Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

We made a simple request for the government to produce documents relating to the new agreement on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which the Minister announced on 22 August. She announced, with great bravado, a new agreement with all basin states except for Victoria, which I note has stayed very strong and consistent throughout the implementation of the Basin Plan. She then presented just last week to the other chamber a new amendment bill—a bill to amend the Water Act 2007— to amend the Basin Plan 2012 and to implement some water market reforms.

The documents that we requested are required to help us evaluate and assess the bill that is currently being debated in the House of Representatives. The fact that the minister did not foresee this and is claiming she needs more time to put together the information required beggars belief, particularly given that this was clearly not a decision made on 22 August. There was a lot of work preceding that announcement on 22 August. Indeed, the independent review of the Water for the Environment Special Account, completed in December 2021, indicated that an extension of timelines for the implementation of the Basin Plan would be required and that the Basin Plan would not be delivered by June 2024. It beggars belief that it took the minister more than 12 months to ask the Murray-Darling Basin Authority for formal advice to that end, even though the writing had been on the wall since this government took the keys to the Lodge.

Clearly, conversations have been occurring between the government and basin states. Clearly, consideration has been given as to what options there are to deliver the remaining water, including water efficiency infrastructure projects and voluntary water purchases. Indeed, the minister herself made much of opening an online-only consultation calling for people to present her with new projects and ideas to help deliver the Basin Plan. All of that consultation, all of those submissions from right across the basin are sitting on her desk. There has not been a thorough consultation report to say what has been heard or what projects are being pursued.

We have seen the opening of an expressions-of-interest tender process to purchase 46 gigalitres of water from certain valleys in the basin, which is another report that the minister is sitting on. We were just calling on documents, information to help us evaluate the amendment that is coming into this place, that is going to a committee, and the minister has responded with two paragraphs. It is not good enough. We call on the minister to provide us with a date when she can actually provide the documents that the Senate has asked for and show respect for our chamber, because the two paragraphs that she has provided is an absolute slap in the face for the processes of this Senate. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.