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

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. The government should reconsider the necessity of its paltry and mean saving because there is no rationale behind it. The government will save slightly more than nothing—to be specific, 0.0001 per cent of government expenditure over the forward estimates—by abolishing the National Water Commission, but it will lose every dollar of the extraordinary value of the corporate knowledge, subject expertise and universally acknowledged independence of the National Water Commission. For a saving of one-thousandth of a per cent, the government endangers the more than $13 billion that has been invested in water reform, particularly in the Murray-Darling, that is delivering value for money. This is not a rationale. Just because the abolition of the National Water Commission is one of the few recommendations from the discredited Commission of Audit this government is pursuing to make this futile exercise appear worthwhile, that is no rational reason to cast aside the jobs, the people and the potential for ongoing water reform guaranteed by the existence of the NWC.

But I fear that, once again, rationality has played no part in a policy decision of this government. Instead it seems that, once again, ideology is what is trumping all. The abolition of the National Water Commission is perhaps the most illogical example of the government's pogrom against those Australian agencies and programs that have until recently been successfully tackling the impacts of climate change. This government has now attacked or destroyed: the renewable energy target, the Climate Change Authority, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, the Climate Commission, the Biodiversity Fund, the carbon price, the energy efficiency opportunities legislation and now the National Water Commission. All of these agencies and programs are, or were, successful at tackling climate change. None of them have been more successful over such a long period of time as the National Water Commission. Indeed, its proud record of achievement has been charted in Hansard numerous times by Senator Birmingham himself. One only has to go to Hansard to find Senator Birmingham on the record, proudly highlighting the achievements of the National Water Commission.

The vast majority of the 32 public submissions to the Senate inquiry into this bill supported maintaining the National Water Commission and its funding. That is something for the government to listen to—the vast majority of public submissions that were provided to its own Senate inquiry. The proposed termination of the NWC will see advice from the agencies diverted through the minister's political advisers, as the government desires. This outcome will disappoint many of those submitters to that Senate inquiry who emphasised the importance of the NWC's perceived and actual independence. The submission of Environment Centre NT noted:

Independent Federal oversight of the [National Water Initiative] is required to ensure water resources are far less likely to become depleted, that resource allocation decisions are made under a fair, transparent and informed process …

Importantly, research conducted and funded by the NWC has also been critical to building well-informed decision-making processes around water resource allocation and management.

Professor Richard Kingsford, director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science at University of New South Wales, said in his testimony to the inquiry:

I think that one of the great strengths of the National Water Commission has been that it has been at arm's length from government. Not only that: it has had expertise in the fact that the water commission is at the top, representing the different water sectors. That was very important in criticising, often, the way water was managed in the states and by the Commonwealth. My biggest concern, which I have articulated in my submission, is the opportunity for shifting responsibility across different parts of government if we do not have this function at arm's length of government, as it was for the National Water Commission.

I think that is my biggest concern about the abolition of the National Water Commission. It was a trusted entity by all parties: even though sometimes the states did not like what came out of it, everybody respected it as a sort of independent umpire.

That submission speaks for itself and it replicates so many submissions that were made to that Senate inquiry that this government now chooses to ignore through its abolition bill—something Senator Birmingham knows very well through his past involvement in this portfolio area, something I hope that he chooses to not ignore when he makes his contribution on this bill.

Australia's society, climate and reliance on water demands devoted, collaborative, whole-of-government and leading-edge management of Australia's most valuable economic, societal and environmental resource. Without an independent agency not only is there a risk of inefficient management and thus the prospect of increased bills; a significant and entirely unnecessary threat of jurisdictional and stakeholder backsliding on water reform and the multiparty support that has been a hallmark of the Nation Water Initiative is in jeopardy of breaking down. This risk has already become manifest, according to the submissions provided by the Water Association, the Water Services Association of Australia, Konfluence and Watervale Systems. They said:

Unfortunately we are already seeing backsliding from States in relation to implementing the National Water Initiative:

•   increasing politicised pricing determinations with rates of return that will not encourage private sector investment,

•   in many growing regional centres the transition to upper bound pricing is slow to non-existent, and

•   poor governance arrangements, for example some governments have not moved towards upper-bound pricing for utilities which is a clause stipulated in NWI.

There is no doubt that a national, coordinated approach to water reform is needed to deliver on the National Water Initiative to: give frank and fearless advice to governments of all persuasions across jurisdictions; engage Australians and promote the need for and benefits of ongoing water reform; ensure plans are made to secure Australia's economic future; improve vital economic regulation across the water sector; facilitate increased private sector investment; improve the robustness of urban water planning; and ensure the water sector maintains and improves its performance over the long term.

The rationale presented to justify the abolition of the National Water Commission lacks rigour. The National Water Commission has been very effective in promoting and progressing water reform, and preparing Australia for the impacts of climate change. It still has much critical work left to do, if only this government would allow it to do that critical work. Unfortunately, if this governments gets its ideological, denying way, it will succeed in abolishing a successful, respected and valuable government agency. I feel that the words of Professor Richard Kingsford offer the most accurate and the most appropriate testament to the work of the National Water Commission and its staff. Professor Richard Kingsford said:

I think the NWC has done a phenomenal task over the most extraordinary landscape of controversy in the period that it has existed ... I think what we have actually seen driven and very well formulated by the work of the National Water Commission is nothing short of probably Australia's most fundamental reform process in the last 100 years.

In the last 100 years, Mr Deputy President, and this is what this governments wants to abolish all for the saving of one-thousandth of a per cent for its budget bottom line. This is nothing short of an ideological position by this government. It fits very well with its ideological position in regard to climate change, in regard to pricing carbon, and in regard to renewable energy, and is another backward step that this country is taking in regard to water reform. It does nothing to advance Australia's interest in the water reform space or the climate change space, and that is why those of us of the opposition in the Labor Party will not be supporting this very disingenuous and short-sighted piece of legislation.

Debate adjourned.