Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to provide the house with Labor's position on the National Water Commission (Abolition) Bill 2014, a gratuitous bill in which I see no merit. Labor opposes it in its entirety without amendment. Mr Adam Lovell, the Executive Director of the Water Services Association of Australia, put it very well when he said:

The potential closure of the National Water Commission along with the abolition of the COAG standing council this year means that water management is, almost inconceivably, left with no focus at the national level. From an industry managing more than $120 billion worth of assets—at least in an urban sense—and $15 billion in turnover, it seems almost unbelievable that governments, both federal and state, would not see a need for national leadership.

On behalf of the Labor Party, I would like to assure Mr Lovell and his many constituent businesses that, at the federal level, there is a government in waiting at least that understands the need for national leadership and guidance of Australia's unfinished water reform process.

The government's moves to abolish the National Water Commission are nothing more—and probably less—than the latest absurd example of the Abbott government's bogus budget savings mantra. The government's rationale for abolishing the National Water Commission is that there has been considerable progress in national water reform and that there is an expected saving of $20.9 billion over the forward estimates. Despite this government's flexibility with the English language, even it could not argue that 'considerable progress' means all necessary water reforms in Australia have been achieved or even partially completed. Even Senator Birmingham—who, I am pleased to say, is taking this bill through for once; he has been given the role in his portfolio to do so—has made it clear that the National Water Commission is integral to getting water reform right in this country and that it must see through the unfinished National Water Initiative, see through the unfinished Murray-Darling Basin reform and hold governments to account to get sustainable management of Australia's water resources in a way that is market driven and that ensures that finite water is used for the best possible purpose at the best possible value and causes—be they in rural communities or urban infrastructure.

For all the successes of the National Water Commission, there remains much more to be achieved. Rural and regional towns and cities are, particularly in New South Wales, lacking water security and are likely to face severe water shortages before the end of the coming summer. Improvements in water efficiency and water conservation as well as new water resources will be required and without the National Water Commission there is now no clear avenue through which to drive and harness the benefit from national coordination in water reform. Water reform in the Murray-Darling Basin under the Basin Plan is only just beginning to take shape, with the full effect of the plan not expected until 2019 and a number of key milestones to be met by the states and the Commonwealth in the meantime—milestones which the Productivity Commission is not equipped to measure.

Under this legislation the Productivity Commission will take over responsibility for assessing progress on the National Water Initiative implementation, for weakened audits on the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan as required by the Water Act, for audits of the implementation of the Basin Plan and associated water resource plans, for monitoring water markets and payments to basin states and for the biennial National Water Planning Report Card. These are the most important responsibilities, which even the few stakeholders open to the abolition of the National Water Commission listed as critical. The National Farmers' Federation representative at the Senate inquiry said that holding the states and the Commonwealth to account for actually delivering on water reforms was critical indeed, and that the assessment and audit function—making sure that the states and territories do not mark their own homework—was No. 1 for them. I warn the National Farmers' Federation that it will be disappointed—