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

It is. These people are running the country. They say, 'Oh, this is a one-off.' They cannot possibly have bought the place without seeing it. Well, they did. At that stage the minister was Penny Wong. She only turns up once in your life and when she turns up you just have to make the most of her! Then the government came back into the market because after Toorale they went and bought Twynam's water from Johnny Kahlbetzer. I went to college with him. He is a clever man. They bought all his water licences, the whole $303 million. There were other people in tenders up and down, offering it cheaper. But this is the government and this is why the government are so far in debt. This is why I have no confidence whatsoever that these people will be competent enough to complete on this plan.

We started this process in good faith, that there was an environmental issue there and we would try as best we could to address it. We put the money on the table when we had money in the bank. We knew full well from the word go that, if the coalition were not at the table, this rambling disorderly nonsense which is apparently standing in proxy for a government instead of talking to us would talk to the Greens. You will see one of these amendments coming up: rather than saying they want 'up to', they want a minimum of 450 gigs from this. That is what we would have to contend with. They said at the start they wanted in excess of 7,000 gigs to be taken out of communities and put back into the environment. That would absolutely decimate the Murray-Darling Basin. They were kicking and screaming, they were never happy.

It was force majeure for us because we knew full well, if we were not the participants to try and placate the excesses of this ludicrous scheme, who would be doing it—the Australian Greens, as orchestrated from inner suburban Adelaide. That would have not been doing the right thing by our people, by those 600 dairy farmers who were protesting the other day, by the people of Bourke, by the people of Parkes, by the people of Goondiwindi, by the people of St George, where I live. This river goes literally past my front door. I can throw a rock from my front yard into the river without much effort whatsoever. In fact, in a couple of days I will be able to almost kick it into the river.

To be honest, we are extremely reluctant participants in an incompetent government, but we do it because we know that the alternative is disaster. We will be moving amendments that clearly state our position should we come to government. Make no mistake about our position. There will be a cap at 1,500 gigs on buyback. We will make sure that the operations of the environmental water holder do not disturb the market but, if there is the opportunity at times for water that is not going to be used, that people have the capacity to use that productively. These are the sorts of logical things that have to happen. With a sense of scepticism and erring, we cautiously move forward with this bill.