Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

It is noncontro. Roll with me on this. It is good to try to get a piece of streamlined legislation so that the federal government basically enacts the decision of the COAG council of ministers so that what they agree to we then enact. It is quite simple. This bill will allow the Commonwealth minister to determine the changes to the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Scheme without changes being required to the states' and territories' legislation.

The WELS Scheme was a proud achievement of the previous coalition government. In 2005 the coalition government created the world's first national scheme of its kind to provide for water efficiency labels on shower heads, washing machines, toilets, dishwashers, urinals and taps. These labels give consumers easy to understand star ratings, as I am sure Senator McLucas would understand, and water consumption information on the water efficiency of different products. The bill amends the WELS Act to allow the Commonwealth minister to determine more of the scheme's details, particularly those relating to the registration of products and cost recovery. This differs from the current position in that some aspects of the scheme, such as the five-year period for product registration, cannot be changed without changing nine sets of legislation. The minister will make changes by disallowable legislative instrument, the terms of which must be agreed to by a majority of states and territories.

If this bill is passed, and I suspect it will because it is noncontro, it is expected that the minister will make a number of changes to the WELS Scheme, including revising registration fees to meet the cost recovery target of 80 per cent that is recovered from industry. Further amendments are proposed in the bill to the enforcement provisions of the WELS Act. Civil penalty provisions have been added to provide a more cost-effective enforcement—and might I say that civil penalty provisions are the way that we are going forward now. It is in regard to the onus of proof. I remember looking into the bill and the onus of proof scheme basically means that instead of having been presumed innocent, and having us prove you are guilty, you have got to prove yourself to be innocent. It is a good position and I am sure many of your advisors would agree with me on that—I can see them nodding profusely.

Civil penalty provisions have been added to provide a more cost-effective enforcement response. The bill will also apply a strict liability to more provisions because it is currently difficult to prove intent in relation to breaches of the act. For example, previously, not labelling a product required having to prove intent and that was rather difficult. Some other changes of an administrative nature have been made, including removing the requirement for gazettal of registration decisions and instead requiring decisions to be published on the WELS website, and providing for further reviews of the operation of the WELS Scheme at five-year intervals.

The coalition supports this bill as it builds on and improves a successful scheme that was introduced by the coalition. It is a shame, however, that this government's water policy is not as noncontroversial as this bill. The biggest water issue—and I know, Madam Acting Deputy President McKenzie, that you will be interested in this—facing this nation is the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The government's management of this plan has been an utter debacle. They released the plan in late 2010; they walked away from it within weeks. A few months later, the head of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority had to resign.