Malarndirri McCarthy (NT, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Hansard source

This has involved many months of stakeholder consultation and negotiations with basin states to land the agreement that basin water ministers announced on 22 August 2023. Minister Plibersek has toured the basin five times, and the government has held almost 700 consultation activities—

including workshops, round tables and public webinars. Do you want to hear this? This is what this is about, isn't it? The department undertook a five-week public consultation process seeking options to deliver the Basin Plan from 29 May to 3 July 2023, with 131 submissions received. The Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 was the fruit of this painstaking work.

The bill is consistent with the agreement of basin water ministers and is based on wide consultation. It provides more time, more options, more money and more accountability. It has been scrutinised by the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee, which received 124 submissions and held two extended public hearings in Canberra on 31 October and 1 November 2023. Overall, the committee heard from over 100 individual witnesses, spanning 45 organisations. The bill as introduced provides for a greater transparency and accountability, and further amendments increase this even further. Annual reports were tabled to parliament on water recovery progress, consideration of socioeconomic impacts on voluntary water purchase programs, environmental releases from the Snowy scheme, and engagement with First Nations in the basin. A third, independent review of the Water for the Environment Special Account is due in September 2025, including: community assistance funding; an independent audit of water allocated to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder; and a public tracking mechanism on the department's website of progress against milestones set out in a public implementation schedule. We are mandating a range of consideration in the 2026 Basin Plan review, including First Nations water issues, water resource plans and climate change. Further review of these matters is simply just another delay tactic from those who do not support the full delivery of the Basin Plan.