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

I would like to move item (5) on sheet 7336. I move:

(5) Schedule 1, item 2, page 10 (after line 35), after paragraph 86AI(2)(c), insert:

  (ca) for all water recovery for which an amount was debited from the Water for the Environment Special Account during the report year for the purposes of paragraph 86AD(2)(b)—how that recovery achieved a neutral or beneficial socio-economic outcome;

We do not intend to divide on this. We want to make sure that the amount is recovered—an environment special account during the report year for the purposes of paragraph 8682—and that they report back to us as to how this recovery was neutral. We have talked about socioeconomic and environmental neutrality. We need to know and the Australian people need to know how the government is doing this. At this point in time it is case of taking them on trust, and taking people on trust is a very dangerous proposition.

The purpose of this amendment is to make sure that the Water for the Environment Special Account is achieved in the form that has been promised by the government—and by us—that there will be a socioeconomic neutrality for environmental outcomes. If we do not have this oversight, we have a strong belief that we are not going to get it and there will not be the delivery of the outcome back to the towns in such a way that does not decimate the towns.

We have got bureaucrats running round the joint cooling the planet. We have over 1,000 people in the climate change department. Let's see if we can give people a job that really matters: making sure that we do not destroy the economic base of places like Shepparton, Mildura, St George, Bourke—the places where we live.