Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Hansard source

I come to this debate relatively late in the piece. My interest in the health and wellbeing of the Murray-Darling Basin system was piqued by the Four Corners report into the allegations of theft and corruption upstream. That's why I joined with most of my South Australian colleagues to say there needed to be a royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin allegations and the theft.

In not knowing what I don't know, I've been open to all sorts of representations. I have to say my judgement has been clouded by the lack of disclosure in some instances, the wilful misrepresentation of particular points of view by those with vested interests. I've tried to balance those against those whom I respect and have judgement for. I do want to acknowledge that Senator Ruston—the second time today I've damned Senator Ruston with faint praise—has tried to be a very straight player in this, and I do accept that what she has told me has been accurate and said in very good faith. But I still labour over this decision. I labour over it because I'm deeply concerned about the long-term wellbeing and health of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

But this is tempered by the fact that I don't like being bullied by people who I think have essentially been crooked in this. For the New South Wales government to say the entire Basin Plan is at risk over 70 gigalitres of water, when they are essentially on the hook for undermining the entire effort—turning a blind eye to it and, I would say, blatant, outright corruption—is appalling. And if bullying or threatening these sorts of tactics are the ways they want to get a resolution, they should think again because they don't have any credibility in this space.

I also happen to agree with Senator Wong about the problems with the Deputy Prime Minister being in charge of the water portfolio. I think there was enormous compromise there. I respect the fact that many people say the new minister is committed. I've had meetings with him, and he's been committed to this program. But my confidence in the new minister was undermined when, shamefully, he decided to put out a press release calling upon a party member of mine, who happens to be in Queensland, to 'stand up for Queensland'. A member of a political party has been told to stand up against this South Australian-centric politician who's here representing the interests of the state and trying to balance it across the whole thing. And the minister said, 'The people in Queensland would be worse off as a result of this disallowance today.'

Where it falls on shamefully hollow ground is the fact that the minister himself is related to one of the people in Queensland who have been accused of rorting the water systems themselves. They've been raided. It doesn't matter whether Mr Norman is the brother-in-law, as reported, or the wife's second cousin. There is a direct link with someone who has been rorting the water system or is alleged to have been, whose farms have been raided by the Federal Police, who has been accused of building 'roads'—in those quotation marks again—that just happen to store piles of water from the flood plains and prevent it getting down the river. The fact that this wasn't disclosed, except by the ABC, and I had to start digging through it and find out about it in recent times is extraordinary.

So, if the minister wants to harangue one of my party members about standing up for Queensland's rights, perhaps the minister would stand up for Queensland's rights and his electorate and tell his brother-in-law, or his wife's second cousin, to bulldoze those illegal structures, to stop ripping off water, to stop ripping off the money from the Murray-Darling Basin system, as have been detailed on the ABC.

I will not stand for the hypocrisy in this place. I do not know what I do not know. I have made efforts to find out what it is. Every time you turn around, you get this stench of crookedness and corruption, and unfortunately it all comes from a very similar space.

I am absolutely proud of what South Australians have done in managing a scarce and precious resource. We—and people far more interested, far more energetic, than me—have worked very, very hard in making sure we manage our water rights absolutely well, and we are being let down by what is happening upstream.

I do not trust them. That is the regret. They want to walk away from this basin agreement, an agreement that they signed up to. But, when they find it slightly difficult because of—who knows?—one of the people that have been on the receiving end of their beneficial allocations, or the illegal water structures, or the mismanagement and misallocation of taps, they go to water, if you'll excuse the pun, and expect the rest of us to pick it up.

As I said, I don't know what I don't know, but what I do know is this: the lack of trust and the lack of accountability fills me with scepticism. For that reason alone, I will be supporting this disallowance, because to make changes of this nature, which could have a profound impact not only on my state but on the entire Murray-Darling Basin river system, due to threats, bullying and intimidation is not the way that business in this place should be done.