in the water extracted for human use along the length of the Murray. So, while the sustainable diversion limit now is around that 10,000 to 11,000 gigalitres, that 2,750 went on top of that. It has been a huge boost for the environment, for the Lower Lakes and the Coorong and all along the river. We have had water to strategically water flood plains and bring new life back to those cracked plains.

The 450 gigalitres that is often the topic of discussion was first agreed to in 2017, and as a South Australian I welcome the 450 gigalitres of extra water. But it is important to recognise that there was a caveat put in place at that time on the 450 gigs—which was of course separate from the 2,750 gigs already agreed on—and it was dependent on neutral or positive socioeconomic outcomes and voluntary participation. That was the basis of the agreement between the states at that time. It was a good idea, and I still firmly endorse that position.

As a South Australian I am fully committed to a healthy Murray. In fact, in my electorate, while we don't use the Murray water in the way that perhaps the electorate of Barker does in terms of broad irrigation, it does provide water to approximately 90 per cent of the population in my electorate. It's enormously important in places like Whyalla, where the steel industry depends on it. It's enormously important in Port Pirie, for the smelter there to work. There is some supplementary irrigation that's taken into the Clare Valley, but in overall terms it's relatively minor. The reason for that of course is that, generally speaking, the water we take into the electorate of Grey is supplied at retail prices which prohibit the idea of irrigation. It is used for stock watering, but it's used largely for human consumption. That is in the high security licence and is not threatened by anything at the moment.

What I am concerned about in this debate comes back to my remarks around emotion and reality, and indeed to your comments, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, earlier today and the comments by the member for Makin from what I consider to be an Adelaide-centric view. I don't live in Adelaide, although my electorate gets awfully close to it now with Roseworthy and Two Wells within it, but there is little recognition of the communities that supply South Australian with fresh food and rely on those irrigation systems.

One of the things that I have always—before I got to this place, indeed—thought is that the general South Australia opinion of cotton and rice growers higher up the Murray-Darling Basin was poorly founded. I don't think it is realised how important annual plantings are to maximising the use of the wonderful river system that we have. There are times when there is too much water. We've just been through one of these times with incredible flows just to the east of Renmark. In fact, in January I will took a short tour up to the Riverland to have a look to see what those flood levels were like, for my own interest as much as anything. There were incredible amounts of water, and it's in those times that cotton and rice have a pretty good run.

They are on the lower-security licence, and it makes sense that they should be able to irrigate their crops. As they're on the lower-security licence, they are the first ones that drop off once the waters supply starts to fall away. That meant there was a long period, for instance, in the millennial drought, when there was no rice grown in Australia at all over four years, I think. It makes sense to utilise water when you have it in industries that can be mothballed, if you like, and not when you don't. The alternative is to have enough permanent plantings to use the water, which will die when there is not enough water, or just allow the excess to go out to sea for no good reason. It makes sense, and I think it is very important. There is another annual crop along the river, of course, and it is pasture. I know that that is not the most efficient use of water, but it is instrumental to our ability to run highly productive livestock industries along the length of the basin.

While my electorate is not directly afflicted, as I said, I am concerned about rural and regional South Australia and the effect that further buybacks might have on communities up in the Riverland. Those original buybacks happened around a decade ago now and resulted in a 30 per cent loss of population throughout the Riverland. As a 16-year-old or thereabouts—I might have even been a bit younger—my sister was living and working in the Murraylands, and I used to go fruit picking in Winkie. I was a fairly protected young country lad, and I was really taken with the lively nature of the communities—the hustle and bustle, if you like. The Greek immigrants were there working so hard, and there was a real vibrancy about the communities, which were expanding and going well. I have been back many times since that time, but, certainly, when I was up there inspecting the floods in January and driving down those main streets that have so many empty shops in them now, I reflected on what that population loss has done.

I have seen the same thing happen in my electorate. Whyalla, for instance, had a population at one stage of around 33,000. We are back to around 22,000 now, and in the past we have sunk to 19,000. It leads you to having a big, flabby body with nothing to put in it, and that is what happens when you get fast population losses in certain areas. It means you have no investment in public infrastructure over a long period because the town is overserviced already, and that dynamism is sucked away. That's what I have seen happen in the Riverland. They still look good, the towns are tidy and looked after and the businesses are there. Businesses are under pressure again now and, generally speaking, are good businesses. It is a smaller place than it used to be because the primary source of income has slipped away. That means there are fewer people, fewer acres under irrigation, fewer people working on those blocks, less production, less transport, less everything. I'm given to reflect on what might happen if there is further shrinkage in the hectares they can plant.

Now the kicker in this legislation is not that it's being taken out to a longer time line—that's a good thing in itself because we're seeing that these reforms are difficult—but that the legislation is throwing away the safeguard. I restate that safeguard: dependent on neutral or positive socioeconomic outcomes. The legislation as it stands would allow the minister to buy up water licences wherever she sees fit. In fact, I'm not sure that she would not be able to do compulsory acquisition of water licences. But let's assume that it's a voluntary buyback. You'd say, 'If people are doing well out of irrigation, why would they sell their licence?' The thing is that people aren't necessarily doing well out of irrigation.

In particular, the wine industry has been suffering in Australia. It's not their fault. It's because of the trade embargoes in China. In the wine industry, those trade embargoes have had a larger effect on what we call the 'lower price end' or the 'bulk end' of the wine market, which comes out of the Riverland in South Australia. Consequently we are awash, particularly, in red wine. It's making grapes difficult to sell. They are cheap, and vignerons are not getting a good return. In fact, they're getting a very poor return. They're under pressure. So the government comes along now and says, 'We'll buy your licence back.' There will be people who will sell their licence—many of them, I suspect. It may not be that hard to round up the water. But it's not their fault that the industry's in that state. When those licences are surrendered, they will not come back, and those communities will be forever smaller. That presents a hollowing out of industry from within.

I remember a time when Berri, for instance, had a large cannery and an orange juice factory. I declare a personal interest: my brother-in-law was the general manager at one stage. But they don't come back. My understanding is that the biggest wine producer, I think in the southern hemisphere, is what was the old Berri Estate winery. All those things are under pressure at the moment. If the winegrowers give up their licences now and they pull the vines or they don't water them, when the wine market turns around, that water doesn't come back. It doesn't come back and neither do those people in the community. That's why the safeguard mechanisms sit within.

I remember when this legislation was first passed over a decade ago. In my speeches to parliament, I spoke about stopping the leakage. That's what the money was for. We have to stop the leakage. In South Australia, as you well know, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, we have a good record. All of our irrigation is delivered in pipes. In the Riverland, when I used to go up there fruit picking, it was in channels. Those channels were leaky, and they evaporate, but the leakage is probably the worst thing. It's just really inefficient. I know we are all in pipes in South Australia, but there are plenty of cases along the Murray where the water is still delivered in channels. There are reasons for doing so, and I'm not saying those channels leak as bad as the old concrete ones, but there is higher evaporation and higher leakage. I know there's a higher cost if you put the pipes in because you have to pump water. I'm not naive on these issues. It is important to understand that they are multilayered. But there is no doubt water is lost out of the system, and it is not going into the production of food. In that case, there is a place for investment to return water to the river without damaging those communities economically.

I said there are 605 gigalitres currently envisaged to come back to the river through infrastructure works, and I urge the government, and you, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, through any influence you have, to push that along. I have to say that, in some of these projects, it seems that government support or interest is pretty lukewarm. For instance—and I've thought this is a good idea for a long time—there is a proposal to open up the southern lagoon of the Coorong lakes to seawater. People should understand that the water in the southern Coorong lakes can be saltier than the sea. In fact, it often is saltier than the sea. The reason for that is the Coorong lakes have spasmodic flooding. Before European settlement and the dams and the weirs being put on the river, they would have dried out periodically, almost completely. So would the Lower Lakes. But we choose to keep water in them all the time now and think that, should they dry up, that is some kind of environmental calamity. We talk about fish kills. Imagine how big the fish kills would have been when you could jump across the Murray—and there are photos up in the Renmark Hotel of how narrow the Murray was. (Time expired)

Kristy McBain (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As everybody knows, Labor has made a commitment to deliver the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full. We have listened, and we will deliver scientifically proven water outcomes. I'm pleased to be able to speak on the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 today, which will amend the Water Act and the Basin Plan. The changes will see 450 gigalitres of water returned to the environment and reinstate transparency, integrity and confidence in water markets. There is absolutely no time to lose in this. After a decade of delay and dysfunction, we have had to act firmly and decisively, delivering more in our first nine months than those opposite did in nine years. Collaboration has been the key—collaboration with the states and territories, with farmers, with irrigators, with scientists and with First Nations groups. We've listened, and now we are acting and getting on with the job. The outcome has seen common sense restored, with implementation mechanisms that will allow basin governments more time to deliver remaining water based on expert advice. The outcome will allow more options to deliver the remaining water, including water infrastructure projects and voluntary water buybacks. It'll deliver more funding for the remaining water and to support communities where those voluntary water buybacks have flow-on effects, and it will deliver more accountability from Murray-Darling Basin governments to deliver the remaining water on time. At the end of the day, a healthy basin will ensure a sustainable future not only for the river system but for our regional communities that rely on its health.

Australia is headed towards a drought. Some parts of my electorate are already technically in drought. If we don't act swiftly to preserve the river's health, we will not be prepared. The communities, the native species, the river ecosystems and the agriculture industries who rely on the river's health will all be at risk. It's why this plan was developed in the first place—to help us through the dry years and ensure that there is enough water flowing even at the lowest points. The original deadline for the plan was set for June of next year, but, thanks to the outright sabotage from some others over the past decade, this was just not going to happen. They blocked water recovery programs. They ignored scientific advice and tied up projects in impossible rules so that they couldn't deliver any water savings. The changes we are making are necessary. They are necessary to preserve the largest and most complex river system in the country. Up to 2.3 million Australians call the basin home, and more than three million people drink its water each and every day. I am proud to be part of an Albanese Labor government helping to secure Australia's water future through the next dry stretch and beyond, and I thank the minister for delivering this Basin Plan for communities right across the country.

Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Water is always a difficult issue. It's a fraught issue. It's a complicated issue. The Murray-Darling Basin has always been that way. No matter where you stand, whether you are at a farm here in Australia—whether you're in Queensland or South Australia or New South Wales—or in fact anywhere around the world, if you want to really narrow this down, the easiest way to think about it is: when you're talking to a local farmer, they will think that downstream are wasters and upstream are thieves. That is fundamentally how it applies. When it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin, this has been a very difficult turn of events over many years, through droughts and floods and everything else.

But what I want to put on the record here today is more around what's being used by those opposite, particularly the Greens. They are making some outrageous claims about what can and can't be delivered around 450 gigalitres of water. Let me be very clear: taking 450 gigalitres of entitlement away from growers will not keep the mouth of the Murray River open. I've been to the Murray River mouth. In fact, I've been all over the Murray-Darling Basin, from Queensland all the way through. I've spoken to users, environmentalists and Aboriginal communities and groups. There seems to be a concept that this magic number is going to fix everything and make the environment wonderful. This river system will never return to its natural state—it can't. It is a series of weir pools controlled by gates and valves and engineering that has been in place for decades. It is very well managed by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. They've done an incredible job in difficult circumstances.

We needed to talk about facts and reality. The 450 gig is a number, and that number is about taking away the economic security of people who utilise that water. There is a big difference between entitlement and allocation. Every single year the states work out how much entitlement is provided as an allocation to growers dependent on conditions. They don't get all this water every year, regardless of what it looks like and regardless of weather conditions and everything else. To put anything else forward is complete nonsense, so let's look at what is going on in reality. I have here the SA River Murray Flow Report from 30 December 2022. I want to utilise a few numbers out of the report to make my point, but first I want to congratulate in particular the members for Barker and Nichols and the member for Parkes for their contributions. They are people who've lived in the basin for many years, and they actually understand how it works. They know the impacts it has on their communities.

The first point I want to make out of the reporters is this:

The peak flow reached the South Australian border on 23 December and has since passed through Renmark, Lyrup, Berri, Loxton …

This obviously was late last year.

The adjusted peak flow at the border was around 190 GL/day …

Seriously, that is a lot of water passing into South Australia. The report goes on to say this about the Murray mouth:

High flows are achieving good scouring of sand at the Murray Mouth, now that average tide levels are becoming lower (typical for this time of year). In addition to the obvious environmental benefits, the current deepening and widening of the Mouth will also further improve capacity of the barrages to pass flood waters out to sea.

Right up until close to this point you are still dredging the mouth of the Murray. It is a continuous operation. The idea that a 450 gigalitre reduction in entitlement for growers will make differences to the Murray mouth is quite simply ridiculous. From an engineering standpoint, it is absolute nonsense.

If you look at what has been going on in the Murray in recent months—the member for Parkes is here, and I know he's seen this firsthand in any number of floods and droughts—unregulated flows into South Australia have been continuous since July 2021. For those who don't understand what that means, it means there is a stack of water that people can utilise because there is so much of it they don't know what to do with it. Those flows were continuous from July 2021 until the end of last year, when it reached peak flows. This is an enormous system. In fact, the modelling of this system is still separate. It is still managed through different state organisations, and they don't have an overarching model of the entire Murray-Darling Basin flow—it doesn't exist. It's something the coalition committed money to so that we can get this done and upgrade these old clunky systems of software to get something that is far more advanced and utilises technology that's used right around the world.

We know that you need enormous amounts of water running through the Murray to have any impact whatsoever on the mouth—enormous amounts—and yet we continue to see a proposition put forward by those opposite that a 450 gigalitre reduction in entitlement will make enormous changes to the environment. Well, it's just not true. If you want to make changes to the environment, you need to do things that have practical outcomes, not just reduce entitlements for holders in the Murray-Darling Basin. That simply won't work, and the minister is misleading the House. There is no deal here. Victoria are not in; they are out. They are not in for buybacks, and you do not have a Murray-Darling Basin Plan without Victoria. If you don't have all the states, what is the intention from those opposite? Will the Labor Party build a wall through the middle of the river and say we have New South Wales on one side and Victoria on the other? It is a ridiculous proposition. If you do not have Victoria you do not have a deal and you do not have a Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It does not exist.

If we look at the changes proposed to the bill, one that stuck out to me was the postponement of the requirement for the minister to conduct a review of the Water Act from the end of 2024 to the end of 2027—the reconciliation. If I recall correctly, on advice, that'll take a couple of years, so it's actually delayed to 2029. For those in the Greens who are saying, 'This is a wonderful thing, and we're going to get the stuff that we fought for,' 2029 is a very, very long way away. There are changes around the Inspector-General of Water Compliance, and some of these I welcome because we established this group. We established the Inspector-General of Water Compliance. I appointed Troy Grant. He has a very long history in police, enforcement and investigation, and he's doing great job.

But the most important part that the minister continues to ignore—he doesn't speak about it whatsoever—is that the plan is not established until the water resource plans are completed. It is not established until they're completed—and the framework is in place so that you can actually enforce the plan. We hear a lot of noise from the minister about numbers, water, entitlement and the environment, but nothing about the actual pieces inside the plan, the detail, and the things that need to be completed. I took a quick look at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's outline. Right now, the Barwon-Darling Watercourse Water Resource Plan, the WRP, has been withdrawn by New South Wales, as have the ones for the Gwydir, the Macquarie and Castlereagh, and the Namoi. Many of the others were done under the coalition—put forward and completed. I congratulate Victoria, South Australia and Queensland; their plans are in, completed, signed off and operational. These are the bits that matter. These are the bits that matter in the local areas. Without the water resource plan, everything else doesn't really work. It is quite incredible that the minister continues to ignore the pieces that will make a difference.

The 450 gigalitres is now going to be brought about through different means—one, in particular, being uncapped buybacks. You now have this perverse position where those opposite, the Labor government, are suggesting that they will spend, potentially, hundreds of millions of dollars on water infrastructure with big irrigators, and this is the right way to go about the plan because you get new infrastructure and, as a by-product, you get water recovery through efficiencies. That is the right away. But those organisations can then sell that recovered water to the Commonwealth as part of this entitlement. Double dipping—that just doesn't even describe it. What a ludicrous proposition: the taxpayer will pay for upgraded infrastructure for the company to then be able to sell back water to the Commonwealth. They win both ways—what an incredible outcome. The only people that lose are those that live in these communities because, in perpetuity, they will have lost this water allocation, this water entitlement, that drives their economy. It actually grows food—food for the country, which we desperately need.

When you add on Labor's propositions around safeguards and what they're intending to do for offsets, as well as the 60 million hectares that somehow the minister for environment is going to magically acquire to meet nature reserve commitments to the United Nations, the more you look at all of the proposals the only places they can come from are cleared and partially cleared agricultural land, of which there's about 425 million hectares. If you lose 60 million to nature reserves and you lose 450 gigalitres of water, 450,000 megalitres, that will take out some 50,000 to 70,000 hectares, as has been explained by the member for Barker and others, of productive land in this country. That reduces our food-growing capacity.

No-one on the government side seems to be talking about the impact this will have on the individual. If you look at the flow-through effects—and I know Treasury won't model flow-through effects—they're up to five times into the economy. The individual that works at the bakery, works at the hairdresser or is a teacher at the local school in a town that loses its population—they no longer have a job. They will move somewhere else to find that job, and that population will continue to decline until they can't provide those services, there aren't any schools, there aren't any childcare services or there aren't any aged-care services because the entire regional economy relies on irrigated agriculture in many of these locations. They are small towns, they are the heart of this country and they should be protected from this Labor government. We will fight against the government. We will fight this because it is fundamentally wrong.

I know there will be individuals out there who are very happy to sell their water because to them this has become a bucket of gold. They can dig in. They won't have to have employees. They won't need to run farms. They won't have to do any of those things. They can potentially move. And good luck to them. But the reality of the impact on these Murray-Darling communities should not be understated. We have seen what has happened in other towns already. This is why the Victorian minister is refusing to sign up. Victoria will not do buybacks.

There are much better options to be delivered, and that is around infrastructure and around water efficiency. Australian farmers are some of the most efficient users of water in the world. They are incredibly efficient. They look after every tablespoon of water because they know how important it is not only to their operations but also in the way they operate in the environment. Most farmers out there are very, very good operators.

We continue to see more proposed changes. If we look at the water market briefly, Daryl Quinlivan, who I appointed to do this work, came out with the Water market reform:final roadmapreport. His concern was around costs. I know that internally there were recommendations around building another ivory tower, whether it's in the ACCC or elsewhere, to look after water market reform. The concern I always have is around who's paying, because that cost will go onto the cost of water. The bigger these departments get, the more people that they employ, the more things they do, that cost has to be recovered, and it will be recovered through the only means necessary, which is on water prices. That drives up the cost of food and it reduces the opportunities for Australian farmers to be profitable, to be cost competitive in the world environment.

There were statements made by Victoria's water minister, Harriet Shing. They do not support the new deal. Victoria has a longstanding opposition to buybacks and nothing we have seen in this deal has changed that position. But it's not just Victoria who are against this. New South Wales does not support water buybacks. It wants to see the Australian government prioritise investment in recovering water through other ways. How do you do this without New South Wales and Victoria, two of the biggest agricultural states on the Murray-Darling Basin? You cannot deliver the plan without them.

The federal minister needs to explain to the House and explain to the Australian people how on earth you have a plan without these two states. How is it that they want to go out and take away what drives the economy in these regional towns and centres? They deserve to be looked after, and the idea that they will be thrown a few shekels to move them on, to do something else—well, they don't want to do that. They like where they live. They like to live in regional Australia. They like being farmers. They like working on farms. They like delivering for our economy. Can you imagine what this will cost in perpetuity for every single year that it doesn't exist, this change to take away water entitlements forever from these people who produce Australia's food supply? The idea that it can be offset by something else is nonsense. It is ludicrous, and yet we have a Minister for the Environment and Water who is deadset on destroying these communities and the people who live there.

The more the minister focuses on taking away from them, the more they'll fight, the more they'll argue and the more they'll stand up. We have seen how much trouble this has caused in the basin in the past, and I say to Minister Plibersek: 'Recant. Change your mind. Go back to the way it was being delivered under the coalition, because infrastructure is the way to do this.' There are multiple benefits to using infrastructure for this type of water recovery. You get infrastructure that lasts for decades, you get outcomes for communities that last forever, and you don't destroy the economies of these regional communities who deserve to be looked after.

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been fascinating hearing the arguments of those opposite for refusing to do something that is so fundamental to the long-term viability of their constituents in whatever state they are, whether it's New South Wales, Victoria or South Australia. There seems to be a complete denial of the fact that the impact of climate change means that these river systems have already suffered—the Murray-Darling River systems have already suffered fish kills, algal blooms, reduced flows because of the weather that has been experienced—and that climate change projections warn that future river flows could be reduced by up to 70 per cent, which is nothing short of a catastrophe both for farmers and for the environment. I really ask those opposite to step back and think about what is at stake here. For all their outrage, they had nearly a decade to work on this, and they failed miserably to make progress. The tiny amount of water that was put back into the system thanks to some water efficiency things is minute compared to what really needs to happen. I think it's worth all of us stepping back.

I represent the Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury. We have the Hawkesbury River; that's got nothing to do with the Murray-Darling. Why does it matter? Well, the Murray-Darling Basin covers about one-seventh of the entire Australian land mass. It's most of New South Wales. It's parts of Queensland, South Australia and Victoria. It's all of the ACT, where we stand today. That obviously includes the Murray River and the Darling River, Baaka, and their tributaries. Vast amounts of water are extracted from the rivers to supply around three million Australians. That includes irrigating farms, but we're talking about drinking water as well. It was described by Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald as 'the nation's biggest food bowl, underpinning the livelihoods of 2.6 million people and producing food and fibres worth more than $24 billion a year'. It is obviously a key economic asset that we should be working hard to sustain, not just to use up as fast as we can and be left with whatever happens next.

The Murray-Darling is also a living ecosystem, and it depends on all those interconnected natural resources. About five per cent of the basin consists of floodplain forests, lakes, rivers and other wetland habitats. Like all the rivers, it is subject to recurring droughts and, of course, flooding. When we came to government, even before we came to government, we made a commitment that we would work hard to get this Murray-Darling Basin Plan back on track. You can't forget why Australian governments designed the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in the very first place a decade ago. We know that we're never far from a drought in Australia. That's one of the predictable things. The plan is to help us through the dry years, to make sure that there is enough water flowing through that water system at its lowest moments to make it through till the next rain. That plan was completely undermined by those opposite while they were in government.

Let's think about how that plan is going. To be clear, the plan became law in 2012, so we're 11 years on. That was, obviously, under the last Labor government. It was due to be fully implemented and audited by the end of June next year, less than a year away. The plan itself limits the amount of water extracted from the basin. The aim is both to improve the condition of freshwater ecosystems and to maintain that social and economic benefit of irrigated agriculture. So how is that plan going? Clearly, not very well under those opposite—nine years of mismanagement, with many exposes on the things that had gone wrong. We don't have time at this moment to talk through those things—the mismanagement that has occurred at different state levels and at federal level—but they are very well documented.

Where are we now? The offset projects were likely to deliver only about 415 billion litres of the 605 billion litres required, and very little water is actually getting to the flood plains. Of the 450 billion litres to be retrieved through water efficiency projects, only 26 billion litres had been recovered. That means that, of the 3,200 billion litres of water to be returned to the environment, only 2,100 billion litres had been achieved. That's as of March this year. Plus, there's a small amount of projected water from offset projects, if that's delivered. Essentially, any assessment of the data at whatever point in time you do it shows that the plan was way behind where it ought to have been when we took office.

As I've said, let's think about the impacts that this failure has already had in the past decade. There have been millions of fish that have perished in mass die-offs. Toxic algae has bloomed. Wildlife and water birds have declined in numbers, and wetlands have literally dried up. You have to ask: what are those things signs of? They're all signs that too much water is still being taken from the system. On coming to office, our commitment is to try and get things back on track. That's where we find ourselves. We announced that we had reached an agreement with the basin governments to deliver the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full, and that includes the 450 gigalitres of water for the environment.

This is basically a rescue package for the Murray-Darling Basin. I think we've heard from people all around this chamber who have communities affected that it's really important for those communities. Whether they are down at the Adelaide end of those communities or up around Menindee and right through, these are crucial waterways. What this legislation does is give every government involved more time to deliver the remaining water based on expert advice. We like the science, and we will listen to the experts. It also gives more options to deliver the remaining water, including water infrastructure projects and voluntary water buybacks—that is voluntary water buybacks. There's also more funding to deliver the remaining water and to support communities where voluntary water buybacks have flow-on impacts—a consequence for those communities. This legislation also ensures more accountability from Murray-Darling Basin governments on delivering the remaining water on time. Transparency is not something that has been a highlight of this project over the last decade. Our federal funding will be contingent on achieving water recovery targets within deadlines, to hold people to account.

There has been outrage on the other side about what all of this means. Basically, it's a return to common sense. It's about remembering what the point of it is. What was the point of this plan? It is to have a healthy and sustainable basin, not just for today but for the future. It is a complex plan, but the outcome is very simple—to set the river up so that it's there for our kids, our grandkids and their grandkids. I just want to note that, when we talk about the things that have been achieved so far in the plan, more than 80 per cent of the achievements were done under Labor governments. We set a target and we worked towards it. We don't do what those opposite did. For many years, they just said: 'If we don't talk about it, maybe it'll just go away. We're not going to say we're not going to do it, but if we just don't do anything then maybe we'll just get away with that.' Sadly, the river and the communities are paying the consequences for that. We want to see more options around how the outcome that we want to see is achieved, not more restrictions.

If this bill doesn't pass this year, the current legislation requires states to actually withdraw their unfinished projects—to stop them. That means that a major part of the plan will fall over, and that will lead to substantial costs and delays. So this is a really commonsense approach to be able to continue the work that was started under Labor, which didn't go very far under the coalition, and get it back on track under our Albanese government. Delivering this plan is clearly going to be good for the environment, but it's also good for local jobs and for local communities. This is the commitment we made going into the election, and we are doing exactly what we said we would do: working with the states. I note that those opposite point to Victoria. The Victorians have made it clear that they will continue working with us. The minister for the environment has made it clear that the door will always be open to the Victorians. Many of the water savings in Victoria have occurred under the Victorian government, so they have a commitment to achieving the same outcomes. You wouldn't know it in this place, having heard the speeches from those opposite that we've heard, but it's worth remembering that the Basin Plan targets were a bipartisan agreement more than a decade ago.

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

They weren't!

Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Those opposite dispute it. I guess, really, when it comes down to it, it may well have been bipartisan a decade ago, but clearly those opposite are just walking away from any commitments. These are the people who claim that they care about the long-term sustainability of the land, yet here they are doing everything they can to exploit a resource now and leave none of it for the future.

Australia is in the midst of an environmental emergency. We are one of the countries on the front line of climate change. We're seeing it every season—whether it's floods, whether it's fires or whether it's drought. You'd have to be a fool not to recognise the part of the cycle that we're moving into now. If we don't act now to preserve the Murray-Darling, our basin towns will be totally unprepared for drought. We'll also have native animals facing the threat of extinction even more rapidly. Our river ecosystems will risk environmental collapse, and our food and fibre production will become insecure and unsustainable. This is what's at stake, and this is why it's a really important moment for basin communities and for any Australian, including those in my electorate, who cares deeply about the health of our environment and the health of our communities. I commend this bill to the House.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's something I feel incredibly passionate about: the economic viability of the regional towns that have sustained me through my life, whether that was Moree, where I lived, St George, Dirranbandi or even where I am at the moment. I grew up in Danglemah. It's in the Murray-Darling Basin. There are other towns such as Deniliquin, Griffith, Shepparton and Mildura—in the electorate of Mallee, that of the good member beside me. We can divide this speech and the speeches we hear today up between those who live and rely on the Murray-Darling Basin and those who live outside it and are commentators on it. It is amazing how quickly, back in 2013, whilst in the parliament, the people of the ACT managed to take Cotter Dam from 3.9 gigalitres to 78,000 megalitres—without a blink. The issue is, if you're taking water out for Canberra, that's A-OK, but, if you're taking water out for somewhere else, that's not. The previous speaker stated that we have to do this or we will permanently be in drought. I can tell the good member that, if we take this water out, some towns will be permanently in drought. In fact, they'll have no reason to exist. Sine qua non is the Latin for it—without this, nothing. One of the reasons I'm passionately attached to this is that I negotiated the initial deal with then minister Burke, the member for Watson. For the history of this—

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A moment ago we heard you didn't support it

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should listen.

Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm trying to keep up here. Did you support it or not?

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

Order! Direct your comments through the chair.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I absolutely did, and do you want to know why? I'll take the interjection. Do you want to know why I supported it? At that point in time, the Greens were going to run off with 6,000-plus gigalitres, completing decimating the Murray-Darling Basin. And the good and learned member for Watson, the then water minister, Mr Anthony Burke, said that what we could do was to go to 2,750. That's where we landed. That 450 was there, but it had an economic and social detriment clause. I believe that, in a way, that's better than neutrality, because that way you can say: 'I win here, I lose there; therefore, it's neutral.' No. 'Social and economic detriment'—any detriment, and you could not go forward. That was the position of the Australia Labor Party under Minister Burke.

Now we have the member for Sydney with a completely alternative policy. This is substantially and diametrically different. So to which person do we owe gratitude for their wisdom? Does wisdom reside with the member for Watson, or does wisdom reside with the member for Sydney?

I'll tell you what, this time—and I don't like to involve myself in Labor politics, but I'm going with the member for Watson. I'm going with your Leader of the House. I say to the member opposite who interjected: 'your Leader of the House'—I back him in. But you guys don't. You people don't. You've given up on it. So I back Minister Burke. They don't. They've given up on their own minister. Where does the wisdom reside—with which minister?

I take the interjection. Which minister do you believe is wiser, the member for Watson or the member for Sydney? Which one? You're confounding yourself. You always do.

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

Order! All remarks will be made through the chair.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we have to understand is this. If we take this out, what is the future for Dirranbandi? What is the future for Mildura? What is the future for Shepparton? What are you putting on the table to give these people? What—a painted roundabout? A new park? What are you actually going to do for the people that you are going to send backwards? I can assure you: there will be farmers who'll take your money and go to reside on the Gold Coast; they'll be gone. But what will you do for the hairdresser? What will you do for the tyre business? What will you do for the schools when the children come out? It will put the schools at risk. What will you do for the hospital when there are not enough patients, so the doctor goes and the hospital is taken down? Do you realise, whilst you are talking about bringing equality to people in remote and regional areas, counterfactually and counterintuitively, you are putting forward a policy to make them poorer.

One of the greatest advantages in where I used to live, in St George, for quite a while, while I built up an accountancy practice from a zero start, and then ended up with about 600 clients, was: a lot of my clients were Indigenous. Do you know what they had? Businesses. It's a great way to get ahead, small business: hotels; cotton chipping operations; farm machinery contractors. These people actually got ahead. And they got ahead on the basis of access to water. But what you're doing is saying: 'No, we'd prefer you go backwards. We're going to send you people backwards.' I know the member for Parkes has got some serious Indigenous businesses in the city of Dubbo—yet another one from an agricultural precinct, and the agricultural precinct of places such as Warren relies on irrigation. So you're taking all these people backwards. And you're doing it on a theme. The theme is: to garner an environmental vote in sections of urban Australia, you're willing to send regional Australia under a bus.

I go back to the member for Watson. He was actually diligent enough to go out and do the research and understand this issue. As hard as it was, I believed at the time it was best to land a deal so we could remove the uncertainty that has surrounded this issue, so people could get on with their lives and accept the pain that was coming their way. And there was pain. There was massive pain from doing this.

But the 450, as stated by the Australian Labor Party, was premised on a socioeconomic detriment test. Now, that is a premise of what you are now removing. So I can only say: you care nothing about socioeconomic detriment in regional areas, because your own actions are deriding that principle.

Obviously water is an issue of importance no matter where you go. By the way, 425 gigalitres is what's in Sydney Harbour. This is a massive amount of water—450 gigalitres—coming out. We don't know where it's coming from. If they have to pull it from Goondiwindi, it won't be 450; it will be 4,500-plus.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour. If the member's speech was interrupted, he will be granted leave to continue when the debate is resumed.