David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023. First of all, I want to commend the work of my colleague Senator Hanson-Young and her ongoing commitment to saving the Murray-Darling rivers and to critical environmental outcomes in my home state of New South Wales. I also commend her for the courage which she has shown for her home state of South Australia; core to that is saving the beautiful Murray-Darling river system.

The agreement that has been reached today takes us a significant step towards that goal of saving the Murray-Darling river system. It does not take us to our final destination of ensuring the protection of the river, but I've got to say that it is perhaps one of the most significant steps forward for the river that we've seen in decades. The angry opposition we're hearing from some elements in this chamber, and the angry opposition we've heard to any kind of priority for environmental flows for the river, is at odds with the interests of our environment; at odds with the interests of First Nations peoples, and their clear need for cultural flows; and at odds with the interests of our farming communities, who absolutely need thriving healthy rivers to produce the food and fibre that we desperately need. And, ultimately, it's at odds with the interests of this gorgeous, extraordinary and unique place that we live in, and the animals and the plants who share it with us. That's because water is life, and millions of Australians rely on the Murray-Darling Basin for drinking water, jobs and recreation, and for that gorgeous ribbon of life and biodiversity that winds its way through our states and through this beautiful country that we share it with. There are no jobs on a dead river, there's no agriculture on a dead river and, obviously, there's no life on a dead river, and that's what we have to avoid.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was originally intended to be an overall plan for the catchment. It was intended to stop the warring and water theft, and it was intended to deliver real and measurable environmental flows, along with guarantees for adequate, predictable and sustainable amounts of water for agriculture. But despite more than a decade, only 26 gigalitres have been recovered up till now under the plan—26 gigalitres, when the goal, roughly, for this time next year was 450 gigalitres. I don't know how we could describe it as anything but a lost decade, or perhaps the decade spent dealing with rorts and ugly, grubby politics from a former coalition government that seemed hell-bent on destroying the Murray-Darling Basin Plan rather than delivering for it. It was a government that seemed comfortable with letting the river die at the hands of some pretty greedy vested interests who were playing politics with perhaps one of the most critical environmental assets on our continent.

We need water to keep flowing in the Murray-Darling—we need it urgently. And we need more water, not less. If we let the irrigators and the big corporate agricultural interests play, they would suck every last drop out of the river. We would see continuing summers of fish kills, blue-green algae blooms and dead rivers. Those things might deliver short-term corporate profits for a few big agricultural corporate interests, but that's when family farms die. That's when communities walk off the land. That's when First Nations connections with rivers die, and that's when the rivers die. That is what we have been fighting for—a critical lifeline for the Murray-Darling Basin in the face of the existing impacts of climate change and the further impacts of climate change that we know are already plugged into the system. That's why we need to pass this legislation, rapidly, this week.

I and the Greens don't pretend that this bill delivers everything that we need, but it will deliver real environmental water flows across the basin, it will close a series of loopholes in the plan and it will lead to significantly increased transparency and accountability, as well as wins for First Nations communities. What have we managed to agree to? The agreement includes a guarantee in law that the environment will finally receive the 450 gigalitres of water needed to protect our precious river system—no more media releases, no more lost words, but a legal guarantee that that minimum of 450 gigalitres will be brought back and put into the environmental flows. That's a win for my home state of New South Wales, it's a win for South Australia and, critically, it's a win for the Menindee Lakes in my home state.

The Menindee Lakes have been a political football in New South Wales. The former coalition government was willing to literally kill the lakes for the interests of irrigators, with a deeply flawed plan that the local farming community opposed, the local community in and around Menindee opposed, the Barka people opposed, First Nations people opposed—everybody opposed, except for a small handful of corporate irrigators. Yet the former Commonwealth coalition government in this place and the former state coalition government joined together to deliver for the interests of a handful of multinational irrigators, over the interests of pretty much everybody else, including the environment and the lakes themselves. Well, with this agreement, that Menindee Lakes plan is dead, and not before time. This is a chance to actually save the Menindee Lakes—a spectacular part of our continent, full of environmental diversity.

There's also an independent audit of water in the basin. The purpose of that is to stop the rorts that we know are already plugged into the system, to put some integrity in the system and to restore trust, because we absolutely need to restore trust after the last lost decade. It will also give the Commonwealth essential power to withdraw state government infrastructure projects. That, of course, is one of the key elements which mean that we can stop the Menindee Lakes project. Without this legislative capacity, we may well find that the Commonwealth government is forced to continue with that disastrous Menindee Lakes project. This will end it. I understand we have a political commitment from the minister to end the funding of the Menindee Lakes project.

Of course, a long overdue amendment is to include in the objects of the act acknowledgement of First Nations peoples' connection to water, their rights, their interests and their values. Of course that should have been in the act when it was originally passed, but now, finally, we'll put it in the act. With that will come a significant amount of money to make it a reality—$100 million for First Nations water and Aboriginal water entitlements programs. Those two things together mean that, finally, this parliament is listening in part to First Nations elders.

I give credit to the Dharriwaa Elders Group up in Walgett. For me, they have been a compass point in this discussion and debate. The Dharriwaa Elders Group up in Walgett live on the river. They know how essential to culture connection to the river is. They have said, at each point, that it needs to be dealt with as a catchment and that First Nations peoples need to be at the table, to talk about the health of the river, to talk about the flows of the river and to explain the connection between land and culture, country and river, because the Dharriwaa elders will tell you that they've been talking about the river for 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 years, and they might know a thing or two about it.

When they said that the original draft of this bill didn't do enough to save their river, didn't respond to the needs for culture and didn't acknowledge their wealth of knowledge, they were right. These amendments put in those critical things in the objects of the act and then put the funding next to it. I think that shows in part that the Dharriwaa Elders Group and other First Nations groups that have engaged with us on this are being listened to, finally. I think that is a significant win. It's not just the Dharriwaa elders. An article in the National Tribune states:

Polly Cutmore, a Gamilaraay/Wirri/Anaiwan traditional owner has said:

We need to recognise the rights of the river as a source of life in our country and those rights need to be respected. Our culture would not exist without it but us murris have become alienated from the decisions that are made about how it is looked after.

What we know about our country and the changes that the colonisers have brought, tells us that drier times are coming and now it is so important to listen to what Mother Earth and our Ancestors are telling us. We need to restore the flows that give life to the river and support our culture.

How true—no river, no life. That's what they've been telling us.

My first personal experience of just how appallingly we treat our river systems was when I was 14 or 15. I was camping in north-west New South Wales on a tributary of the Paroo, I think it was. I had gone off on a little motorbike to sit on the side of this lagoon, off the edge of the river. It was extraordinary, with all this bird life, monitor lizards running around. I was extracting carp out of the river and feeding the monitors with them. As I was doing that, as I was sitting on the banks of the river in this extraordinary place, I remember over the course of an hour and a half, the river went down by about 1½ metres, almost two metres. I didn't know what had happened. I was 14 or 15. I had never had an experience like this before. I was sitting on the side of this extraordinary little lagoon off the river and it disappeared under my feet. I jumped back on my motorbike and went back into camp, which was near one of the homesteads. I remember saying, 'What on earth happened?' They said, 'Go and check it out at the homestead.' I went and saw a bloke called 'Buck' at the homestead and said, 'What has happened to the river?' He said, 'Oh, mate, they have turned the cotton pumps on. It happens like that. They suck the river dry.' I genuinely couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe what was happening to the river.

Since then the extractions have got bigger, that industry has grown at the expense river, and never have I thought more desperately that this parliament needs to act to protect that beautiful lifeline. As the NCC said in New South Wales, 'This is a win for the Murray-Darling.' Jacqui Mumford, the CEO of the Nature Conservation Council of New South Wales said:

We commend the Federal Government for wanting to cancel the Menindee project, which was never going to work. Now we need to see how they intend to return real water to the rivers, in particular the Darling-Baaka in the leadup to the next drought.

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We've seen time and time again that the devil is in the details. We are still waiting to understand how the government is planning to ensure the Darling-Baaka is protected.

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Communities along the Darling-Baaka have borne the brunt of decades of water mismanagement, and have done an amazing job of advocating for the rivers.

I commend every word coming from Jacqui Mumford and the NCC.

This has been a hard negotiation. We've heard a lot of lies from a couple of big corporate vested interests in the farming community willing to sell out their rivers, towns, sell out the mum-and-dad farmers, sell out First Nations people for a short-term profit and, thankfully, they're being stared down and we're now going to have a bill that the Greens can vote for. I do want to credit the hard work, the consistency, the belief in the river and the belief we can do something good that's been shown by Senator Hanson-Young in this. I commend her for her work, and let's get this legislated.