Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

I move opposition amendment (2) on sheet 5640:

(2)    Schedule 2, page 318 (after line 32), after item 162, insert:

162B At the end of Part 12

Add:

258 Community Impact Statements

        (1)    For each region in the Basin in which the Commonwealth purchases or intends to purchase any privately-held water entitlement, the Minister must publish a Community Impact Statement specifying:

             (a)    social and cultural impacts;

             (b)    economic impacts;

             (c)    environmental impacts;

             (d)    the criteria used by the Commonwealth in deciding to purchase that water entitlement;

             (e)    any conditions upon which the purchase was made;

              (f)    other water entitlements the Commonwealth is considering purchasing in the region.

        (2)    A report published under subsection (1) must specify the modelling and evidence upon which the impacts referred to in paragraphs (1)(a), (b) and (c) were determined.

        (3)    The Community Impact Statement must be used in determining the allocation of funds under any structural adjustment package determined under section 259.

This very clearly goes to the issue of being able to ascertain, measure and understand the potential impact on communities as a result of water being removed from those communities. We certainly do not believe that to date the government has focused anywhere near clearly enough on ensuring that the socioeconomic impact statements of particular communities and of particular regions are taken into account when we are looking at the issue of reducing water allocation to communities, to farmers and to irrigators.

We would like to see the introduction of this amendment bring about the provision for community impact statements. There would be a requirement under the legislation, for each region in the basin in which the Commonwealth purchases or intends to purchase any privately held water entitlement, that the minister must publish a community impact statement specifying social and cultural impacts; economic impacts, obviously; environmental impacts; and the criteria and any conditions upon which the purchase was or is to be made.

We believe these measures will ensure that there is a very clear recognition and understanding by government of the impact their actions will have in removing water from communities. I know that the minister has referred in the past to the impact being previous overallocation and climate change, and that may well have a place. But the minister’s words at that time were to the exclusion really of the importance of the impact of the current buyback. It may well be that in that context the minister was alluding to the fact that there really is not any water yet going back to the system—there is very little water to be allocated against the entitlement that is being bought back. Perhaps, to be fair to the minister, that was the intent of what she said at the time.

Through this amendment we are trying to ensure that there is focus by the government on the importance of the impact on our communities of taking water from those communities. We are not entirely sure that the minister is perhaps as cognisant of this as she should be, having travelled through the Murray-Darling Basin recently and had a significant amount of feedback from those communities that they did not believe the minister was aware as she should be of the potential impact on those communities from this buyback process. This amendment moves to clearly put in place a requirement that community impact statements will be done so that there is a very clear understanding of any of those potential impacts upon our rural and regional communities.