Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor Party has been neglectful in the way it has dealt with the water in the Murray-Darling system for decades. The previous government had put aside a lot of money to address the problems in the Murray-Darling Basin, but the intransigence of the Victorian Labor government prevented that plan from ever being put into effect. So the Labor Party, under some real pressure to do something that they had not done for a decade past, have been looking around for stunts that will divert attention from their inaction.

I have to say with some regret that it is a pity that the minister is not here. I do not like saying this when she is not here to defend herself but her management of both climate change and water has been appalling. She had to come up with some stunt, so the Labor Party went out and bought Toorale Station—sight unseen, I understand—and, in doing that, they have destroyed a major impetus in that region. That was done without any suggestion of compensation for the people who will be put out of work and for the people who will be thrown out of their houses and thrown out of their jobs as a result of this decision. They have not done as the National Water Initiative suggested—and this is the New South Wales government’s problem in splitting the water licence from the land. In New South Wales, and Toorale Station as I understand it, the licence is attached to the land. Once they have shut down the usage of water on this land, the property is to be turned into a national park. We know about the New South Wales government’s—indeed, every state Labor government’s—administration of national parks: they become havens for feral pigs, feral animals and weeds, with no money offered for the proper management of what is left after the water has been taken from Toorale Station.

It does not stop there. The Labor government, in putting some 14 to 20 billion litres supposedly back into the Darling, have at the very same time facilitated the Victorian Labor government’s stealing of over 100 million litres of water from the system. The Toorale is well upstream—it will not have any impact whatsoever at the mouth of the Murray-Darling system—but the water stolen by the Victorian government from the Murray system would have had a real impact. How can anyone attribute any credibility at all to the Labor Party—to the government here in Canberra and to the government in Melbourne—when on the one hand they are paying $24 million to get 14 to 20 billion litres of water into the Darling and, at the same time, letting six, seven or eight times that amount of water be stolen from the Murray-Darling system when that could have made a real difference at the mouth of the Murray? Why is the Victorian government stealing this Murray water? To flush the toilets of Melbourne citizens.

There were other alternatives available to the Victorian government to address the water problems that government has created through inaction in infrastructure over the past several years but, no, they chose the easy option: to steal the water from the Murray-Darling system. I wondered why Senator Siewert, in siding with the government on the Toorale purchase, did not make reference to this particular government’s—and to Mr Garrett’s in particular—facilitating the stealing of water from the Murray-Darling system to take it into Melbourne. If you were really serious about what happens at the mouth of the Murray, you would be doing something to get the water that is now going to Melbourne into the system and down to the lakes.

My friend and colleague Senator Heffernan, who unfortunately is absent today at a funeral, has pointed out some aspects of administration of the Murray-Darling by Labor governments, both state and federal, that really do require a very serious investigation. I note in passing that $24 million was paid to the Swire Group—the owner of Toorale Station—which has as one of its directors Sir Rod Eddington, who is the Labor government’s very close adviser on infrastructure and many other things. There is nothing particularly wrong with that, although it does muddy the waters slightly in relation to this acquisition.

So the whole position of the government, not only now but when they were in opposition, of opposing the previous government’s very deliberative and well-managed plans for the Murray really calls into question their commitment and their ability to manage this. We know that the Labor Party simply cannot manage money. In 10 short months they have really gone a long way to destroying all of the good work that Peter Costello did in the previous 11 years. It is a given fact that you cannot trust Labor governments anywhere with money, but we now find that you cannot trust the Labor Party and their governments with the management of water either.

I will never understand why the then opposition did not put more pressure on the Victorian government to join Mr Howard’s water plan, which set $10 billion aside to address the problems of the Murray. The Labor Party played politics in Victoria, played politics in this house and prevented that from happening. Now, when they have government in every state—except Western Australia, I should add—they are still unable to properly manage the problems in the Murray-Darling system. Sure, it is good to buy some water to put into the river, but it needs to be done right along the system. To at the same time allow the Victorian Labor government to steal water from the Murray system is just criminal. This government should stand condemned for facilitating the Victorian state Labor government’s stealing of water from the Murray system.