Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to make a contribution in this debate on the Water Amendment Bill 2008 and to indicate my generally broad support for the bill, noting of course that there is significant room for improvement with amendments. The bill itself amends the Water Act 2007—and it is interesting to note that the amendment bill itself runs to around 304 pages.

When the coalition was in government the National Plan for Water Security was put forward by this side of the chamber. The plan behind the National Plan for Water Security was essentially to invest in, not buy out, the Murray-Darling Basin. There was recognition of the need to have a single plan to govern the basin and make sure that arrangements within the basin were managed holistically.

The $10 billion plan that we had at that time looked at a range of measures moving towards a single basin plan. We were looking at a nationwide investment in irrigation infrastructure, including things like lining and piping major channels. We were looking at improving on-farm irrigation technology and metering. We were looking at the sharing of water savings between irrigators and the Commonwealth government. We were looking at the issue of addressing overallocation where it existed. We looked at new governance arrangements for the Murray-Darling Basin and a sustainable cap on surface and ground water use. We looked at an expanded role for the Bureau of Meteorology for the water data that is extremely necessary for farmers and irrigators to be able to plan for the future, a task force for Northern Australia and completion of the restoration of the Great Artesian Basin.

The Water Amendment Bill 2008, as I said, amends the Water Act 2007. It is particularly important to note that one of the hallmarks of the national plan was consultation with industry and community in developing a way forward for the Murray-Darling Basin. It is very important to note that because we have not seen from this government that level and degree of consultation with the industry—with irrigators and farmers—and with the community to make sure that we get the future for water in the Murray-Darling Basin right. I place on record my recognition of the work done by John Anderson, the previous Leader of the Nationals and Deputy Prime Minister, towards water reform in this nation. It is something that has been noted in this place on a number of occasions, and I commend him for the work that he did.

During the recent inquiry of the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport into the bill, it became very apparent that there were a number of issues of concern not only to the industry but also to associated groups and interested areas. There are a number of amendments that need to be adopted to improve the bill. There are a range of areas that I will talk about this afternoon, but one of the issues is the very important one of water efficiency. We certainly believe that targets need to be set to make sure that those water efficiency savings are there. We believe that the way to best make the basin sustainable is through those water efficiencies and through water savings.

What we have seen so far from the government is a focus on buyback. What they are completely focused on is the belief that buyback is the best way to return water to the basin. I think we even heard the Minister for Climate Change and Water say recently on Adelaide radio that the fastest way to return water to the rivers is to purchase it. That would seem to be an incorrect premise, because if we can get better water efficiency in the basin through the water utilisation that currently exists then that is what is going to return water to the basin most quickly. Our plan is to make sure that we assist not only with the irrigation infrastructure type arrangements, where we are looking at piping and lining channels, but also in an on-farm way. To do that, the government has to make sure that there is funding available to assist those irrigators with that infrastructure efficiency.

I have recently done a tour of the Murray-Darling Basin—from one end to the other—and I spoke to a lot of farmers and irrigators along the way. There have been some terrific on-farm innovations by farmers to improve their efficiency. We are talking to farmers who, through simple technology like linear move irrigation, can reduce water use and make their farms up to 30 per cent more efficient. If we can do that with the water that is currently available by providing financial assistance to implement those measures needed to improve efficiency on farm then that has to be the best way to return water to the basin. Through that process of government assistance—and irrigators were very much on side with this—there would be a share that would remain on farm and a share that would go back to the environment. I think anybody in this chamber can see that that is going to be the most efficient and quickest way to get water back into the basin. Certainly there is a role for buyback where necessary, but we disagree with the government’s view that that is the primary way and the best way to return water back into the basin.

It is interesting to note, too, in terms of that water going back into the basin, the comparison that we can make here. In the initial $50 million buyback that the government undertook across the Murray-Darling Basin, it was initially announced that there would be 34,000 megalitres targeted in that process. Indeed, only at Senate estimates a few weeks ago did it become clear that only 22,000 megalitres were potentially going to be there as savings through the entitlement buyback. At that point, only 9,000 megalitres had actually got through onto the register. Of that amount, only 849 megalitres was real water, real allocation. The minister is saying that buyback is the fastest way to deliver water, yet that water is not going to be available for that allocation until it rains—until that water is there and can be allocated against that entitlement. Our very strong view is that water efficiency and water savings are important. Indeed, I think the Murray Irrigation Area have said that there is something like 300 gigalitres that they have identified that they could save if only the government would invest the money with them. I reiterate that these savings are not just on farm; they are going to go back to the environment through the investment in that infrastructure.

One issue that has been raised in terms of the savings that are being made in the basin is the north-south pipeline, which is being built to take water from the Murray-Darling Basin to Melbourne for urban water use. I raise this now because it contrasts directly with the real water savings—that 849 megalitres—that have already been made in the Murray-Darling Basin. We have recently had two inquiries looking into this issue. This was raised as part of the inquiry looking into this bill. The recommendation from coalition senators on both occasions was to stop the pipeline. We have this ludicrous situation of the pipeline being built to take water from the Murray-Darling Basin to Melbourne for urban water use. What we are looking at is 75,000 megalitres of real water a year being sucked out of the basin for urban water use in Melbourne. Melbourne, at the same time, is allowing something like 400 gigalitres in stormwater run-off to just disappear and is not doing anything to ensure its own sustainability as an urban capital. We are told that that 75,000 megalitres is going to come from savings from the food bowl and that those savings will deliver the water to Melbourne. Any water that is saved in the Murray-Darling Basin through water efficiencies and water savings should stay in the basin. Given the current state of the Murray-Darling Basin and all the work that is going towards ensuring the sustainability of the basin, under no circumstances should water be taken out of the basin.

It is clearly stupid that we are looking at a bill that is designed to improve the situation for the future sustainability of the Murray-Darling Basin when the government is allowing—Minister Garrett ticked it off under the EPBC Act—potentially 75,000 megalitres of water per year to be sucked out of the basin to go to Melbourne for its urban water use. The effect this is going to have, particularly on our rural and regional communities that are going to suffer as a result, is being completely disregarded by the government. Under no circumstances should that pipeline be allowed to continue to be built or to take water out of the basin.

Let us look at those two figures. To date, with all the investment and all the work that the government says it is putting into water savings in the Murray-Darling Basin, and with the importance of having sustainability, they have saved 849 megalitres of rural water so far. How much water is potentially coming out of the basin for Melbourne per year? Seventy-five thousand megalitres. It is hypocrisy for the government on the one hand to say that they are doing all they can to save the Murray-Darling Basin and on the other hand to do absolutely nothing to stop this pipeline—and this is against a background of talking about cooperative federalism with the states when they were all Labor. The fact that the government is standing by and watching this happen is ridiculous.

It is interesting to note that the Australian Conservation Foundation is extremely aware of this issue. I quote from Dr Arlene Buchan at the recent Senate inquiry into the issue of the pipeline:

You have the Murray-Darling Basin, which is on its knees, and there is a suggestion that they will move 75 gigs of water annually from the Goulburn district to Melbourne when Melbourne pumps about 400 gigs of water out to sea every year as wastewater. It is ridiculous. The basin is on its knees. Why would anyone propose moving water from a basin which is on its knees, away from communities and the environment which are stuffed, and send it to Melbourne, which can look after itself?

I think that very clearly puts forth the view of a lot of witnesses that we had appearing before the inquiry. There is no indication that the government has looked at the social and economic impact on those rural and regional communities that are going to suffer as a result of this pipeline going through.

This leads me to the broader issue of the impact of the potential reduction of water throughout those communities. We on this side of the chamber believe that there should be community impact statements done by the government to determine any effects that are going to happen as a result of their water buyback. The government is doing nothing to assess the potential social and economic impact on our rural and regional communities of removing water through the buyback process. Indeed, for all intents and purposes, it seems a very ad hoc process. We have seen the situation with Turill. We have seen the situation with Tandow. I think if we were able to very clearly question the other side of this chamber on why that buyback has taken place, what exactly it is going to do, who it is going to assist, where the water is going to end up and why they have targeted that particular area—which we have done on a number of occasions—the decisions and determination would not be there. I am sure we would get the government’s oft used explanation: ‘It’s an election commitment, so we’re going to do it.’

But this side requires rather more from the government than that. We need substantive proof that the processes that the government is going through to reach their end of the buyback process are substantiated, clear, level and measured. One of the things that is very interesting—I mentioned the $50 million buyback before—is that the department recently appeared at the inquiry and freely admitted that there had been no specific study done at that point in time in terms of the social and economic impacts of the $50 million buyback on those communities. They have commissioned an ABARE report to look into it, but that is not due until the middle of next year and, if it does come out with some negative findings, there is no process in place to address the impacts that already will have occurred in those communities.

The lack of focus from the government on determining what the impacts might be is of great concern to the coalition. We are talking about hundreds of rural and regional communities across this nation, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin, who stand to be severely impacted by any potential water reduction in their communities. It is not just about the farms that the water is taken from and the impact on those farmers, those irrigators and that land—those on this side clearly recognise this—it is about the flow-on effects in those rural and regional communities. It is about the funding flow on, the effect on jobs, the effect on businesses, the effect on schools, the effect on essential services and the effect on the population. It is vitally important that we focus on those impacts and on those effects. Those communities are the core of our rural and regional society. I think the minister stated during the estimates process that it was a result of overallocation and climate change, taking no responsibility at all for trying to determine what the potential impact of those buybacks might be.

There are a number of other areas where the coalition believes we can improve the bill through amendments. We will be raising those amendments during the committee stage. There is certainly a necessity for a structural adjustment assistance package. The government is very clearly going down a path whereby there will be some dislocation in communities as a result. When we were previously in government there was a very clear recognition that government had a role in assisting communities to restructure as a result of water reductions due to any changes in those water arrangements. It is very important that we realise that it is about the fabric of those communities. They will need some determined assistance from government with restructuring. To go into their communities, buy up the water and then say, ‘Thanks very much; we’ll leave it up to you now,’ while thinking that the process itself is structural adjustment, as has been referred to by the department, would be just wrong. The government needs to clearly focus, as we did in government, on what needs to be done to assist those communities.

The issue of the transparency of the buyback process has also been raised. We need to ensure that there is a full disclosure process to ensure that Commonwealth water purchases are fully transparent. People in irrigation regions right across the basin deserve to have a very clear and transparent process and to know the price and volume of water and also where, when and how water transactions have taken place. I think it is only fair and equitable to be able to provide that to them.

We have also seen the issue concerning the definition of ‘critical human needs’. This is something that was raised quite often during our inquiry process. We believe it is not clearly defined by the act itself. It certainly needs to be defined in such a fashion that the definition very clearly reflects the intent of the bill. The minister referred to it the other day as being ‘drinking water’. That is not clear in the bill. So that is something that we would like to see addressed.

There is also the issue of the separation of climate change from new knowledge, which we will explore further in the committee stage. Again this is something that needs to be very clearly spelt out for irrigators. We believe it should be deleted from the bill because of the uncertainty that it is creating. I believe that the issue of food security more broadly also needs to be debated in this country. This is an example of something that brings to the fore the broader issue of food security. In respect of this bill, the coalition will be moving a number of amendments during the committee stage. I thank the Senate.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on an extremely important issue facing Australia. We face one of the most complex and difficult social, economic and environmental crises ever in the Murray-Darling Basin. The basin is the food bowl of the nation, and there are many communities in the basin that are dependent on its water for their industries and their town supplies. The basin’s ecosystems, including 17 Ramsar wetlands of international significance, are also highly threatened, and 80 to 90 per cent of its wetlands have already been lost as a result of overallocation and poor management. The Greens believe this is truly a ‘wicked’ problem, in the mathematical sense of the term. It involves a series of complex interrelated systems which are only partially understood, where difficult decisions need to be made based on incomplete and conflicting data. It also crosses a number of jurisdictional boundaries and brings together a range of different stakeholders with intersecting and competing interests.

We appreciate that the government are making some effort to do something about the issue through the Water Amendment Bill 2008 and acknowledge that they have got a little further along than the last mob did. But the change, when it finally comes, will be too little too late if this bill proceeds unamended. We remain concerned that the model of whole-of-basin governance set out in the Water Amendment Bill has been overly compromised by the need to get the states onboard and goes for the lowest common denominator. While it is an incremental improvement on the previous Murray-Darling Basin agreement, it is still restricted by too many issues. In particular, it is restricted by, when it comes down to it, the veto power of the states. And there have been too many compromises along the way—such as the $1 billion food bowl bribe to Victoria and delaying the implementation of the Basin Plan until 2019.

The reality of the referral of powers that supports this legislation is that, at any point, the executive of any one of the states can decide to withdraw that referral without needing to draft a bill or put a motion through their state parliament. They can simply say, ‘I don’t want to play ball anymore; I’m taking my bat and ball and going home.’ It is then ‘game over’ for basin reform. This is the risk we face going down the path of ‘cooperative federalism’ on water reform. The government has handed over huge buckets of money—such as the $1 billion Victorian bribe and the rest of the $12.9 billion Water for the Future fund. The government has compromised on a whole range of measures—such as the existing water-sharing plans remaining in place until 2019 and allowing the definition of ‘critical human need’ to extend to such things as piggeries and golf courses. Despite all these compromises and delays, we still face the risk of finally getting to 2019 and then having one or more of the states baulking at the final hurdle, pulling the pin and cancelling the referral of their powers.

Our leading scientists are warning that we need to significantly reduce water use within the Murray-Darling Basin in the face of a significant and serious reduction in projected levels of run-off as a result of climate change. The Wentworth Group told a recent Senate inquiry that they believe we will need to cut consumptive use of water in the basin by 42 to 53 per cent to remain viable. Dr Tom Hatton, the Director of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s Water for a Healthy Country Flagship and leading scientist on the sustainable yields project, has also told us that the relationship between rainfall and run-off has changed dramatically and that, combined with a shift in seasonality, we could expect to see significantly less run-off in the future, probably in the order of 50 per cent. The flagship released the final report of its sustainable yields project yesterday. It had some pretty dire and gloomy outlooks for the basin.

Besides the compromises already mentioned, there are two fundamental problems with the current approach to reform in the basin. The first problem is that basin communities have not been part of the consultation and negotiation process for the new arrangements. The only key stakeholders, from the government’s point of view, have been the state governments. The second problem is that the Commonwealth investment in water buyback, infrastructure improvements and structural adjustment are being rolled out slowly and in an ad hoc fashion with no consideration for the social, economic, environmental or structural impacts in the places where water is bought or infrastructure investments are located.

The Greens believe that a far more consultative and democratic approach would generate a fairer, more robust and more sustainable outcome. The kind of perverse outcomes we have seen from the intergovernmental agreement process reflect the narrow self-interest of the states and would not have survived a more open process of public debate—for example, the new pipeline to extract an additional 75 gigalitres from the system at a time of crisis. The definition of ‘critical human need’, which is not restricted to the core survival requirements of ‘drinking water, health and sanitation’ but could include piggeries and golf courses, probably would not have got through that public consultation process either. And you may not have seen agreement to a plan that only requires us to return extraction levels to sustainable limits by 2019.

The Australian Greens are very well aware of the need to move quickly to establish the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and get the Basin Plan underway. That is why we are so frustrated and disappointed that, after dragging their feet in the reform process for so long, our governments are now attempting to undermine and circumvent the normal democratic process of legislative review by saying that we cannot alter this legislation because it has been agreed under the IGA. They argue that amendments to this legislation are not possible or desirable because they would require renegotiation with the states over the details of the powers referred. That is, of course, undermining the role of the Senate yet again. We are told it is a done deal—that only players such as the ALP state governments need to be consulted. The community has been sidelined.

We note, however, that there are large and important parts of the existing Water Act and the Water Amendment Bill which are not dependent on the referral of powers. We fully expect that the government will argue that amending these bits of the legislation will somehow breach the spirit of the agreement with the states and may threaten the deal they have done behind closed doors with the state governments. We think this would be a disingenuous response from the government and we are putting them on notice that we will not wear it. It is not the role of this house to rubber stamp intergovernmental agreements between the states and the Commonwealth that result in the lowest common denominator and, in this case, compromise the health of the basin.

We are being told that we have to rush this legislation through this place so that we can set up the authority, but the government is also saying, ‘Oh, by the way, did we remember to tell you that the Basin Plan doesn’t come into existence until 2019?’ By my calculations that buys us 11 years. By bringing forward a reform package for the Murray-Darling Basin that relied on the referral of powers, the government made it clear from the outset that it was important they secure not just the support of their state colleagues but also the support of the communities—communities that the people in this place represent. Our concerns and the concerns of the basin communities, irrigators, floodplain graziers, scientists and environmental advocates have clearly been on the record since the ALP came to government.

The Greens will be putting to the Senate a series of amendments, some of which were first put to this chamber last year when we were first debating the Water Act 2007. These include amendments dealing with the independence of the authority, ecosystem health, averages and shares of environmental water and mining—and I will come to the Sugarloaf pipeline shortly. Many of these amendments arose from the committee inquiry held into that legislation and also from the water policy initiatives inquiry held by the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport two years ago. They are also based on the advice to those inquiries from the likes of the late Professor Peter Cullen, Professor Mike Young and Dr Arlene Buchan.

The government is relying on our concern and commitment to securing a sustainable future to compel the Senate to accept a flawed but slightly better outcome against the risk of a significant delay to introduce a fairer and more robust system. The deal effectively means that the cap on sustainable diversions will not be operating in Victoria until 2019 and will not be operating in other states until 2014. This fact undermines, as I said earlier, the argument of urgency. The Greens believe that the Basin Plan should be in operation as soon as possible, and certainly long before 2019. Again, we will be moving amendments to ensure that this occurs.

We want to see the Murray-Darling Basin Authority up and running as quickly as possible so that the Basin Plan can be released and used by basin communities to help them to make informed decisions about the future shape of their communities and to plan for a sustainable future. However, we recognise that under the current arrangements the only power that these plans will have—while existing state water-sharing plans are recognised and continue until 2014 or 2019—is one of polite moral suasion in pointing out how unsustainable the current levels of overextraction under the existing state plans are. At the moment, moral suasion is the only way that we can persuade these states to bring their water use into line with the Basin Plan. We do not believe this is good enough, so we will be moving amendments in relation to this to ensure that the Basin Plan is implemented way before 2019.

The irony of the problems that have been brought about by the Rudd government taking a ‘behind closed doors’ approach is that the very problems that are undermining current arrangements—that is, the states clinging to narrow self-interest and forcing compromises—would have been amenable to the moral suasion of an open and robust public debate into the pros and cons of these particular measures. As I said earlier, we believe that, if the issues around critical human need had been exposed to the light of day and had been available for public discussion, they would have been strongly focused on actual critical human needs rather than on the expanded definition of ‘critical human needs’ that applies at the moment. The Greens intend to introduce amendments to strike out the inclusion of ‘other industrial purposes’ and limit the definition of ‘critical human need’ to the minimal provisions required for human health and sanitation.

Then we come to the other problems related to managing the water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin, and one of them is strongly affected by the Sugarloaf pipeline. The Australian Greens believe that, as a matter of principle, water resources recovered within the basin through necessary investments in efficiency improvements need to be used to address the pressing needs of the basin. We need all the water we can get within the basin to ensure the health of the river and the survival of threatened basin ecosystems; to help farming communities adapt to significantly reduced irrigation entitlements; and to support high-value, efficient irrigation, which we need to feed Australia into the future. There is only so much water that can be recovered from the basin, and we need every drop of that in the basin.

While the water for the Sugarloaf pipeline is allegedly being secured through state government investments in efficiency measures, this is a modernisation activity that Victoria should be undertaking anyway as part of its contribution to basin water reform. The water that is being diverted to the pipeline reduces the amount of water available to help the river survive and the basin communities restructure. Basin communities are hurting. Precious ecosystems are literally dying for a drink. The Australian pubic understand this and are concerned for the plight of the river, its communities and its ecosystems. Pulling a massive 75 gigalitres out of the basin at this time of crisis seriously undermines this commitment and trust. At the moment, the public support the government investing $12.9 billion in basin reform, but this expensive, unnecessary, water-wasting project seriously jeopardises that support. The community know it is nonsense to take water out of the basin to send down to Melbourne when Melbourne continues to waste water and pump 400 gigalitres of stormwater out to sea. To this end, the Australian Greens will be introducing amendments to the provisions of the Basin Plan to exclude consideration of new extractive uses outside of the basin.

We note from the evidence to the ongoing Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport inquiry into the Murray-Darling Basin and the Coorong and Lower Lakes that Adelaide is moving to reduce its dependence on the basin. We applaud those efforts, albeit that they may be going slowly. By comparison, as I said, Melbourne has been pumping 400 gigalitres of stormwater out to sea. We also note that water will only be available for the pipeline when there is water to be allocated under the Murrumbidgee water licences. This water will supposedly only be allocated when there is water to be allocated. So the pipeline could be empty for a vast amount of time. It is crazy to be going down that line. We are extremely concerned that the Commonwealth government has done nothing to stop the allocation of this water outside the basin.

The Australian Greens believe that a more integrated approach to water buyback, to infrastructure improvements and to structural adjustment is needed to maximise and deliver the benefits of reform to basin governance, as represented by the Water Act 2007, the Water Amendment Bill 2008 and the principles of the National Water Initiative. We share the concerns of irrigation communities, environmental advocates and water policy experts about the ad hoc nature of the current process. The time frame within which the $12.9 billion Water for the Future investment is being rolled out is far too slow, and there is a lack of targeting, coordination and planning. The current ad hoc approach is delivering what Dr Arlene Buchan described to the inquiry as a ‘Swiss cheese effect’, with holes in irrigation infrastructure where individual irrigators have been forced out by financial pressures. When they sell up, it is harder for their neighbours to maintain the existing irrigation infrastructure and even harder to implement improvements. This ‘Swiss cheese’ approach increases both the risk of stranded assets and the likelihood of the economies of local communities dropping below sustainability thresholds.

The Greens want to see an honest and open community debate about the future shape of the basin. We want a process to take the Murray-Darling Basin forward that puts communities at the centre of the decision-making process rather than excluding them from the debate. We believe that a focus on planning sustainable regional communities can allow individual landholders to come together to discuss how they will balance their investments in infrastructure, structural readjustment and the sale of water allocations to ensure that planning is done with appropriate economies of scale so that communities can survive and thrive into the future.

We want to focus on ensuring not only the health of our ecosystems but the viability and ongoing profitability of our most sustainable and productive food-growing areas. We want to see appropriate support given to farmers who want and need to make the transition to more adaptable and resilient farming systems. We want clear and reliable information given to farmers and communities about the kind of future they face, the choices that have to be made and the relative prospects within their region. Basin communities themselves should be empowered to make decisions about their future prospects and the shape of their districts and regions. They need to be given the information, the tools and the support to do so.

We think there are examples of where this is already happening, and the government should be looking at these examples. Moreover, we believe that there needs to be a vision for what the Murray-Darling Basin will look like in 2050. The Greens are promoting and putting forward the plan, the MDB 2010-2050 plan, to develop a vision for the basin in 2050 of a vibrant community that is sustained by a healthy river system that delivers food, fibre and ecosystem services to the nation. We need to get this plan underway now.

We are calling on the Commonwealth to resource and support community planning as a matter of priority; to enable communities to produce plans which integrate infrastructure investment, water sales and structural adjustment; to provide incentives and support for them to do so; to give integrated community planning priority in assessing funding applications; to empower the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to develop an interim, non-binding basin plan while the more permanent basin plan is being developed; and to create community planning support teams and resources to produce decision-support tools, including district maps with overlays of relevant information. We believe that this vision will guide how we integrate water purchasing, infrastructure improvements and any readjustments. This is sensible planning and decision making—not the ad hoc process that is occurring now, with insufficient powers for the Commonwealth to implement real reform in the Murray-Darling Basin. Bear in mind that, by ramming this legislation through this place without amendment, the Basin Plan will not come into effect until 2019. It is essential that this plan is implemented way before 2019, or there will not be a river to save. (Time expired)

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in support of the Water Amendment Bill 2008. This is a historic piece of legislation. It marks a new phase of cooperation between the states, the territories and the Commonwealth in tackling one of our most urgent problems—the critical water shortages now affecting the Murray-Darling Basin and the human communities dependent on the Murray and Darling rivers. This bill amends the Water Act 2007 to give effect to the agreement on the reform of the management of the Murray-Darling Basin completed by the Commonwealth, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory at the COAG meeting on 3 July.

The bill has been made possible by the agreement of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria to refer certain powers to the Commonwealth under section 51(xxxvii) of the Constitution. The states have agreed to refer these powers, despite the vital economic and environmental stakes they have in the future of the basin, because they have confidence in the Rudd Labor government and particularly the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Wong, to use them in the national interest.

Using these referred powers, this bill does two things. First, it transfers the current functions of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission to a new and more powerful body—the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. The authority will carry out decisions made by the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council and the Basin Officials Committee. The authority will also prepare a corporate plan annually, for approval by the ministerial council, in relation to the exercise of these functions. Secondly, the bill extends the authority of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to include all bodies that charge for water use and all irrigation infrastructure operators, thus creating a uniform regulatory regime for water use and water trading over the whole of the Murray-Darling Basin.

This bill brings to an end more than a century of disputation among the states of the Murray-Darling Basin, and between these states and the Commonwealth, over the management of the basin and its resources. It is a pity it has taken a crisis of the scale we now face as a result of the threat of climate change and drought to bring about this resolution, but it is nevertheless welcome. It is not often remembered that the issue of water rights and control over the Murray River was in fact one of the most vexed issues at the constitutional conventions of the 1890s that framed our present Constitution. Delegates from New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia wrangled for days, weeks and even months to find a formula that would safeguard what each of them saw as their vital interests. What they came up with was section 100 of the Constitution, which reads:

The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a State or of the residents therein to the reasonable use of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation.

In other words, the Constitution expressly forbids the Commonwealth to regulate the use of the waters of the Murray by the states. This was done mainly at the insistence of the South Australian delegates, who feared that a Commonwealth dominated by New South Wales and Victorian politicians would steal all the waters of the Murray, thus leaving no water for South Australia. As we know, this fear is still alive and well in South Australia and has been expressed here by Senator Xenophon and others from time to time.

The key to section 100 is, of course, the word ‘reasonable’. The Commonwealth was forbidden to prevent the reasonable use of the waters for irrigation, but presumably it could still regulate the unreasonable use of such waters. But who would determine what was reasonable? The framers of the Constitution saw this as one of the functions of the Inter-State Commission, which was created by section 101 of the Constitution for:

… the execution and maintenance … of the provisions of this Constitution relating to trade and commerce, and of all laws made thereunder.

Unfortunately, a restrictive decision by the High Court rendered the Inter-State Commission unworkable and it was abandoned in 1920.

The demise of the Inter-State Commission meant there was no-one with overall responsibility for supervising the use of the water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin. The result was 80 years of unsupervised and irresponsible use as New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia all encouraged and indeed subsidised irrigated agriculture on the Murray—from Wodonga in the east to Murray Bridge in the west. Even before the onset of the current crisis, the chronic overuse of water from the Murray-Darling Basin was having severe ecological effects upon the rivers and on the wetlands which depend on the rivers for their very survival. The result was the death of the wetlands and the associated plant and animal life, the salination of the soil and a resulting loss of productivity, and downstream communities being starved of the water needed for consumption by humans and animals. This is clearly not a sustainable state of affairs even if the more pessimistic scenarios about the effect of climate change on Australia are not borne out.

Responsible governments have to plan for the worst even while we hope for the best. We cannot know what the climatic patterns of the future will be, but it does seem clear that Australia must make a major and permanent reduction in our water consumption and that competition between the states must be replaced by the cooperative management of our water resources. All Australians, whether urban or rural dwellers, share a responsibility to take action to reduce water consumption. But, since 70 per cent of all the water used in Australia is in fact used for agriculture, the national focus must as a matter of course be on ending the wasteful overallocation and overuse of water in agricultural industries, particularly for irrigated crops. In the Murray-Darling Basin, 80 per cent of all water used is for irrigation. The key to saving the basin is thus the reform of the management of the irrigation system. All states now have programs to reduce water consumption in irrigated farming. It must be asked, however, whether it is possible to save the Murray-Darling river system merely by preventing waste and using water for irrigation more effectively.

In 2000, before the onset of the current drought, about 27,000 gigalitres of water were allocated annually for irrigation. Of this, the cotton industry used 2,900 gigalitres and the rice industry used a further 2,200 gigalitres. These two industries together used 5,100 gigalitres of water, or about 20 per cent of all the water used for irrigation. Today those figures have dropped to less than half. I think we have to ask some serious questions about whether Australia can go on producing such water-intensive crops as rice and cotton if the current climatic conditions continue or even worsen, as many believe they will.

I note that the opposition is supporting this bill and I welcome that. I read with interest the speech made in the other place by the shadow minister for climate change, environment and urban water, Mr Greg Hunt, in support of the bill. He noted that in its last year the Howard government—when the current Leader of the Opposition, Mr Turnbull, was the relevant minister—introduced a $10 billion water plan and I, too, acknowledge that. But I note that many of Mr Hunt’s colleagues in the opposition are continuing to do their best to undermine his efforts, let alone the efforts of the government. It is an open secret that many of his colleagues, such as Senator Minchin and Mr Robb, do not believe in human-induced climate change at all. In Victoria the Liberal and National parties are opposing both of the Brumby government’s major projects to address the state’s water supply problems—in particular, the Wonthaggi desalination plant and the Sugarloaf pipeline. These projects are a vital part of Victoria’s efforts to conserve water and to make Victoria less dependent on the Murray River for its water supplies.

In the previous contributions of Senator Nash I note that the National Party—the country auxiliary of the Liberal Party—once again propagated various lines on and constructions of the purpose and the role of the Sugarloaf pipeline which fly in the face of the facts. For starters, Senator Nash accused Melbourne of using this pipeline without any regard for its ongoing sustainability in water use as a capital city. A brusque and rhetorical comment like that demonstrates the absolute paucity of public policy knowledge that exists on the other side of this chamber. In fact, Melbourne has the lowest annual per capita water use of any capital city in this country. That is the result of serious, long-term and effective public policy measures undertaken by the state Labor government, which have, from 2001, cut domestic water use in Melbourne from 135 gigalitres to 110 gigalitres. I have no doubt that Senator Nash was unaware of that, but I think it falls upon her to make herself aware of these critical facts before making such brusque comments in this place.

Senator Nash set out some terms which the National Party considers would be good grounds for good water policy. To paraphrase Senator Nash, one ground was ‘Absolute priority must be given to efficient on-farm usage of water and the savings that will flow from that.’ That is a very sensible pronouncement. But, having made that sensible pronouncement, Senator Nash then went on with a farrago of misunderstandings concerning the situation in Victoria, particularly with respect to the Sugarloaf pipeline, which demonstrated that she does not even understand her own party’s principle that she seeks to articulate.

Sensible, efficient on-farm savings sit at the very centre of what is currently going on in Victoria. The Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project, NVIRP, is a project which has at its very centre the task of making Victorian farms more water efficient. This project is about directly funding and assisting farmers to become more water efficient. Archaic pieces of infrastructure—open channel irrigation systems—are being improved, modernised and reformed as part of that project. That project is delivering real gains for Victorian farmers by modernising their farms and their water infrastructure. The end result of that very impressive piece of work and these very important initiatives will be that some 225 gigalitres of water—which, for all intents and purposes, do not presently exist—will be saved.

Senator Nash said, ‘Under no circumstances should water be taken out of the basin for capital cities.’ There we have, essentially, the National Party willing to condemn Melbourne and its inhabitants to death and deprivation. What happens to critical human needs with this blithe comment? It might very well serve Senator Nash and the cheap populist politics in which she engages in northern Victoria, but it does not provide the hard public policy solutions that this country needs to address its water challenges.

Even Senator Siewert fell for this line when she said ‘Victoria is extracting an additional 75 gigalitres from the Murray at a time of crisis’. That is a nonsense. Of those 225 gigalitres of water that are being saved—that is to say, the 225 gigalitres of water that do not presently exist—one-third is being returned to further agricultural activity in Victoria, one-third is being returned to the river in environmental flows and another third is being distributed by way of the Sugarloaf pipeline to Melbourne and to several important regional communities. There is a small detail that the Liberal Party’s country auxiliary would do well to look into, because one of the regional centres I speak of is Bendigo.

This is all part of developing a modern, effective and fair water grid in Victoria. The utterances from the other side, misconceiving and misconstruing what the Sugarloaf pipeline is doing and what it is a part of, are just part of the continuing problems we have concerning water policy when those opposite do not do the hard public policy work of understanding the problem they speak of.

This bill represents a very important and significant realisation of the Labor Party’s commitments at the previous election. Notwithstanding that Senator Nash said that the National Party is not impressed by election commitments—core and non-core promises of course having been a feature of the previous government—let me say that the Australian Labor Party is indeed impressed by election commitments, particularly when those election commitments are endorsed by the Australian people and mean we are able to form a government in the other place. Perhaps the National Party will say it needs more than a mere mandate but, for the Labor Party, a mandate is something that we cherish and a sacred trust we will honour.

Mr Truss recently said, ‘We can achieve worthwhile outcomes without having to destroy rural economies or tear at the heart of the availability of water for irrigators and others who are so dependent upon that system.’ Well, we all hope that is true, but the current indications are that that is not so. If Mr Truss thinks we can go back to a situation in which irrigators can take 27,000 gigalitres a year out of the Murray-Darling system, he is deluding himself, and he is deluding those communities along the Murray-Darling Basin who believe his assurances that everything will return to normal soon. The simple fact of the matter is that drought and climate change mean that there is not sufficient water in the system to realise those allocations.

The sad fact is that we have to assume that the drought is here to stay for some time—in other words, that it is not a drought as traditionally understood but is perhaps indicative of a permanent change in Australia’s climate and our climatic conditions. Maybe that will turn out not to be the case—and, if that is indeed so, no-one will be happier than me—but a responsible government cannot work on that assumption. The responsible thing to do is to maximise our water savings. And, given the figures I cited above, that must mean more rigorous scrutiny of our irrigated farming industries, which are, of course, the largest consumers of water in Australia.

The states of the Murray-Darling Basin have discarded their old parochial attitudes by referring powers to the Commonwealth, which has made this bill possible. It is time other people in Australia also discarded their entrenched attitudes and desisted from continuing to peddle sheer inaccuracies in the broader community—inaccuracies and entrenched attitudes which of course all go to the fact that they have a policy that no longer conforms to Australia’s needs. We need a new water policy for a new era, and this bill is a very important part of realising that objective. I very proudly commend this bill to the parliament.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What an absolute fuddle! That was amazing. That just took the cake for the fuddle for the day. The Labor Party’s policy of returning water to the Murray-Darling Basin is to build a pipeline from the Murray-Darling Basin to another basin and ultimately have it run out to sea via Melbourne. That basically encapsulates the Labor Party policy. This bill, the Water Amendment Bill 2008, is Labor Party policy. They have spent $50 million and, in real water terms, I think they have got themselves about 849 megalitres. That is Labor Party policy. Labor Party policy is to buy Toorale Station. I think they purchased Toorale Station for $23.8 million—and no-one inspected it. No-one went to have a look at where the Australian taxpayers’ money was actually going. That is Labor Party policy.

These are the sorts of ideas that form the retinue of Labor Party management—whether it is Fuelwatch, GroceryWatch, spending half our surplus in one fell swoop in one night, or spending $23.8 million of taxpayers’ money on a property that no-one ever turned up to have a look at. Of course, what we have really got is the purchase of good intentions and beautiful thoughts but no water. They have not actually purchased any water. And that is a bit of a problem when you are trying to return water to the Murray-Darling Basin. The idea is that you should be buying water—not ideas, not potential. They are buying lots and lots of potential but no water.

One of the major problems they have also taken on board is that, as they go about this sort of arbitrary purchase of water licences here and there, they put at threat the communities which those water licences are built around. There is a serious concern—not so much for the people who get to sell their water licences but for the people who live in the fibre and iron or the weatherboard and iron who are left behind in the regional towns after the water licences go. What exactly do they do? There is nothing in this policy about the Labor Party’s plan for a fair and equitable outcome for the working families who are left behind by Labor’s arbitrary decision-making process. Nothing happens there. What happens if the people of Dirranbandi, St George or Bourke lose their water licences? What is this? Is this part 2 of the Sorry statement: we go to communities—and, in many regions, Indigenous communities—and take away the crux of their income-earning capacity by taking away the water licences of the area? The issue which has not been approached in any way, shape or form is the issue of how we actually deliver a package that is fair and equitable to all concerned in this water debate.

There is nothing in this legislation that deals with what I believe is the elephant in the room, and that is how to get water from another system into the Murray-Darling system. If that does not happen, there is going to be no solution. They will spend the money—do not worry about that; the money will go—but, at the end of this expenditure, if there is any sort of outcome at all, it will be a very minimal outcome.

It seems to be politically incorrect these days to actually grasp the nettle and say, ‘What about the prospect of moving water from the gulf down to the Murray-Darling Basin or using the potential of tidal power from the Ord to move water to other sections of the land or the potential of creating a stimulus package?’ or to say, ‘If you can’t move the water, if that is all too hard—if engineering accomplishments of this nation are something that now belong in the past; if, after the Snowy Mountains Scheme, we just do not have the capacity to think about a substantial engineering project to alleviate the problems that are apparent—we are going to have to move north the people who grow the food.’ Is there any plan towards that? No, there is not.

I hope the reality of the situation has finally dawned on people. I grew up near Tamworth, on one part of the Murray-Darling; I lived at Charleville, on another part of the Murray-Darling; and I currently live on the river—I can see it from my front veranda—in St George, on another part of the Murray-Darling. But so often the whole system is seen as just lines on a map. We lose about a gigalitre per kilometre in evaporation and seepage when water flows along the natural course of the river, which is a natural earth channel. If we want to fix water issues at the south of the river system, then we have to find solutions that are proximate to that part of the river system. We have to look at such things as the re-engineering of the Menindee storage lakes. More water evaporates from the Menindee storage lakes when they are full than the whole of Queensland uses. That is something that should be screaming at people if we are trying to alleviate some of the problems at the lower end. We have to acknowledge that putting water into a charged system—putting water into a system that has water at one end, is uninterrupted and has water at the other end—has an immediate effect. That is completely different from putting water back onto a flood plain, where it will just seep in, or putting water into a wetland area, which might have great environmental benefits but from which there are no benefits at the bottom end of the river.

We need to look at these issues and have an honest appraisal of them. If you are going to purchase water thousands of kilometres away from where you want it, the reality is that it is not going to have an effect. You are going to expend the money but it is not going to have the effect that you want, if what you want is to get more money down to the mouth of the Murray. There is so little support for the north-south pipeline. It is such lazy engineering. Instead of desalination or stormwater recycling from Melbourne, the apex of engineering thought comes from taking the water from where it is in paucity and moving it to another area where there are alternative sources you could get the water from. This does not stand to reason. I hope this chamber rejects the whole concept. It makes a farce of the whole Labor Party approach if one of the cherries on the cake for the Labor Party’s water policy is to move 75,000 megalitres out of the system down to Melbourne. It shows that they have completely lost sight of what this is about.

They say, ‘We’ll get the savings from where the water comes from.’ I will believe that when I see it. How often do these things become just ideas? I will bet London to a brick that, regardless of whether there are savings or not, the water will be ripped out of the Murray-Darling system and moved down to Melbourne—regardless of anything that has happened. I do not for one minute countenance the idea that they are going to build a pipeline and not use it. They are going to use it whether there are savings or not, and that will be to the demise of yet another food-growing area. What is the effect of that for the Australian people? The effect is upward pressure on food prices and food inflation.

The Labor Party, because they now have the carriage of business around here, have to get smarter about how they do business. They need to have an honest an appraisal of some of Labor’s state policies, such as the tree clearing legislation in Queensland, which acts as a barrier to the development of the gulf. They have to acknowledge a moral responsibility to feed not only our own nation but also those around us. We have to acknowledge that 24 per cent of the water that flows off the Australian continent flows through the gulf. Where is our food bowl there? Where is the Labor Party policy—that could have been part of their $10.4 billion profligate waste of money—that would have returned a dividend to the Australian people as well as dealing with the water issue and encouraging people to find a tangible solution?

Let us say that the climate has changed and we are now in an eternal drought. If that is the case, then it does not matter how much money you spend buying water that is not there; it is not going to fix anything. If it is not there, and you believe that to be the case, and you believe that to be the case in perpetuity, then buying nothing creates nothing—no matter how much money you throw at it. The Labor Party need to have the bravery to think outside the box, and I just do not think they have got that capability. I do not think it is in them to say, ‘We’re going to have to look at the engineering projects to move the water from where it is in abundance to where it isn’t.’ They have not even suggested it. For them it is politically incorrect. It is beyond the Labor Party’s capacity in their designing of tax policy to say, ‘If we can’t move the water, we’re going to have to move the people.’ It is beyond the Labor Party’s capacity in their relationships with the states to say to Queensland, ‘You’re going to have to change some of your wild rivers legislation, because we are going to have to facilitate the creation of a new food bowl to take into account the possible demise of the food bowl that is in existence in the Murray-Darling basin’—if they truly believe that the weather has changed and they really want to be sincere and honest in that statement.

If the Labor Party truly believe that there is global warming and that the weather has changed, then surely that would be an indicator that they are going to have to make some hard decisions. But if you look at their policy statement, you will see that they want it both ways. Senator Feeney says, ‘They’re all environmental sceptics over there. They don’t acknowledge that the weather has changed. They don’t acknowledge that the climate has changed. That is why we are going to take 75,000 megalitres a year from where it is not and move it down to Melbourne.’ It is an oxymoronic statement that is completely implausible. You cannot have it both ways. If that is your belief, then start tabling for us the engineering projects that are going to move water from where it is to where it is not. And put some faith in the Australian people. If you are suggesting that we are going to have a major engineering project to move water from the gulf, or from the Ord, for the creation of new food bowls, the Australian people will actually back you, because you show some vision. But the Australian people are on to these bells-and-whistles shows of getting big amounts of money and shuffling it round and round and round in circles until it ends up in the arms of consultants, schemes, ideas and committees but never ends up in an outcome.

I premised at the start that so far we have already spent $50 million. Think of that as sealed roads. Think of that as hospital beds. Think of that as schools. Do not let the words ‘$50 million’ just roll off the tongue. Think of what that money could have been used for. With that $50 million they have bought 849 megalitres of water. To be honest, that would be suitable for a very small farm in St George. That is a very profligate and expensive way to do business.

Once more, they have said that things are going to get better. They are not going to get better when you spend $23.8 million on properties at Bourke that you never bother visiting. They are not going to get better if that is how little respect you have for money. They are not going to get better when you spend $8.7 billion in one night, on 8 December, while you still do not have the money to get the Australian Navy out to sea over Christmas. When that is the type of management you have, when that is the type of process you have and when that is the fiscal responsibility of the so-called economic conservatives, then Australia has a serious problem at hand.

There will be certain amendments to this bill that I hope will be supported. It will be up to the Labor Party then to act on one major issue. Their whole process is flawed, but let us take one issue as an indicator of whether the Labor Party are fair dinkum or not. If this north-south pipeline goes ahead, then we can take everything they say as being a load of rubbish. We will know from that that in an academic, economic and engineering sense these are very lazy people who cannot get their minds around a complex solution to a complex problem. If this pipeline goes ahead it will show in spades that the future for the Murray-Darling Basin under the Labor government is dire. If this policy goes forward and the government do not give any thought to how it is going to affect the regional communities, if the government go forward with their policy of buying up water licences, arbitrarily going into remote districts of the western parts of the states of Queensland and New South Wales without any thought as to what happens to the community after the whole basis of their economy has been lifted up and taken away, we will know that their social policy is also very lazy.

I go back to the start of the Labor government. The start of the Labor government saw the apology to the Indigenous community. You cannot apologise on one day and then go into their communities and take out their economy on the next. You cannot have it both ways. You have to go back to those communities and deliver some long-term economic future for those places. If you do not do that, you start to look like you are all bells and whistles and totally hypocritical. The reason for that is laziness and an inability to drill down into your own policy agenda and look at the possible outcomes and ramifications of what you bring before us.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak because the situation facing us today in the Murray-Darling Basin is absolutely dire and we need to be taking action. I was sitting here earlier and thinking about exactly what I want to say. I think that this bill, the Water Amendment Bill 2008, is quite important in looking at how we move forward and deal with this issue.

Every time I fly from Canberra back home to Adelaide, I fly over the Coorong and the Lower Lakes. Every week or so, when I do that trip, I look down and think how sad it is that we have allowed this situation to occur, how sad it is that because of gross overallocation of water usage and a lack of foresight we have allowed such an iconic and important part of the world’s environment to deteriorate before our eyes. Gross overallocation and a lack of foresight in managing the water throughout the entire basin have led us to this situation. Obviously, the impact of climate change is exacerbating the problem, but it is a problem because we have not managed the system properly for years and years. It is not just because of this government or because of the last government. This is due to generations of not having the foresight and not understanding the importance of giving the environment the allocations it needs.

The Lower Lakes and the Coorong, Storm Boy country, are dying before our eyes. It is the people who live in those communities along the river, around the lakes, and who rely on the Coorong that are copping the brunt. They are left hanging, in desperate need of action from the government to tackle overallocation, to give them a lifeline. We need to ensure that further upstream we tackle the overallocation issue and give the river the drink it so desperately needs to survive. We need urgent action now.

While I accept that this bill is a step forward in dealing with the issues of managing the system on a national level, the big problem with this bill is the lack of urgency. And it is so poorly patched together. The impact of the intergovernmental agreement on allowing a faster and more effective approach to dealing with the crisis before us is shameful and somewhat embarrassing. The suggestion from the ministry and the government that we as parliamentarians should simply shut up and not criticise or scrutinise this piece of legislation—which is what the minister has said publicly, to the media and in other forums, even in this chamber—is an insult to the parliamentary process. It is an insult to those who have elected all of us to represent their needs and the needs of their communities. This parliament has every right to scrutinise legislation that comes before it. It is more important than ever that we look at the agreements that are made between the states and the federal government, because they affect thousands and thousands of people across the country who rely so much on the basin and the health of the river systems within it.

This bill and the agreement that underpins it are like a house of cards. Any gust of wind, any movement of something and the minister says that it will all fall down. Perhaps we needed to think more cleverly and better about what type of house we were trying to build. It is embarrassing to think that we are dealing with such a crisis in such an ad hoc and hotchpotch way. Let us face it, the Basin Plan is far too slow. Waiting until 2019 for implementation of water-sharing plans is not the urgent action so desperately needed. When I fly over the Coorong and the Lower Lakes and see, week by week, month by month, how desperate the situation is, I know those communities cannot wait until 2019. I know that the river system cannot wait until 2019. We need to be taking urgent action now.

The other problem with this bill is the lack of teeth of the national authority that the bill seeks to establish. It is a poor attempt at setting up an independent body to manage the entire basin system, which I agree is so desperately needed. We need a national approach. That body must be independent of the whims and wills of individual state governments. That is what got us into this mess in the first place. With states continuing to have their right of veto over the authority’s decisions, this body has no real teeth. The authority must have the teeth to manage the entire system fairly and sustainably without having to go back to states and do deals each time action is needed, each time a decision needs to be made. There is a lack of urgency for dealing with the crisis in the basin and the impact on river health, the environment and the communities. This lack of action is simply irresponsible. The time frames of the Basin Plan and water-sharing arrangements with states—some of them being given leeway until 2019—are far too slow to deal with the huge crisis that faces us.

Over the few short months I have been a senator for South Australia, I have spoken to thousands of people who rely on the basin, people who live in those communities and who desperately want leadership from government. They do not want simply to be told: ‘Sit back and pray for rain. We’ll sort it out. In 2019, we’ll have a plan.’ That is not what those communities want to hear. What they want to hear is what will be done now. We know that the Lower Lakes and the Coorong are in a very, very dire situation. We know that action needs to be taken now. The Minister for Climate Change and Water and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts have both acknowledged how bad the situation is, yet the bill before us does not deal with the urgency needed in action.

This bill does nothing to save the Lower Lakes and the Coorong in South Australia—2019 is far too late. What we really need is a rethink of how this bill should be managing the system and what type of future we want to see for our basin communities. To do that, we need to be consulting with those communities. We have not done that thus far. The consultation that a lot of those communities in South Australia have had over the last few months has been because of an urgent Senate inquiry that was brought here because a number of senators were concerned about their communities not being spoken to and the issue not being on the political agenda. Yet those communities are still waiting for a response from the minister as to the inquiry’s recommendations. This is simply a shunt of those communities and their concerns.

I am absolutely appalled at the public comments made by the government that we should not, as senators, be looking at how we can strengthen this bill, seeing as we all know how poorly it has been cobbled together. It is absolutely appalling to suggest that senators should not take on their role of scrutinising legislation and representing those people who voted for them and put their trust and faith in them to do what is in their best interests.

I hope that, when I fly back over the Coorong and the Lower Lakes at the end of this week or the end of next week, when I look down I will have some faith that the situation will improve. I do not see how this bill will achieve that unless we have it strengthened in the many ways that the government has acknowledged yet says are all too hard because of the intergovernmental agreement. I hope that the amendments to be moved by the Greens will be accepted by both sides of this chamber, to enable some type of future for the Lower Lakes and the Coorong. We should not simply be throwing away and closing our eyes to the Storm Boy country.