David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023. I agree with some of Senator Canavan's remarks about our ability to do more to enable our environment to recover and thrive with the rivers flowing, but this bill doesn't quite do that. I've had a very good interaction with the office of the Minister for the Environment and Water, Ms Plibersek, to try and find ways to improve this bill. There are many ways in which this bill could be improved, and I think we've been able to achieve some of them. Hopefully, we can get further on that, but given the time frame that this bill has in which to pass and its limitations, there is only so much that can be done in this round, but it doesn't mean that the bill can't be improved further.

The ability that I now have as an Independent senator to focus on improving legislation and to look at policy and improve it, rather than simply focus on the politics, is an incredibly liberating path to take and one I am enjoying thoroughly. I'm also enjoying the intellectual rigour that I get to bring to policy. Rather than being hamstrung by the politics of it—by the partyroom agenda and by those words only given to you by leadership—I can now take legislation and policy and debate and improve it as well as I can for the people of Victoria and, indeed, for all Australians. Hopefully, that is what I have been able to do with this bill.

As we know, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was implemented in 2008 and then renegotiated in 2011, so this is old policy. It is old legislation. While the government has done what it can to improve it somewhat, it's basically the same old policy. When I sat down to take a look at this legislation, my priority was to ask how it could be improved, and improved not just for farmers, although they are incredibly important—they've been great to me on how they've engaged with me about what this will do—but for the communities who will be affected by the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. There is lots in this bill that can be improved and in many different ways that will modernise what is basically a constrained network, like our gas market and our electricity market. This is just a market with constraints. Buybacks themselves are only one financial instrument that is being used here.

Where I think I've been able to get this bill and have been working to get this bill is to look at a range of different financial instruments that allow the Commonwealth to get the water it needs for the environmental needs of the rivers. Those needs are large. The Darling is choking and the Murray is drowning. These can't just be let to lie, and this can't be allowed to happen just based off one bit of legislation. There's a lot of work that needs to be done to be able to fix both these river systems. And fix them we must.