Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—In question time in response to a question from Senator Birmingham I indicated I would make a statement subsequently today. I had intended to do so at the time for ministerial statements on the order of business but that would make that subsequent to the MPI, which creates timetabling issues, so I thought it might be useful to do so now.

Last week the government opposed a motion for a Senate order for me to produce departmental documents relating to management options for the lower lakes. The government did so on the basis of extensive precedents including those set by the previous government where advice to government of a similar nature—that is, for the purposes of government’s deliberative processes—had not been provided on the order of the Senate. Those opposite cannot possibly take issue with that. The Senate will recall many similar instances from those in the previous government, such as Senator Hill, who declined on 24 September 2001 to provide documents on the basis that:

The documents are in the nature of, or relating to, opinion, advice or recommendation obtained, prepared or recorded in the course of, or for the purposes of, the deliberative processes involved in the functions of the government ...

In addition, I will draw on advice to the Senate from Senator Ian Campbell, who, on 28 June 2001, said:

Disclosure of such documents would discourage the proper provision of advice to ministers. Were the government to disclose such information, it may prejudice the future supply of information from third parties to the Commonwealth.

On this basis the government remains opposed to the order and I do not propose to make available departmental advice through Senate order. However, senators would be aware that I have provided a great deal of information to the public about the various serious situations in the lower lakes and the Coorong. This is because the government believes it is in the public interest for people to understand how serious the situation is. It is in the public interest for people to understand how the situation has developed so that we can have the best hope of dealing with it and avoiding these dire situations elsewhere in Australia. It is in the public interest for people to know what can be done about the situation so that we can have an informed debate, understanding what our decisions mean for Adelaide’s drinking water supply, for our irrigators, who provide much of the nation’s food and fibre, and for our precious environment.

I am grateful for the keen interest of the Senate in these issues and I also welcome the opposition to this important discussion, although their interest seems to have coincided with the current Mayo by-election. Our task is now to move forward, but we will need to understand history in order to move forward and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Through the Senate inquiry process the government will facilitate informed discussion by providing information on the situation in the lower lakes and the Coorong and the ways in which we can move forward. The Senate can be assured that it will have available to it the information it requires to have proper consideration of the future of the lower lakes and the Coorong.

I can advise the Senate that I will be providing a submission to the Senate inquiry later today on the current situation facing the lower lakes and the Coorong. This submission outlines the options as at June and takes into account developments that have occurred in recent months. Given the strong public interest in the situation facing the lower lakes and the Coorong, I would expect the Senate inquiry to make the information I am providing today available to the public. Thank you.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate take note of the statement.

Whilst I welcome the commitment, so far as it goes, from the minister to make information available to the Senate inquiry, it is extremely regrettable that the minister has chosen to reject the very clear and unambiguous order made by this Senate for her to produce the urgent advice that she referred to on 18 June this year. South Australians in particular have grave concerns about the very short-term and immediate future of the Murray-Darling Basin, and those concerns are based on the fact that very immediate action is required. The minister came in here today and indicated that she would give some information to the committee which was established last week and the establishment of which she did everything possible to oppose, going so far as to try to put her alternative terms of reference on the table.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not true and you know it. You should withdraw that.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Birmingham, resume your seat. Senator Wong, you were heard in silence. I suggest that the same courtesies be extended to Senator Birmingham.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He should tell the truth, Mr Deputy President.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Wong says I should tell the truth. The truth is that Senator Wong did her best to frustrate the process of the Senate inquiry that was being proposed last week. The truth is that Senator Wong put up her own alternative terms of reference rather than attempting to cooperate with the Greens, Senator Xenophon and the coalition senators and then, when she could not manage to get the support for her terms of reference, withdrew her motion, leaving standing the work that Senator Xenophon, Senator Hanson-Young and others had done. So South Australians have every reason to be concerned and, when Senator Wong says that she sought urgent advice, to question whether or not that urgent advice really exists, whether or not it was provided in a timely manner and whether, if it does exist, all of the options have been considered. These are the issues that I have no doubt the Senate inquiry will look into, but we do have good reason to be concerned that Senator Wong is not taking the people of South Australia and the people of Australia into her confidence.

Last week she announced seven new water commissioners for the National Water Commission, not one of them a South Australian. That does not fill South Australians with lots of confidence. Today she comes in, some days after a Senate return to order motion required and asked her to present her urgent advice, and tells us that, no, she is not presenting it in the manner that the Senate wanted or asked for—that, in fact, she is going to go about an alternative route and take it through the committee process. There is no commitment as to what this urgent advice clearly is or that it will be presented in the manner to which she referred earlier—little wonder that South Australians are very concerned that the government does not seem to get the urgency of this issue. My challenge to Senator Wong today is to reconsider the statement that she made and the release of this urgent advice or, if it does not exist in the manner to which she referred in June, to fess up to the fact that it does not exist, to tell us what advice she has got and to make sure that she releases it as soon as possible.

I welcome the submission this afternoon. I look forward to it being made publicly available. I hope that it goes as far as the minister seems to suggest it does, that it clarifies the concerns that I have put on the record today and that, in fact, we will all be amazed to see that this urgent advice has been released there. But I do question why the minister has failed to present it in the manner that the Senate requested last week.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In responding to Senator Birmingham’s comments, there are a number of issues that I want to place on the record, because there were some, perhaps, errors in what he put to the Senate. The first, to be very clear, is that the government did support an inquiry into the Murray-Darling Basin. We put up terms of reference which in large part were adopted by the opposition and the crossbenches and which included important issues like ensuring that we took consideration of Adelaide’s water supply. I would have thought that Senator Birmingham would have welcomed the fact that, in the context of a discussion about the Murray-Darling Basin, we will ensure that Adelaide has sufficient drinking water.

The second is that Senator Birmingham made some comments about the confidence of South Australians. I say to Senator Birmingham through you, Mr Deputy President, that he comes from a party whose frontbenchers have criticised water purchase, which he advocates, and a frontbencher from which has called for the lower lakes to be flooded with seawater, which he opposes. So, if Senator Birmingham is going to come in here and lecture the government and the Senate on taking people into confidence, perhaps he should take South Australians into his confidence and tell them which of the varying positions on the Murray-Darling Basin is actually the opposition’s position, because the reality is that Senator Birmingham and his colleagues from South Australia are saying one thing now, in the week leading up to the Mayo by-election, whilst their frontbenchers and colleagues upstream say something different. Until the coalition deal with the issue of how to balance different users in a good policy way, they will never deal with the political schism and division that exists on their side between members of the National Party and members of the Liberal Party who occupy safe seats upstream. That is the reality.

Finally, it appears—I am not sure from his contribution—that Senator Birmingham failed to recognise two points that I made in my statement. The first is that the precedents on which we rely were put forward by his party. The second is that we are holding ourselves, particularly in the context of this motion, to a higher standard than was ever shown by the Howard government. If he had listened to my statement, he would know that what I said to the Senate as the responsible minister was that the submission would outline the options as at June and take into account developments which have occurred in recent months. So I have made it clear that, consistent with precedent from the previous government, we will not be tabling the advice but, because I do believe that this is an issue that deserves public scrutiny, I have made it clear what the submission will canvass. That, Senator Birmingham, is a far higher standard than any of the ministers in your government to whom I have referred held themselves to when refusing an order for production.

Question agreed to.