Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia (Senator Canavan) to a question without notice asked by Senator Hanson-Young today relating to the Murray-Darling Basin.

My questions to him were of course in his capacity representing the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, a minister who has done absolutely nothing, despite our river system, our nation's largest river system, being on the brink of collapse. Over the summer, while this place was on holidays, communities right throughout the Murray-Darling Basin were suffering. We know that millions of fish died on the lower Darling. We know the environment has been in collapse ever since, and we know that the only solution that this government has offered is that Australians all get together and pray for rain. What an absolute disgrace.

While we should be getting on with responding to the recommendations from the South Australian royal commission, handed down a week or so ago, and to the concerns and recommendations of the government's own Productivity Commission report—two reports that were scathing about the government's management of the Murray-Darling Basin and the their inability to deliver on the outcomes of protecting and saving the environment—$13 billion of Australian taxpayers' money has been put on the table. This funding was designed—we were told, we were promised—to save the river system from collapse, but the exact opposite has occurred. If that does not warrant a reasonable response from the minister of the day and this government, what does?

Thirteen billion dollars and we've got a million dead fish. Thirteen billion dollars and the river is dying. Thirteen billion dollars and there's not enough water to save the environment. That is what both the Productivity Commission has said and the South Australian royal commission has said. This is squarely at the feet of this government. We know that, when this government came into power, Barnaby Joyce was given the water portfolio because a deal was done between the Liberal Party and the Nationals that the Nationals had to be given the water portfolio. It's like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. If you want to ruin a river system, if you want to condemn the environment to death, you give the Nationals the keys to the water portfolio.

This National Party has overseen the death of the Murray-Darling. It is condemning river communities to suffering and destitution. The National Party has sold out the Australian taxpayer. Instead of spending $13 billion fixing the river, we've seen hundreds of millions and billions of dollars going to line the pockets of the mates of the National Party. Barnaby Joyce, former water minister, has done very well for his cotton grower mates in Queensland, his big corporate cotton grower mates, and very little to save the river. It is on the head of Barnaby Joyce and the rest of the National Party that this river is dying a slow, painful death. It is on the heads of the National Party ministers that a million fish are dead this summer.

What do we hear from the government today? Absolutely nothing. They've dismissed the very real legal concerns of lawyers across this country who have looked at the details of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. They have dismissed the evidence of corruption, of water theft, of mismanagement. They're doing everything they can to cover up this scandal because they know it is just so bad; it is rotten right to the core.

You want to know why we've got a million dead fish in this country in the lower Darling? It's because of Barnaby Joyce and the National Party. Rather than fixing the problem, rather than doing anything about it, we've got the Prime Minister and his water minister telling Australians to 'go pray for rain'. It is pathetic. This is why we need a royal commission into the management of the Murray-Darling Basin, because it's $13 billion and no-one can point to where the water is. It's $13 billion, and some big greedy corporate irrigators are getting pretty rich and the river is dying a slow, painful death. It's a scandal that needs to be tackled.

Question agreed to.