Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I want to start by responding not to the personal issues—and I am disappointed that that is the way Senator Nash chose to have this debate—but to Senator Nash’s statement about ‘removing water from communities’. She is having a go at the government for ‘removing water from communities’. What we quite clearly see underlying that turn of phrase is the opposition Senator Nash is putting up to water purchases. In my engagement with communities, stakeholders, irrigators and other users, I have found that people understand very clearly that the largest impact that these communities are grappling with is not from water purchases but from the lack of availability of water. It is a fact, for example, that communities such as Deniliquin have had in the last three seasons, unless there has been a change most recently, zero, zero and two per cent general security allocation. That is not from water purchases; that is the cumulative effect of climate change, of drought and of overallocation.

The senator and some members of the opposition—and I will come to that shortly—seem to be suggesting that the impact on these communities is because the government is purchasing water. The fact is that the impact that most of these communities are struggling with is the impact of lack of water availability. The senator also said—and I may be paraphrasing her incorrectly—that climate change may be an issue. The briefing that we were given a couple of weeks ago at the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council, which I chaired, tracked inflows against long-term averages and showed the step down that we have seen over the last 10 years. It then showed where we had tracked during 2006-07 and where we are currently tracking. These are extraordinarily low inflows. In the two years prior to our election we had the lowest inflows in the nation’s history—certainly since we have been taking records on the River Murray. Forty three per cent is the nearest low. That is the sort of step down that we have seen.

There are some on the other side who may take the view that this is not climate change, that this is a temporary drought. Well, I hope that they are right, but I have to say that the evidence appears to be to the contrary. It might be that in 10 or 20 years we can look back and say, ‘This much was a permanent step down as a result of climate change; this much was drought and overallocation.’ But we in government have to deal with a very harsh reality, which is being dealt with every day by irrigators, their families and their communities—that is, that in too much of the southern basin we see historically low levels of allocation because we see historically low inflows.

What do we do about that? This is something that I feel quite passionately about. This is one area where I think that if previous governments had actually been brave enough to make some hard decisions, to tell people what was really happening, then this government would not be left to pick up the pieces. But we are picking up the pieces because those on that side were not prepared to tell people how it was. They were not prepared to say, ‘We really have to make an adjustment and this what we have to do about it and, yes, we are prepared to work with you.’

I absolutely accept how difficult this is for many of these communities. One of the privileges of this job is having the opportunity to meet with a range of individuals from different parts of the basin. There are a lot of people who are not only struggling but are showing a lot of grit and determination in very difficult circumstances. What I have said to them pretty consistently is that we will try and call this problem as we see it, because for too long water has been the subject of too much politics and, frankly, too many politicians telling people what they want to hear. The responsible thing to do is to deal with the facts and to try and put in place programs which enable that adjustment, which we believe as a government has to occur for the benefit of those who are currently struggling with a lack of water availability. Those on the other side have a completely inconsistent position on this. They occasionally criticise us for purchasing and then they occasionally tell us that we should purchase more. I will come to some of those inconsistencies shortly.

This amendment would require a community impact statement for every region on every occasion that the Commonwealth purchased or intended to purchase water. We currently have tenders open in both the northern and southern basins. Does that mean, in relation to every single willing offer that is made—because we are not forcing people to sell to us—that we would have to publish a community impact statement? That simply is unworkable.

Those of us on this side of the chamber continue to hear different positions that different people in the Liberal Party put depending on where they are in the Murray-Darling Basin and who they are talking to. Initially, Mr Hunt said in April 2008, ‘We are pleased they’re involved in the buyback.’ Senator Birmingham, in estimates in February, said that he supported a 1,500-gigalitre buyback commitment. However, Mr Cobb has indicated that he opposed it and is critical of it. Mr Pyne said that we should be spending more money—$1 billion. Dr Stone, the member for Murray, said that, essentially, we can conduct a buyback but only in New South Wales because that is where it is overallocated, and Dr Nelson at some point in fact flirted with the idea of compulsory acquisition. This is the rainbow of positions from the other side.

There have certainly been criticisms of the purchase program that have been put to me by irrigators in my discussions with them. I will tell you what we did as a result. I understand that it is important to try and ensure that communities have the information they need, particularly at a time when things are so difficult. We all understand that it is easy to play politics and to play on people’s fears and concerns at difficult times. We, as a government, understand that we are not going to get responsible policy-making on this front from the opposition. We will get this rainbow of positions. We are faced with that. We are faced with communities who are worried about their futures and are concerned about the fact that they have seen such low allocations over too many seasons.

What did we do with our first $50 billion purchase? We established a stakeholder consultative committee with irrigators and users on it. We commissioned a report, the Hyder review into that first purchase, and we are implementing changes as a result of its recommendations. I am upfront about these recommendations—they called for better communication about the purchase program and more publicly available information about it. So we are taking steps to respond to those recommendations because we always want to improve the way in which this purchase program is being implemented. Of course, it is the first time the Commonwealth has done this. Those opposite never did.

I also want to get the amount of water into perspective. I was asked on Adelaide Talkback, last week I think, how much water we had bought. I provided those figures—I think it was approximately 23 gigalitres of entitlement through the first tender round, leaving aside the Tarraleah purchase, which, by the way, Mr Hunt originally supported and then he opposed. That is actually how much water has been sold to us. Again, that is voluntary. I understand that people made those decisions in difficult circumstances. There are difficult circumstances in too many regions in Australia at the moment because of the lack of water availability due to climate change and the drought. But these are willing sellers. Just under 23 gigalitres of entitlement was the most recent figure that has been purchased. My recollection of reading the review is that there was demonstrated economic benefit to those communities where that water purchase occurred—it enabled those who wanted to exit to do so, it enabled those who wanted to sell part of their entitlement to reinvest to do so, and it enabled water to be allocated to where it was most highly valued. This is in the economic interest of those communities.

I encourage Senator Nash, because I think she seeks to represent her communities, and I encourage people here to help manage this adjustment process responsibly. We will continue to improve the way in which we run the purchase program. We have had stakeholder input into and feedback on our first purchase, which is informing how we are currently undertaking this purchase, and we will do so again. We have also had the Hyder review of our initial purchase program, and we are taking into account its recommendations and its views in the context of the current tender process. We have also commissioned advice from ABARE, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, on the impacts of water buybacks, and the government will consider this information.

These are issues we are very conscious of. We want to do this properly and engage with stakeholders. We will not play the political game played in here by some of those opposite, who, frankly, would do better, if they wanted to responsibly engage with these policy issues, to at least come to some coherent position regarding purchases. The same sort of political divide is being played out on the opposition benches that prevented the Howard government from addressing these issues for 12 years. We are seeing the worst form of politics. We have South Australian senators going down to the Lower Lakes and Coorong and telling them that we need more water and that the government should purchase more. We have senators and members from the Liberal and National parties in New South Wales and Victoria saying that we should not purchase or being critical of our purchases. At some point, communities are going to wake up to the fact that those opposite are telling people different things depending on where they are because they think different people want to hear different things. That is not political leadership.