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

I move opposition amendment (5) on sheet 5640:

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

162E  At the end of Part 12

Add:

261  Water market transparency

        (1)    The Minister must, by legislative instrument, determine a scheme to ensure transparent operation of the water market in respect of the purchase of water entitlements by the Commonwealth.

        (2)    The scheme must ensure that there is disclosure of information in relation to price, volume, security, location, terms and conditions attached to the purchase of entitlements; whether the purchase of water entitlements was contingent upon the purchase of real property rights and, if so: the criteria by which it was determined to proceed with the purchase; and the evidentiary basis for any subsequent changes to the use of property so acquired.

        (3)    The scheme must also provide for a real-time or live exchange disclosing irrigation region, latest sale and value, bid and offer and price by megalitre.

This amendment relates to water market transparency. One of the issues that have been raised with the coalition by communities and irrigators themselves is the issue of getting transparency within the water market, within the buyback process that the government is undertaking. I know that the minister has given her views to Senate estimates committees, as has the department, around the issue of water market transparency, and they believe that it is indeed transparent in its current form.

A lot of the view from the irrigators’ community is that it is not transparent enough. They feel, and we concur, that in each region, in each area, irrigators have a right to know amount, price, volume and timing. I think it is vitally important that, when the government is entering into the market through buyback processes, as they are doing, irrigators have the right to understand exactly how that process is working.

I know the minister will say that it is entirely transparent and it is entirely fine, but that is not the view of the irrigators out in the community. They are very concerned that there should be a much greater degree of transparency. We must be looking at it to ensure there is disclosure of information in relation to price, volume, security, location, terms and conditions—a number of those things that currently are not being provided by the government.