Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. It is very disappointing the agriculture minister and the trade minister were rolled in cabinet on standing up for these communities, clearly. If they really cared about productive food capacity in the regions, they would not be supporting this bill and they would be standing up for our great primary producers. Communities across the Murray-Darling basin have done it tough under the challenging conditions of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. There are many senators on this side of the chamber who have sat down in these communities and sought to understand it. In my home state of Victoria our dairy and horticulture industries have done the heavy lifting in meeting the targets of the plan. More than 50 per cent of the water recovered has come from Victoria. No more should come from the state of Victoria, but the Minister for the Environment and Water is going to roll her own Labor state, which is valiantly standing against this ridiculous policy, this cruel policy.

Our farmers have had no choice but to produce more with less water, and they've risen to the challenge. We should be proud of that instead of taking the stick to them once again. Enough is enough. Without water there is no ability to grow food, provide well-paying local jobs, sustain the future of our regional towns and communities and provide Senator Farrell with a platform to negotiate future free trade agreements with our fabulous primary produce. The Albanese Labor government is backed in by the Greens and the regional Independent for Indi, Helen Haines. What a shameful, woeful regional member Helen Haines is. She voted to decimate her own communities. The people across Indi know she is more interested in currying favour with the likes of the Greens from Melbourne and Tanya Plibersek from Sydney than in standing up for her primary producers. I am confident they will throw her out.

Today we have seen the true colours of the Labor Party under the Albanese government. States came together and said, 'We understand the pain that this plan implementation has provided our primary producers, and do you know what? You cannot take that additional water without convincing us that there won't be detrimental social and economic impacts.' That's it; do no harm. I often hear the Greens talk about the do-no-harm principle, the precautionary principle. That is all this is for the humans, the stock, the productive capacity, the future. If you want that additional water, just prove it's not going to do social and economic harm, but they don't care.

We know buybacks decimate and destroy our communities. A 2022 independent study found that the purchase of 750 gigalitres would cost the southern basin, that's Victoria for the non-giga literates—that's fine, because it can be complex—$900 million in agricultural production per year and tens of thousands of jobs. Talk a big game on jobs, but not if you live in the regions. You actually don't care, because tens of thousands of people are going to lose their jobs. I look forward to the committee stage of this bill, because if you have not modelled the impact of this legislation on our communities you will be held to account in this chamber this week. The research backs up what we already knew. When you take water away from producers, their business dries up. When farmers are forced to shut down it affects the whole community. It's not just about a farmer receiving an economic benefit for the water you've purchased. It flows right through the fabric of the community that the farmer is a part of.

It's not just the farmers who experience devastation. It's the local food producers, the manufacturers, the dairy processors, the abattoirs and the food processors such as SPC in my home state. It's the milk truck drivers. I look forward to hearing Senator Sterle and Senator Sheldon stand up for the Transport Workers Union workers who work for those companies. They don't care. They won't be making a contribution on this bill and standing up for those TWU members and other truck drivers. People will stop going to the local supermarket. They won't buy supplies at the CRT in town. Kids will move from the local school, the town will begin to diminish, the teachers will leave, you won't need so many coppers and you won't need to have your hospital so well staffed. That is the decline, and it is based on the decision that this chamber is choosing to make today.

The aspirations of Labor, the Greens and Helen Haines are not aligned with reality, and there is no regard for the lives this legislation will destroy. The VFF's water council chair, Andrew Leahy, said:

"Buybacks kill rural communities, it's plain and simple, I've seen it first-hand in my hometown."

"We'll have less kids in our schools, less doctors and nurses and less community volunteers in the CFA and our local football teams,"—

and I'm sure he also meant to say netball.

Even the Victorian Labor government understood this. The Victorian Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions did their own analysis on the impact of this devastating legislation on the Victorian Goulburn-Murray Irrigation District, and they emphatically concluded the buybacks would have 'substantial impacts to local communities and disproportionately affect the dairy industry.' But we're expected to believe that no-one is going to be hurt from this. This will be another net zero consequence. But it's only a net zero consequence because it's a net zero consequence to anybody you care about or anybody that has political value to you. This government is more prepared to stick up for Hamas supporters than it is to stick up for those of us that live in the Murray Darling Basin. Senator Farrell, shame on you—more prepared to stick up for Hamas sympathisers than you are to stick up for the productive capacity of those of us who live in the basin, prepared for our lives to be destroyed and our communities to disappear.

The report, which is a Labor's government report, I remind us, also found that a 450-gigalitres water buyback in the southern basin is estimated to result in—and here are the actual facts the Labor Party won't tell you, but the Victorian Labor Party has done its homework. There will be $270 million a year of net loss in gross value of our ag production, 900 jobs affected and lost. Farming practices will continue to evolve to account for less reliable water availability, and it's likely the number of farms and the amount of land used for dairy farming in the GMID will continue to decline.

If this Labor Party were serious about creating good water policy for people, for industry, for the environment, for the river, it would do the following. It would support extending the deadlines for the implementation of the Basin Plan. It would retain the cap on buybacks. It would not enable open tender buybacks used to recover the 450. It would say no to the 450 because it is not a neutral impact on our people. It would broaden the definition of water recovery. Imposing— (Time expired)