Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the first report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report on the Murray-Darling Basin Amendment Bill 2006.

I want to briefly speak in relation to this bill. I acknowledge that we do not always speak in relation to reports on bills, but it is important that the Senate consider the report. This report is at least as interesting for its context as it is for its content. Whilst Labor is supportive of the bill and supports the report’s recommendations, we are perplexed as to how this bill will fit in with the proposed Murray-Darling arrangements, given the Prime Minister’s announcement some weeks ago.

Whilst the bill is consistent with the current legislative and governance framework for the Murray-Darling Basin, it is entirely inconsistent with the proposals which are currently being worked through by the states and the Commonwealth. Frankly, you would have to be living under a rock to miss those developments. In fact, they have been the subject of debate in the chamber today. I note that the report does acknowledge that the Prime Minister’s water plan will impact on the bill. In reference to the 25 January plan announced by the Prime Minister, paragraph 1.9 of the report states:

If implemented, this is likely to impact upon the operation of the bill.

That is certainly an understatement. In fact, the Prime Minister’s plan is largely inconsistent with many aspects of the framework that this bill is giving effect to. It seems that the right hand of government is not aware of what the left hand is doing. Why is the government introducing a bill that is likely to be superseded by arrangements which the government has already announced and is likely to be superseded before it is even voted on?

This bill was introduced in December 2006 on the last day of the last sitting. It contains amendments which would have streamlined and improved the financial operation of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. So it appears that until mid-December 2006 at least the Commonwealth was not planning to take over the Murray-Darling Basin. If people in government did envisage the direction of the 25 January statement then the introduction of the bill on 7 December 2006 would appear quite misleading.

It is concerning that, whilst plenty of effort went into the 2006 bill, no-one appears to have told the parliament or the Senate committee that alternative and largely inconsistent and contradictory plans were being hatched. It is clear from the evidence the Senate has been presented with through Senate estimates and other mechanisms that more effort went into the writing of the Prime Minister’s speech than into the governance, finance and time lines of the original national water plan. We have had some evidence of that discussed today. We know from previous discussions that Senator Minchin has confirmed that the $10 billion water plan was not even considered by cabinet and, as we will recall, the senator ironically justified this by describing the package as ‘only one billion a year, which is less than half a per cent of Commonwealth government expenditure—let’s keep it in perspective’. This is an interesting perspective for a finance minister.

There was no economic modelling by Treasury or Finance, and it has been reported and discussed in here on a number of occasions that the Department of Finance and Administration was asked only to run an eye lightly over the costings, which were contained in a single page. None of the national water commissioners were briefed until the morning of the speech and, importantly in the context of this bill, Ian Sinclair has stated that the Murray-Darling Basin Commission was not asked for advice. The state and territory governments were given contrary advice at the time of the Melbourne Cup Day water summits, and finally we have the government introducing this bill, which assumes existing structures will remain intact and only proposes minor changes.

This bill really confirms that the Prime Minister’s announcement was not well planned. In fact the idea that the PM’s announcement was a well-planned and detailed proposition is frankly a fantasy. Information from key government officials and concerns raised by the National Farmers Federation indicate the lack of detail in the Prime Minister’s water plan and this could mean that important water programs are delayed. Mr Arthur from the NFF has stated that it will take more than a year to nail down the detail of the water plan. We have previously discussed what happened in Senate estimates. This included some questioning of Dr James Horne, the head of the government’s task force, who prepared the water plan. He was asked by me whether it was correct that:

The government has done no modelling of any impact on employment, no assessment of the numbers of people who might have to exit the industry and has not costed any price for purchasing entitlement.

Dr Horne agreed that was the case. He stated:

As far as it goes, that’s correct.

Now we have the National Party undermining the Prime Minister’s Murray-Darling Basin plan. We saw, under pressure from the National Party, the government’s line shifting. The rhetoric about sorting out water overallocation in the Murray-Darling Basin and buying back water entitlements was shifted back quite considerably within a few days. On 25 January the Prime Minister announced that the government’s plan would spend $3 billion buying back water entitlements in the Murray-Darling Basin. Less than a week later, the government was meekly saying that buying water entitlements would only be a last resort. The fact is that we know that the Nationals’ Peter McGauran, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, has long opposed the government’s buying back of water entitlements. We have the unseemly spectacle of Mr McGauran and Mr Turnbull fighting over whether the Commonwealth should buy water licences from willing sellers.

We have a National Party state MP in NSW, Mr Piccoli, who has stated that he is determined to wreck the water plan proposed by the Prime Minister on 25 January. We want to see what Mr Vaile is going to say about this and whether he supports other members of his National Party—in fact those in his own branch.

The history of this bill has shone the light on a disorganised and disunited government which is hurriedly playing catch-up on water policy. Whilst we welcome the nature of the agreement reached last Friday on the Murray-Darling with most of the states, we are concerned as to the way this process has been undertaken. We have sought to play a constructive role in assisting to bring together the states with the Commonwealth. However, we remain of the view that addressing the overallocation of water entitlements must be a central component of resolving our crisis. Addressing Australia’s national water crisis is an urgent task requiring leadership and action as well as internal discipline, attention to detail and appropriate consideration of policy options. What we have is a bill before the chamber which is entirely inconsistent in many respects with the Prime Minister’s announcement on 25 January. It is simply more confirmation that this was a belated and hasty announcement that was not subject of proper consultation either internally or with the states and territories.