Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Let me be clear: he is an in-law to the water minister. That's why John Howard said he was not going to let the Nationals be in charge of water. The claims are that Norman Farming was able to misuse upwards of $25 million from the Healthy HeadWaters Water Use Efficiency project, because the project doesn't have any genuine independent checks on grants and project delivery, leaving it wide-open to corruption.

So the Nationals have no qualms about wasting public money as long as it is going into their electorates. And, of course, the water minister's electorate coincidentally happens to cover Cubbie Station. This plan is stacked in favour of big corporations—big corporate irrigators. The bill is going to entrench the power of the big irrigators in the northern basin. It's going to reintroduce the disallowed instrument that intended to reduce 70 gigalitres of environmental flows in the northern basin. It means less water for the mouth of the river in South Australia.

Today, what we have seen through this amendment is the Labor Party, the Nationals and the Liberal Party working together to deny environmental flows from Queensland and from northern New South Wales through to Victoria and South Australia. It's a cosy little deal, a stitch-up, to look after their big mates. They're making these changes as the very legality—the legal basis on which the plan is constructed—is in doubt. The operations and project management are under a cloud of corruption. Federal agencies are blocking the South Australian royal commission from scrutinising the other jurisdictions involved in the plan. It's a cover-up, and it stinks.

This amendment bill that we are voting on today is bad for the environment. It is bad for those future generations that will rely on a healthy Murray-Darling Basin. It's bad for South Australia. But do you know who it's good for? It's good for big cotton. It's good for those corporations that happen to make big donations to all sides of politics and are now seeing their investment pay off. Let me commend the work of my colleague Senator Sarah Hanson-Young in ensuring that every Australian knows that what we are seeing today are the big parties getting together to look after their mates and to say goodbye to a healthy Murray-Darling River.