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

The proposal before us is:

The Albanese Labor Government's policies are driving up the cost of living while driving down confidence in the farming sector and failing to keep farmers farming.

With the cost-of-living crisis smashing Australian families, relief is urgently needed. The last thing any government should do is introduce policies that have the potential to exacerbate the problem. What government would implement policies that have the potential to stop our farmers farming, add to the cost of production, make homegrown produce less competitive than cheap imports, and deliberately make food and fibre more expensive? More importantly, what government would implement such policies without a comprehensive understanding of the impact of them? Well, as we found out in question time today, this government would. This government is banning live exports. This government is failing to introduce a dedicated visa pathway for agricultural workers. This government is pursuing renewable energy projects and transmission lines across prime agricultural land and introducing punitive industrial relations reforms that will hurt farmers.

But probably most egregious of all is this government's policies to reintroduce water buybacks in the Murray-Darling Basin. Irrigated agriculture is a key mitigation tool in dealing with the extremes of climate change. It is one of the best tools to cope with increasing droughts punctuated by floods. Capturing water during floods and using it to grow food and fibre during the dry times is key to providing an economic base for many agriculturally dependent communities and businesses.

Tonight politicians across the spectrum will get the opportunity to savour a taste of the basin, with food and fibre producers from across the Murray-Darling Basin bringing their goods to parliament, and I welcome some of those producers in the chamber today, listening to this debate. This event has been organised by basin based MPs and senators to highlight the vital role the Murray-Darling Basin plays in the production of food and fibre. There will be a wide variety of produce, including wine, dairy, fantastic Australian rice from my home town of Deniliquin, fruits, nuts, and cotton—all of which are dependent on irrigation.

But there is another motive for these producers coming here to showcase their wares, and it's the motive of having the opportunity to tell politicians firsthand how important our rivers are to food and fibre production, from Queensland to South Australia and everywhere in between, because it is our nation's food bowl. They want the opportunity to talk about the impact of buybacks, because we know from question time today that this government hasn't modelled the impacts. No regulatory impact statement is provided with the water amendment bill that we are going to be asked to vote on in the Senate in the near future. The consultation on that bill consisted of a webinar and less than a handful of invite-only consultation sessions that the department carried out. And the minister has barely set down on the basin.

Unlimited water buybacks will impact our productivity and will make food in Australia more expensive, leading to greater pressure from imported products from countries that don't have a government actively working against food and fibre producers. Make no mistake: everyone wants a healthy river, including our food and fibre producers. But they also want and need healthy industries and communities and to provide the jobs across the supply chain to get our food to the supermarket, to your table. And a healthy working river is about more than flow, yet we have a basin plan that is a one-trick pony, with water recovery the only tool to improve environmental outcomes. We need more than water recovery from the productive pool to ensure that we have working rivers and healthy working communities. Thank you. (Time expired)