Fraser Anning (Queensland, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is not my first speech. I rise in support of the government's Water Amendment Bill 2018, which seeks to amend the Water Act 2007 following the Greens' sponsored disallowance of the northern basin amendment by the Senate earlier this year. This bill will introduce a new power to allow the minister to direct the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to make an instrument with the same effect as the disallowed amendment.

In the 2012 Basin Plan, the previous Labor-Green coalition government decided to divert gigalitres away from productive farming to run off downriver. This was euphemistically referred to as an environmental flow. However, the 2016 Northern Basin Review found that this was a fiasco. In particular, it found that the so-called environmental recovery of 390 gigalitres of water was having a devastating effect on farming. Accordingly, the current government previously sought to allow farmers to draw a modest 70 gigalitres more water in accordance with the recommendations of the review. Of course, that still left a so-called environmental water recovery target of 140 gigalitres from Queensland farmers and 180 gigalitres from New South Wales. But it was at least a step in the right direction.

I note that these flows are supposed to give us a better environmental outcome. I, therefore, look forward to greater scrutiny of environmental outcomes in the years to come, because I would like to see water given to the environment put under the same pressure for results as the water used for food production.

Generally, as this bill seeks to reprise that increase in water available for productive use, I, therefore, welcome the introduction of this bill and applaud the government for not being cowed by radical Green objections. I'm also sure that a return of the 70 gigalitres previously denied by the disallowance will be welcomed by rural producers, who have been burdened with uncertainty by the previous ideologically motivated attack on their livelihoods. Given that environmental extremists seem to think that any water diverted to support agriculture is a disaster, I'm sure the usual suspects will be lining up to oppose this bill.

The same anti-agriculture mentality has imposed outrageous bans on agricultural tree clearing in Queensland. Presumably the same people think that food on our supermarket shelves just magically appears without ever requiring land clearing, crop planting, domestic animal grazing and so on. I can just hear some of them saying: 'Who cares about dairy farms? We get our milk from nice clean bottles, not dirty old cows.'

In a broader sense, even though I'll support this bill because it represents an improvement in the status quo for farmers, the bigger problem is the existence of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in the first place. Section 100 of the Australian Constitution specifically states that the Commonwealth is not to restrict the right of any state or its residents to use water for commercial irrigation, which means that you would expect the Water Act 2007, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Basin Plan all would be unconstitutional. Others clearly thought so. In 2014 the validity of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was legally challenged on the grounds that it was contrary to section 100 of the Constitution. However, unfortunately, the court found that the legislation was valid as it interpreted treaties signed by Australia. Commonwealth legislation implementing such treaty obligations overrules state authority, based on the external affairs power contained in section 51 of the Constitution.

There has been a long history of autocratic federal governments misusing the external affairs power to override state laws and individual freedoms. The most well-known case was in 1983 when a former Labor government used its powers to prevent the construction of the Gordon River hydroelectric scheme in Tasmania, killing economic development and jobs. More insidious, however, was the 1975 Whitlam-era Racial Discrimination Act, which, under section 18C, under the guise of implementing the lofty-sounding UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, suppresses free speech. Efforts to resist this on the basis that the Racial Discrimination Act is inconsistent with constitutionally implemented freedom of political expression have proved fruitless, again because the High Court has found that the Racial Discrimination Act derives its authority from the external affairs powers conveyed by section 51.

For one level of elected Australian government to overrule another is one thing. However, for one part of the Constitution to allow foreign agreements to override other parts of the Constitution is something else. If we allow the external affairs powers to be abused to allow foreign treaties to override our own Constitution then our country has surrendered power over itself to foreign governments. If, for example, an extreme left-wing government took power, they could sign a treaty with, say, Iran that obliges us to adopt sharia law, and under this interpretation of section 51 of the Constitution this would overrule our other constitutional rights or any laws enacted by democratically elected Australian governments. Is that what our founding fathers, such as Henry Parkes or Sir Edmund Barton, intended for this country? Is that what the Australian people really want? Is that what our parents and grandparents fought in two wars for?

We may think that we are debating water rights, but the existence of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, in apparent disregard for section 100 of the Constitution, is actually a clarion call for constitutional reform. We need to return the Australian government to the democratic control of the Australian people, in accordance with the founders' intent.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Water Amendment Bill essentially amends a disallowance motion that was passed in this place some months ago. I supported the disallowance motion because my concerns—they are very real and legitimate concerns—were about abuse of water, the theft of water and the corruption of the water allocation process, both politically and economically, that was happening in New South Wales. No-one denies that there's been a problem in New South Wales; it's only the scale of the problem that people are in debate about, if I can put it like that. There are many who ran around like Henny Penny when that disallowance was supported, saying that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan would collapse. Nothing was further from the truth. In fact, quite frankly, I think the alarmism and the scaremongering then was more about the political cover-up to save the skins of some of the people who are deeply, deeply involved in the theft and corruption upstream that is damaging the Murray-Darling Basin agreement.

And I'm disappointed that, rather than let the disallowance run its course of six months and then allow the inquiries that have taken place to report—and then to consider, in the totality of the information, whether changes should be made to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan or the Northern Basin plan—the government has sought to bring this on. And it's done. Nothing I say or do is going to change the outcome of this legislation, because Labor have decided that they're going to support the government, because apparently they've extracted some concessions. The concessions seem to be only words to me, because I haven't seen anything more substantive than that we're going to provide for Indigenous water or cultural water or we're going to do better in this or that. It seems to be a lot of platitudes.

But the simple concerns that I have remain. There are deeply embedded problems in the Northern Basin. I believe that these problems include political corruption. I believe that they include bribery. I believe that they include donations that have gone quid pro quo for some of the support that has been received. Yet, apart from what we've seen on the ABC and apart from what we've seen in some reports, whereby people have resigned, we haven't had a comprehensive conclusion to the investigations that have taken place.

I also have to say that the alarmist predictions about New South Wales withdrawing from the basin agreement haven't come to pass. The people who perhaps squawked the most about the changes to that disallowance were conflating multiple issues—and quite deliberately conflating them. They were talking about the Southern Rural Water changes from Victoria and conflating those with the Northern Basin changes. When you explain to people that this is not the case and that they're succumbing to an alarmist scare campaign, they have to acknowledge it. Even the most knowledgeable people in my home state of South Australia accepted that what they were putting to me wasn't entirely true but could happen; it was hypothetical. Well, what we know is true is that people were stealing water upstream. We know that meters hadn't been turned on. We know that payments had been made to political parties for them to turn a blind eye. We know that people had backdated approvals or backdated legislation in order to excuse people very close to politics from the abuse, misuse and theft of water. How can anyone excuse that? And the links go very close to figures in the New South Wales government and figures who, quite frankly, are involved in this government.

Rather than stand and make this stuff up, why don't we wait for the results of the inquiries—the ICACs that are going on, the parliamentary inquiries and the royal commission that is taking place in South Australia? Another alarm bell: when you've got a royal commission going, initiated by a state, how is it that the Commonwealth government tries to stand in the way of discovery of evidence and appearances of witnesses to stymie the investigation of that royal commission? If that doesn't ring an alarm bell that the fix is in and there is something really stinky in this whole process, then I don't know what does.

I accept the fact that the former Premier of South Australia, Jay Weatherill, established a royal commission probably for political purposes. I also accept the fact—and Minister Ruston has made a very good point to me—that the changes in the Northern Basin system don't really have that much impact on South Australia from a water flow perspective. I accept that. But I'm interested in having the right thing done, and the right thing is to come to the root cause of the problem. If it is political corruption, cronyism or this culture of theft and distortion, we need to get to the bottom of it before we make changes to one of the most significant agreements in, I think, our country's history.

So I'm deeply concerned, and my concerns have not been allayed. Notwithstanding that these changes are going to get through, I think it would be far preferable for us to revisit this—and I would have an open mind on it—at the conclusion of the investigations that are taking place. It's not so much the minimal amount of water that would get through to South Australia; it's about the conduct and the process surrounding the implementation of the northern basin agreement. But that's not going to happen. Labor have got their concessions to justify the change, and I understand that there's some political expediency in that. I'm just disappointed that I don't think we're going to get to the root cause of this before this bill passes. In fact, I'm very sure. It's going to pass whether I support it or not, but I will not suspend my legitimate concerns about it.

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

Hear, hear!

Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm getting the 'Hear, hears' from a section of the chamber where I don't normally get them. Lest anyone thinks I've jumped into the Green brine, I haven't. When I look at the river, I see a river, I see trees and I see aquatic life, but I also see communities and agriculture, and I see them as necessary. It is necessary for there to be a balance there. So I'm not jumping into the extreme Green bandwagon; I just want to clean up the system to make sure that it is working for all of us and that our political system is working as it should. That's why if the Greens do introduce their proposed amendment, which is about restoring even more flows to the river, I won't be supporting that amendment, because I just don't think it is productive. I don't think it takes into account the importance of the communities and the vital role that agriculture and irrigation play not only in our economic lifeline for Australia but as the very lifeblood of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who love their communities they live in and want to see them prosper. I want to see them prosper too, but I don't want to see allegations of corruption remain unresolved before we make decisions that we really can't go back on.

So I won't be supporting the amendment, but I find myself in the awkward position where I can't be satisfied that my initial concerns have been resolved in order to support this bill. I acknowledge it will go through. I acknowledge that there may be many great minds—better minds than mine—who understand the system better than me. It may be entirely accurate that this won't have any impact on the river system, or it may not. I will accept their judgement, but what I cannot get out of my mind and cannot allow to go unresolved is the deep, deep concern that something stinks in this whole process. Something stinks in the way the northern basin has been managed. It stinks at the state level. It stinks at the federal level. It stinks at some of the community levels. That needs to be resolved.

I would suggest to the government, if they want to build some trust and if there's nothing to hide, that they get out of the way and stop trying to impede the South Australian royal commission into what has gone on. It's not so much about the water, let me tell you. It's about the system, it's about the processes and it's about what we are turning a blind eye to. That is what concerns me. If Senator Ruston in her summing-up remarks would like to address the reason why the Commonwealth is stepping in to impede the royal commission, I would welcome that, but I understand it's not you, Senator Ruston, so perhaps it's wrong to put you in the hot seat. I should put this to the water minister himself. There is something wrong, and I think many people know that instinctively. That's why I can't support this bill. It's going to get through. I will vote against it, because I think there is too much at stake here to make these decisions without final resolution of the concerns that have been raised by me, by Four Corners, by many people in the river communities and by many in other parliaments around the country.

David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Water Amendment Bill 2018. This bill allows the minister to direct the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to prepare an amendment to the Basin Plan that is the same in effect as an amendment that has previously been disallowed. The bill allows the disallowed Basin Plan Amendment Instrument 2017 (No. 1) to have effect, which will reduce the water recovery target in the Northern Basin from 390 to 320 gigalitres. In other words, it reduces by 70 gigalitres the amount of water to be taken from productive users—irrigated agriculture, in other words—and sent down the river. To hear some in this place, you would think that the future of the planet was at stake—the Great Barrier Reef, at the very least, and of course South Australia will disappear without a trace. While there are times when that latter suggestion has some appeal, there are a few problems with all that. For a start, an average of just six per cent of the water that goes down the Darling River makes it to Wentworth, where it joins the Murray and then flows on to South Australia—a mere six per cent of 70 gigalitres. The rest is used for environmental or productive use along the way, or it simply evaporates; in fact, a large amount of it evaporates. And nobody has argued that there is a lack of environmental watering in either southern Queensland or New South Wales. So returning 70 litres to productive agriculture to grow food and fibre is obviously the best use that can be made of it.

It is pretty clear from the debate about this issue that some people don't know their geography very well. I include South Australian Senator Hanson-Young in that. She discovered the Coorong, at the mouth of the Murray, only in the last couple of months, after having abused me for pointing out that it's dying. I suspect that she visited for the first time in her life after I said that, when she realised I was exactly right. But, being geographically challenged, she thinks a lack of water in the river at the Queensland-New South Wales border is somehow responsible for the condition of the Coorong and that somehow the Murray-Darling Basin Plan will fix it. For the benefit of Senator Hanson-Young and anyone who has a similar disability, the Coorong is actually not even included in the plan; it's outside it. And no matter how much water is sent down the rivers, either the Darling or the Murray, it won't benefit the Coorong.

The Coorong is probably the most neglected environment in South Australia, and it's true that it lacks water to flush it. But this is not the fault of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It's due to the fact that the Murray mouth is virtually always closed. As a result, the Coorong doesn't get properly flushed by seawater. To claim that it should be assisted by more fresh water flowing down the Murray is utterly absurd. The Coorong has a narrow entrance which is seaward of the barrages at the Murray mouth and operates in an unnatural tidal environment dictated by the barrages. If the Coorong environment were a primary concern, the mouth of the Murray would not be closed—in other words, if the environment was operating naturally. In its natural state the Coorong would also receive a lot of run-off from the surrounding area. However, that's not happening because of the south-east drainage scheme, which diverts fresh water to the sea instead of to the Coorong. If that water was allowed to flow into the Coorong, as it previously did, it would help restore the natural environment.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was negotiated during the millennium drought in an atmosphere of crisis based on the perception that drought was the new normal. As a result, it is deeply flawed. I am confident that had the plan been developed in a normal year it would have been substantially different. It's based on the simplistic notion that all the environment needs is more water—not the right amount of water in the right place at the right time, just more water. Australia is naturally a land of droughts and flooding rains. Droughts are normal, and too much water can be as harmful as not enough. The fact is that there is now an abundance of water available for the environment, and if any more water is added to the Murray River then sections of it wouldn't have the capacity to carry it within its banks. It's full.

But nobody wants to take responsibility for the damage to private property that will occur if there is man-made flooding caused by adding more water to the river and nobody will explain why we allow a lot of the water that flows down the Murray and the Darling to evaporate in the Lower Lakes—Lake Alexandrina and Lake Albert. Between 800 and 900 gigalitres of fresh water evaporates per annum. That is one-third of all the water saved in the plan. If the Murray mouth were open and this evaporation were sea water—or, more correctly, a mixture of sea and fresh water—a significant amount of fresh water would be available for consumptive or environmental use within the basin. Think of how much extra food and fibre that would mean. Think of the healthy rural communities it would allow. The water taken from Queensland, New South Wales and Victorian agriculture has had a devastating impact on rural communities. More water sent to South Australia will have no additional environmental benefits.

It's high time some facts and reason were applied to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. If South Australian politicians who don't know the difference between the Darling and Murray rivers can't explain why the Lower Lakes should remain fresh and don't know why the Coorong is dying, they should keep their mouths shut. They have nothing to contribute.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it's worthwhile going back to the beginning of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Let's remember what was going on when this plan was introduced. Australia was in the grip of a drought that had been running for many years. We saw the Murray-Darling River system vulnerable and dying. This was a river system that was dying. It takes something to get John Howard coming to the aid of the environment, but at the time things were so dire and so catastrophic that Prime Minister John Howard pledged $10 billion to get the states together to prepare a new system to guarantee enough water to try to secure the health of the Murray-Darling.

Then in 2009 it started to rain and the drought broke. Of course, the short-term thinkers on both side of politics thought, 'Bewdy, problem solved.' The idea that we might enter into drought again did not occur to them. The denialists in the coalition, those within the National Party and those in the pocket of big irrigators decided not to uphold the original principle, which was to ensure that we had a vibrant, living and healthy river. They again fell captive to the short-term thinking that dominates our political system. We squandered the opportunity to set up the communities that rely on a healthy river over the long term. We lost that opportunity. We are now more exposed than ever before because it won't be long before the next decade-long drought comes along, with more ferocity, more severity, and causing more damage than we've ever experienced.

The scientists surveyed the whole basin and said that, if this were to be a healthy river system and if the river system were to survive for the benefit of future generations, the environment needs at least a minimum of 4,200 billion litres. Of course we then got into an auction. That auction was effectively a race to the bottom. The offer from the Labor government scaled it down to 3,200 gigalitres. It was again revised down and presented to the parliament, and we ended up with 2,750 gigalitres, which again was approved by both sides of politics.

In one of the first hearings of the South Australian royal commission it was clearly and comprehensively put that the policy is 'a fraud on the environment'. The river will continue to die. It has been deprived of the water that is needed. We have ended up with not a plan to save the river but a plan to consign the river to a certain death. This bill—the Water Amendment Bill 2018, which was stitched up between the Nationals and the Labor Party—is going to make the fraud even worse, because even 2,750 billion litres is not enough. What we're going to see is it further reduced by another 675 billion litres down to just over 2,000 gigalitres. That's less than half of what the science is saying that we need to keep our river networks alive—less than half. If we compare the aspirations from when this plan was first announced to where we are now, there's no conclusion other than to say: this is a failed plan, dominated by vested interests that will consign the river to die. The environment has lost out and those irrigation communities that depend on a healthy river have lost out. But do you know who has won out of this? The big cotton irrigators upstream have won. The river's dying.

I have to say, Senator Leyonhjelm, it is remarkable that a man who is trained, notionally, in a scientific profession could completely misunderstand what is going on when it comes to the Murray in South Australia. The river's dying from the mouth up and we're relying on dredging in the Coorong year in, year out rather than putting water down the river where it's needed. Our institutions have been corrupted. The institutions who oversee this plan have presided over floodplain water theft, occurring in plain sight. Ninety-five per cent of the system is not needed. We're seeing water that's saved through infrastructure not going back to the environment, despite the fact that those things were promised. We have fraud charges that are expected to be formally laid against Norman Farming, one of the country's largest cotton farmers, which is run by John Norman, father-in-law to the water minister. That is why John Howard at least had the sense to never let the Nationals be in charge of water.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a point of order. I think that the senator should be accurate in the statements he is making to the house. Mr Norman is not the father-in-law of the water minister.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's a debating point.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's the factual content.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ruston, when you respond you have the opportunity to put what you believe.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm just asking you to draw to the attention of the member that he is making a factually incorrect statement that is stirring—

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's not a point of order, Senator Ruston. I have ruled.

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me be clear: he is an in-law to the water minister. That's why John Howard said he was not going to let the Nationals be in charge of water. The claims are that Norman Farming was able to misuse upwards of $25 million from the Healthy HeadWaters Water Use Efficiency project, because the project doesn't have any genuine independent checks on grants and project delivery, leaving it wide-open to corruption.

So the Nationals have no qualms about wasting public money as long as it is going into their electorates. And, of course, the water minister's electorate coincidentally happens to cover Cubbie Station. This plan is stacked in favour of big corporations—big corporate irrigators. The bill is going to entrench the power of the big irrigators in the northern basin. It's going to reintroduce the disallowed instrument that intended to reduce 70 gigalitres of environmental flows in the northern basin. It means less water for the mouth of the river in South Australia.

Today, what we have seen through this amendment is the Labor Party, the Nationals and the Liberal Party working together to deny environmental flows from Queensland and from northern New South Wales through to Victoria and South Australia. It's a cosy little deal, a stitch-up, to look after their big mates. They're making these changes as the very legality—the legal basis on which the plan is constructed—is in doubt. The operations and project management are under a cloud of corruption. Federal agencies are blocking the South Australian royal commission from scrutinising the other jurisdictions involved in the plan. It's a cover-up, and it stinks.

This amendment bill that we are voting on today is bad for the environment. It is bad for those future generations that will rely on a healthy Murray-Darling Basin. It's bad for South Australia. But do you know who it's good for? It's good for big cotton. It's good for those corporations that happen to make big donations to all sides of politics and are now seeing their investment pay off. Let me commend the work of my colleague Senator Sarah Hanson-Young in ensuring that every Australian knows that what we are seeing today are the big parties getting together to look after their mates and to say goodbye to a healthy Murray-Darling River.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It now being 7 pm, pursuant to the hours motion agreed to earlier in the day, the debate is interrupted.