Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Murray-Darling is a vital part of Australia's environment and water supply. The river system supports the heartland of Australia's agriculture, provides three million people with their drinking water and sustains over one million square kilometres of Australia's inland environment. The objective of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is to restore and manage our waters, to protect the basin for future generations. Today's proposed legislation, the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023, is facilitated by the implementation of this plan and I'm happy to support its passage in this chamber.

The Murray River flows through my ancestral lands, through Swan Hill, the land of the Wamba Wamba people. The Murray-Darling Basin, which covers a vast area across this continent, has been home to First Nations people for over 65,000 years. For my people, the First Peoples of this country, the Murray River and other waterways were an essential life force, and they continue to play that part today in all our lives. We, the First Peoples of this country, were the first to navigate this waterway. We were the first to satisfy our thirst by drinking from these waters. We were the first to catch its fish and the first to use these waters to harvest our food. We've known these waterways for tens of thousands of years, and tens of thousands of years of our memories flow through these mighty waterways.

We don't need the Bureau of Meteorology to tell us that on this land, on this great continent of ours, drought has always been a part of its condition. The millennium drought reminded us of this reality. In response, we saw the Murray-Darling Basin Plan emerge. The idea behind the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is simple. It helps our rivers and those who depend on it to get through the drought years, when rivers are at their lowest, with water still flowing through them. This plan was developed together with the basin states and territory governments, in recognition of the fact that we have to plan to ensure the sustainability of the basin. That is why, in 2012, over a decade ago now, Labor signed off on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This is what responsible governments do. We plan for the tough times.

But our nation didn't haven't a responsible government over the last decade. Barnaby Joyce was the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources when he bought water licences from Eastern Australia Agriculture for $80 million. Eastern Australia Agriculture made a whopping $52 million profit on the deal. We know who really profited from the deal. We know which member of the Liberal Party had ties to Eastern Australian Agriculture, don't we? Those opposite know who I'm talking about. I say to Angus: 'Fantastic. Great move. Well done, Angus.'