Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I seek to speak in respect of the Water Amendment Bill 2018. Labor support the Water Amendment Bill 2018 because we need to get the Murray-Darling Basin Plan back on track.

The basin's sustainable health has always been a priority for Labor. In 1994, the Keating Labor government brokered the COAG agreement that established the framework for the Murray-Darling Basin reform that survives to this very day. In 2007 the Murray-Darling Basin Authority was established, and Senator Penny Wong, as water minister, started to acquire water for environmental use. In 2012 Tony Burke finally achieved what had escaped governments for 100 years, namely an agreement on a plan that prioritised the sustainable health of the entire Murray-Darling Basin system.

The goal of the plan is to deliver a healthy river, and Labor still puts that outcome ahead of politics. We delivered a plan for the recovery of 2,750 gigalitres for the environment and an additional 450 gigalitres of water for the environment from on-farm infrastructure. The plan includes a mechanism to allow 450 gigalitres of water to be added as well as a reduction of up to 650 gigalitres, but only if the health of the environment isn't jeopardised. To test that requirement the plan includes environmental targets that need to be delivered. The 450 gigalitres came with a funding package of $1.77 billion that Labor delivered in 2012. That package is for on-farm water projects that provide the Commonwealth with water and money to remove constraints in the basin to allow the water to get to where it is required. Barnaby Joyce put the 450 gigalitres of water for the environment in doubt. The package of measures Labor recently agreed on with the government overcomes that problem by locking in that 450 gigalitres once again. So the Greens can grandstand, as they have continued to do for the whole period of the debate about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, but the reality is that the agreement that has been reached is what will enable the plan to be implemented. And let's not forget that they voted with Bob Katter against the plan in 2012—