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

I thank the Senate for the opportunity to speak in response to Senator Patrick's questions and take the opportunity to correct some of the fundamentally incorrect statements in his original motion that brought this matter to the chamber.

Senator Patrick notes that the government denied the Senate access to water-valuation documents used to inform the purchase of water from Eastern Australia Agriculture in 2017. That is not actually the case. The government complied with the order of 16 November 2017 and released documents to the Senate on 12 February 2018. To assert that the minister made an improper public interest immunity claim, as has been done, is simply false. The documents were released in a redacted form to protect the commercial interests of the Commonwealth. Assessments of the potential impact of releasing details of evaluations are made on a case-by-case basis. The valuation documents used to inform the purchase of overland flow water entitlements from Eastern Australia Agriculture in 2017 were assessed in February 2018 as containing commercially sensitive information.

It is now 2½ years since the tabling of those redacted documents—a significant period of time. Logically, valuations become less commercially sensitive as they become more dated and less relevant to any negotiations or decisions of the day being made by government. In light of this, in association with the request under the Freedom of Information Act, the department considered the commercial value of the documents now to have reduced, and so it recently released further material. It is simply a question of the passage of time since the documents were first tabled. If the Senate made the request via an order for the production of documents now, then the valuations would have been released without commercial information redacted, as they have been, under the Freedom of Information Act.

Despite the senator's efforts to undermine confidence in the recovery of water for the environment, he has been unable to identify any nefarious acts in relation to these purchases. More importantly, the Australian National Audit Office recently completed an audit of exactly the purchases that the senator is claiming were overpayments. They found that the department and government did not pay more than the market rate for that water. The Senate has ordered the government to explain why the Commonwealth paid more than the independent valuer's range. To repeat—and to be very clear—the government did not overpay. The ANAO found that all strategic water purchases, including the water purchased from Eastern Australia Agriculture, were at or below the market rate identified by independent market valuations. I quote from the Auditor-General's Audit report No. 2 2020-21: Performance audit:procurement of strategic water entitlements, page 9:

The price the department paid for water entitlements was equal to or less than the maximum price determined by valuations.

The valuation for standard overland flow entitlements of the type purchased provided a market-value range of $1,100 per megalitre to $2,300 per megalitre. The valuation also clearly stated that the department should be prepared to pay 10 to 30 per cent above the standard market rate—that is, up to $3,000 per megalitre—for 'properties of a high standard that have achieved above average levels of water use efficiency' in this region. In fact, the department paid less than the top end of the expanded valuation range provided for in the valuation and purchased some 28,740 megalitres of nominal overland flow entitlements for $2,745 per megalitre, reflecting the nature of the property. This was based on the department conducting a full and rigorous assessment of all available information. Senator Patrick and others in this place have desperately tried to besmirch the name of ministers and of the hardworking and dedicated public servants delivering the Basin Plan and undertaking the recovery of water. However, the ANAO investigated these matters and found no evidence of improper dealings.

Senator Patrick interjecting—

I note Senator Patrick is attempting to besmirch the Auditor-General through interjections as well. What the senator should be mindful of are the environmental benefits for the Culgoa Floodplain and the Lower Balonne River, including the Narran Lakes, a Ramsar-listed wetland of international importance. That, as part of the Basin Plan, is what this water was purchased with an intent of delivering.

The Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder recently estimated that 95 gigalitres of water contributed to flows in the Lower Balonne at the start of 2020, including from the overland flow licences purchased from Eastern Australia Agriculture. These were the most significant inflows to the Narran Lakes since 2013. The Narran Lake Nature Reserve Ramsar site supports 40 migratory bird species, including 19 listed under international agreements, and threatened species such as the Australasian bittern, the Murray cod and winged peppercress.

As we recover from COVID-19, sites like this wetland of significant importance will attract domestic travellers—travellers who will see Australia's flora and fauna on display because of water recovered and used to benefit the environment because of this government's work in delivering the Basin Plan. More importantly than those tourism and travel benefits and economic dividends, of course, is the reality that the work under the Basin Plan to recover this water is delivering the environmental benefits intended through supporting wetlands of this world-class nature and the species that depend upon them.

Our government is getting on with the job of delivering the Basin Plan. We are delivering for the environment, for communities and for farmers, notwithstanding the many difficulties faced in the delivery of that plan. We will not be distracted by ill-founded beat-ups, conspiracy theories or those who seek to shamelessly and shamefully undermine confidence in the Basin Plan, which is one of the most important environmental measures this parliament has put in place.

Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister's response.

I want to talk about the context of this OPD, how we got there and some things that have happened along the way. I refer senators to my first speech, when I spoke of the work that the Senate does other than legislation. I said:

…probing and checking the administration of laws, of keeping itself and the public informed and of its requirement to insist on ministerial accountability for the government's administration. With words so relevant to us that they are quoted in Odgers, US President Woodrow Wilson described the informing role of the congress, stating:

It is the proper duty of a representative body to look diligently into every affair of government and to talk much about what it sees. It is meant to be the eyes and the voice, and to embody the wisdom and will of its constituents. Unless Congress have and use every means of acquainting itself with the acts and the disposition of the administrative agents of the government, the country must be helpless to learn how it is being served …

The philosopher John Stuart Mill, quoted with approval in the High Court case of Egan and Willis, summarised the task as: … to watch and control the government: to throw the light of publicity on its acts …

Applied to the Senate, these principles make it clear that our role is not just to review and pass legislation. Indeed, as President Wilson stated, 'The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function.' In the House of Representatives the government has the majority, usually, and so that function is not performed there. Governments can never be relied on to supervise and scrutinise themselves. The Senate must take this role most seriously. The Constitution, particularly section 49, grants the Senate power to carry out this informing function.

I also talked about OPDs, and I said that all too often orders for the production of documents are being met with contempt. An order for the production of documents gets made, the government advances an argument for public interest immunity, however tenuous that argument might be, and, invariably, the Senate does not accept the public interest immunity claim but the government insists on it and refuses to provide the documents. Then the Senate does nothing except weaken itself. In those cases where the Senate arguments are strong for the documents to be produced, the Senate weakens itself by not using its powers to insist upon their production.

I just want to go to a few examples that are relevant to this government's allergy to transparency but also are criticisms of the Senate itself. On 17 November 2014, there was an OPD seeking access to any documents produced by macroeconomics.com.au as the result of a particular tender, including economic modelling and other examinations of the potential impact of the SEA 1000 submarine project on the Australian economy, amongst other subjects. That was refused to the Senate on the grounds it was cabinet-in-confidence. This is the cabinet-in-confidence document I'm holding. You might reasonably ask: how is Senator Patrick holding a cabinet-in-confidence document? The answer to that question is I got it under FOI. Sadly, I got it under FOI. It was denied to this chamber by this government as cabinet-in-confidence.

On 9 October 2016, the Senate made an order for the production of the design and mobilisation contract signed between the Commonwealth of Australia and DCNS on 30 September 2016. It was refused to the Senate on the grounds that it was commercially confidential and involved national security—and yet here I am holding it. It contains national security information, yet I am holding it here. How am I holding it? Because I got it under FOI. It was refused to the Senate, but I got it under FOI. Are you starting to see the pattern?

How about the future frigate contract? The tender went out. It was a tender where the government desperately did not want the Australian public to understand that they had sidelined two Australian companies. So there was an OPD in relation to this. There was an OPD on 4 September 2017 seeking access to the tender document. Again, I'm holding it here not because the government complied with the Senate's orders, not because the Senate insisted upon its right to receive the documents, but because I got it under FOI.

Here I have the Australian Industry Plan, a document you would think is quite reasonable to be in the public domain. It was Naval Group's commitment to what they would do with Australian industry were they to win the submarine contract, which they then, of course, did. When they won the competition, I asked to see this. I asked in the Senate, and the Senate gave me support, for an order for the production of documents to provide this and it was denied. Public interest immunity prevented me from getting access to it. Here is the decision of the Information Commissioner that eventually got it released to me. It did go further to the AAT, but eventually the Commonwealth backed down and agreed and we end up with it being in the public domain now. It's a sad state of affairs.

There was another OPD on 20 June 2018 that sought to find out what the price offered to Australia was for 12 French submarines. That's a reasonable thing to ask—to understand what their offer was, particularly in circumstances where we've got a project that went from something between $8 billion and $33 billion back in 2009 to $89 billion now. The Senate asked the government, by way of OPD, to hand over the documents. When they didn't, the minister—it was Minister Payne at the time, when she was defence minister—was asked to come and explain the circumstances. On 17 September 2018 we had a debate on why there was a public interest immunity claim. The government stood up—Senator Payne stood up and Senator Fawcett stood up—and gave the Senate a lecture on why this was confidential. I don't have that document, but what I do have in my hand is a decision made on the 13th of this month that requires the Department of Defence to hand it over to me. Again, the Senate ordered the production of this document. It was refused, and I'm about to get it under FOI—assuming the government doesn't appeal it, which would simply cost more and I'll get it anyway.

I also have a document here which is marked 'protected and sensitive'. It's an Auditor-General's report on the Army’s protected mobility vehicle—light. This is a document that the Attorney-General issued a section 37 certificate to censor the parliament from having. There's a matter before the AAT. I'm awaiting a decision on full release of this document, but, already, I have information in here that was denied to both houses of parliament because the Attorney-General issued a certificate saying it was sensitive. Can everyone see what's happening here? The Senate orders the production of documents so that it can do its job, it can do its oversight job—its most important job—and yet the documents don't get returned to us. They don't get returned to us, and then someone like me can go and get them under FOI.

That's exactly what happened in the case of the current motion that we're referring to—the valuation in relation to 'watergate' and the Clyde and Kiora properties. On 16 November 2017, the Senate ordered the production of water valuations. I know that because I lodged the motion on 15 November, my very first day in the Senate. We were refused the documents. Senator Birmingham is correct: some information flowed to us—in fact, quite a lot—but the critical information on what the actual valuations were was hidden. We went for a second round, and another set of documents were tabled on 26 October after a bit of negotiation with the government, but still the valuations were kept secret. Of course, the minister says: 'They were kept secret because they were confidential. They were commercially sensitive. These were valuations.' Anyone who buys a house knows that when you get a valuation on a house, sure, you might want to keep that hidden from the people you're purchasing it from, but after you've bought your house it's irrelevant. It has no meaning. The market price has been set.

In this instance, we had the Commonwealth purchasing water—$80 million worth of taxpayers' money for 29 gigalitres at a price of $2,745 per megalitre. Many thought, and still think, that that's expensive for overland flow water. There are other valuations in the same valley that say that water is worth nothing. Okay, so that's what they paid. They were open about that. They responded to questions. But I wanted to see the valuations. I wanted to see whether it fitted within the ranges recommended by the valuer, and they withheld it. They withheld it both in the OPD and in questioning. They withheld it when I used FOI with it as well. The department did not want to know that the value range was nothing like what they paid for it. The valuation, which I have here now, released to me under FOI—not under an order for production—says that the value should be somewhere between $1,100 and $2,300 per megalitre, yet we paid $2,745. Minister Birmingham makes the statement that somewhere in the valuation they were talking about paying between 10 and 30 per cent extra for higher-quality properties—and he is correct, it is in there. But it's in there as they work their way through trying to get to the final position, which they then state, which is really clear: this water is worth somewhere between $1,100 and $2,300. That includes all of those factors, including the view on whether or not it's worth 10 or 30 per cent more. The government paid outside of the value range. I will be asking questions. I'm sure there will be many people asking questions at estimates as to how they came to that conclusion, because it is either maladministration, incompetence or fraud. This is taxpayers' money. This might be embarrassing. I have the greatest respect for the Auditor-General, and I think there's been an error made. I will give him the opportunity to answer my questions as to how he thinks that it was within the range. It's clear it is not within the range if one looks at the valuation.

We're in the chamber talking about two things today. One of them is that we paid extra for water—extra taxpayers' money that didn't need to be spent. We should always be concerned about that. We're also in this chamber today talking about the ability of the Senate to do its job properly. There should never be a case where an OPD is made and denied on public interest grounds, when at some stage later a citizen is able to FOI it. It actually puts shame on the government and it puts shame on the Senate for not actually standing up for itself. We need to think about that. We need to think about how we do our job properly. It doesn't matter whether you are on the government side or on the opposition side or on the crossbench. We have a duty to conduct oversight. Whatever we do whilst Labor sits on this side will affect the Liberal Party when they are in opposition and when they want to hold the government to account. It's an important principle. Sadly, the government has made false public interest immunity claims and, sadly, the Senate has let them do it.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution that echoes much of the sentiment that's been put on the record today by Senator Patrick. I want to make a couple of opening remarks about Senator Birmingham's response. Let me say that, having watched Senator Birmingham in action for some years here in this chamber, I've come to know that the more slowly and deliberately he speaks, the more it looks like he's actually trying to cover up, and that's what comes out afterwards. We saw a slow, deliberate and careful response to this order for production of documents debate that we're having because, I believe, the minister and his government are chronically addicted to covering up—covering up everything that they possibly can. That's why they don't produce the documents that the Senate needs to do our job on behalf of the Australian people: to critique, to observe and to ask questions based on fact about what's going on in this country. But the cover-up is on day in and day out from those opposite.

Senator Birmingham was claiming that this is just an attempt to besmirch the minister. You don't have to have an event like this in the Senate to know that the government has very much besmirched ministers in their ranks. You only have to look at Minister Angus Taylor, who attacked the people of New South Wales, defending his family business against environmental concerns. He attacked the truth of councillors on the Sydney council, and his government stood up for him and helped him and covered over. Then there's Minister Stuart Robert and robodebt. This is a handful of papers that has come through my office today, claiming the minister has made a public interest immunity claim with respect to any legal advice obtained in relation to the income compliance program and to the circumstances surrounding any legal advice obtained in relation to the income compliance program. That's the cover-up for robodebt. This government is so void of integrity that it doesn't see that covering up information about what they did to the Australian people in raising illegal debts is against the public interest. They say that telling us anything here in the Senate about that is against the public interest. What a crock. What a load of rubbish. This government has made an art form of acting against the public interest and an art form of then attempting to cover it up at every single turn.

I would particularly like to focus on the Minister representing the Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia, Minister Birmingham, because of his incompetent and overzealous use of public interest immunity claims to shut down government transparency. The Murray-Darling Basin is a wonderful and critical feature of Australia's agricultural and environmental legacy. Its rivers provide homes and breeding areas to countless animals and plants, and its waters help irrigate fields of citrus, grapes, rice and cotton as well one-fifth of all Australian dairy farms. It matters to this nation. It matters to me as a senator for New South Wales. It is a place of pride in our psyche as Australians.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is teetering. Its solid pillars of environmental science, respect for Indigenous communities and sustainable irrigation are being swept away by a tsunami of corruption, opaque regulations and market lack of faith in this bureaucracy. Too many scandals, years of drought without water for most licences and the lack of transparency in the water market have left many irrigation communities teetering on the brink. Their anger is evident in protests like the one held last year at Parliament House or the one on the river at Tocumwal show. Australians will not accept cover-ups or insider deals anymore. They are sick of the cover-ups. They are sick of this government trying to pull the wool over their eyes. People from the country parts of Australia are too hardworking and too decent to be treated in this disdainful way by this Liberal-National government.

I ask the minister: please, as the tide of social licence ebbs, end these cover-ups. End the bogus public interest immunity claims. End your government's war on truth and accountability. Allow the river communities to actually hear what's really going on. Nearly three long years ago, the Senate ordered the production of all documents relating to water purchases across the Murray-Darling Basin from 1 January 2017. The community has a right to know. These documents were provided to the Senate but they were heavily redacted. For people following the debate at home who don't pay much attention to what goes on, basically a big redacted document is one that has most of the toner from the printer all over it. It's just a black blanked-out document. What they blanked out included the valuations of the Clyde and Kia Ora purchases in Queensland. Despite denying full disclosure to the Senate, the department since released these valuations to a private citizen under freedom of information laws.

So what we're talking about here today is a government that refuses—arrogantly, intransigently—to come before the Senate and put documents before the senate and the senators of this great nation so they can interrogate the truth. The truth doesn't matter to this government. Hiding the truth is what matters to this government. How can it possibly be that the government is so afraid of this Senate, so allergic to accountability, that it will redact duly ordered documents to the Senate yet can release them to members of the public? That is the ultimate insult to senators duly elected to this place. And, through them, it is an insult to the nation of Australia and its great citizenry. I don't for one moment begrudge the disclosure of the valuations to any citizen of this country. But it is this government's contempt of the Senate, through these bogus public interest immunity claims, that really has to be explained today. How can a public interest immunity claim be valid to the upper chamber of the Australian parliament but not valid for information to be delivered to an ordinary Australian citizen? How on earth does the government expect people to swallow that?

It just doesn't pass the pub test, and it's because this minister and all ministers of this Liberal Party and National Party government are at war with transparency. In being at war with transparency, they are at war with the best interests of Australia.

The government have no shame in trying to cover up their failings—in this case, the questionable spend of tens of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money for water licences from a company that was co-founded by a fellow member of their cabinet. It's the old boys' club. There are a few more women around the chamber—thank God for that—but the old boys' club seems to linger longer. It's past its use-by date. Australians are sick of it. We're over this insider trading that is the hallmark of the government's practices.

I applaud Senator Patrick for his tireless work on government accountability in this matter and other matters, and I note several examples that he's mentioned and provided to me of claims that the government have put forward to avoid disclosure of documents or decisions only to be later forced to provide them by the Information Commissioner due to their initial reasoning being fundamentally flawed. This is how they roll. They hope that people don't understand all of the plays, all of the language and all of the practices of this Senate, and they hide in that space between what ordinary Australian people know and what journalists who churn through this place know. The government rely on a lack of deep knowledge of how the place operates, and in that space they seek to hide.

The government want to hide information about the Collins submarine macroeconomic report. They refused to offer that as an order for the production of documents because they said it was 'cabinet in confidence', but it was released to a private citizen under FOI, and—

Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here it is.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I believe this cabinet-in-confidence document is in the hands of Senator Patrick right now in the chamber. He can get that as a private citizen, but the government denied the Senate to have access to it. This is a total disgrace, and there are very many more examples—the submarine design and mobilisation contract, the future frigate tender and the other matters to which Senator Patrick has referred today. To me as a citizen of this great nation, why is none of this information allowed to be released to the Senate under the appropriate orders yet is able to be provided to members of the public even if its production has originally been classified as doing possible damage to national security? When the Information Commissioner sat still and had a look at this without the rush and the push, it didn't meet the test.

How is it not in the public's interest to know if their money is being spent wisely when it comes to buying back tens of millions of dollars in water entitlements from a Cayman Islands based entity through opaque tender processes? I would think that knowing that is in Australian citizens' interests. Why did the government seemingly fail to obtain value for money with a company desperate to sell these entitlements? The Australian public have a right to know, and their duly elected representatives should be treated with a respect that trust entails.

As a duty senator to most of western New South Wales and many river communities that depend on the plan, I demand on behalf of the citizens of New South Wales that the government be upfront with the members of this chamber. This is not just a one-off case of poor judgement; it's a systemic issue. These PII claims are thrown up like paper roadblocks, obstructing our work here for months and months—and, in some cases, years—through what are revealed now by the release of documents by the Information Commissioner as clearly and ultimately specious reasoning, but they get the job done that the government want them to do. It's a deceptive government that hides its failures in darkness.

This lot over here clock on day in, day out, they continue to collect money as they pass go and they are treating the Australian people like mushrooms—loads of manure and lots of darkness. That is both their policy and their practice. They think they win when the public moves on, when journalists move on, when the momentum dies down and the government regains from the brief and piercing shaft of sunlight interrogating their disgraceful practices.

I'll tell you what happens when a government is addicted to darkness, to hiding the truth and preventing the truth from being told in this place. What happens is what's happening right now in aged care. Today, 412 Australians in aged-care settings are not with us. Their families are mourning their loss. Their families are desperately seeking answers. They want to know how this could happen to somebody they loved—somebody they put into a place that was subject to the scrutiny of the federal parliament under the minister. The reason it's happening is that this government has hidden and hidden and hidden for years and years. We have seen seven long years of government neglect of the aged-care sector, seven years of failing to respond to reports and seven years of ignoring the plight of decent, hardworking Australians who did nothing wrong except become older and find their way into an aged-care setting. The government is running and hiding from that as well.

This is a government of darkness and denial. This is a government that refuses to tell the truth. This is a government that hides documents that this chamber needs in order to hold it to account. It's replete in every single policy area. There is robodebt, with hundreds of thousands of Australians served up with debt. The government, to this day, claims public interest immunity. It claims that it is not in the public interest for us to know if it took legal advice before it hurt all those lives. In this place, on this very day, we have been debating the impact of that decision. Just a couple of weeks ago, I put on the record details of the suicide of two young men. There are many more who have just lost hope because of the actions of this government and I dare say, if decent scrutiny were applied, if we had access to the documents that we need, if we had a government that showed some decency and remorse for its failings, we might have a lot more of those 421 Australians alive in aged care. We might not have the terrible trauma that has been inflicted on people across this country because of robodebt, and we might have a better idea about what went on in the Murray-Darling Basin sales. This is a disgrace. It's got to stop.

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

I rise to take note of the minister's statement earlier today in relation to the government's failure to be transparent and upfront with this chamber. It's the Senate's job to inquire into what the government is up to. It's the Senate's job to make sure the government of the day is held to account. It's the Senate's job to make sure bureaucrats in the Public Service are doing their job. It's senators' job to make sure that we inform ourselves of the decisions that are being made and the reasons taxpayers' money is being spent under certain programs and in certain ways. It is our job. It's actually the reason we have Senate inquiries; it's the reason we have Senate estimates. It's the reason we have a process in this chamber each sitting day to ask the questions the community needs answers to and to which they want answers from the executive. That is our job.

This government is obsessed with cover-ups and secrecy. It has sheer arrogance and a contempt not just for the powers and the role of the Senate but also for the public's right to know. The public has the right to know how much of its money this government wants to spend on a cosy deal negotiated by Barnaby Joyce, the former water minister. The public has a right to know what Mr Joyce was up to. The public has a right to know what the impact of a piece of legislation passing this chamber would be. That's why we have Senate inquiries. This government is obsessed with secrecy and with hiding from public scrutiny. The fact that day after day after day in this place the government denies access to documents and information that this Senate asks for is a disgrace. The Senate is not a rubber stamp for the government. The government may be annoyed by the role that the Senate plays. They may wish that the Senate would just get out of the way. Well, tough luck. It is our job to hold this government to account. It is our job to make sure we are fully abreast of the decisions that are being made. It is our job to get the information that the public deserves to have.

In this particular case, what we know is that a special, cosy deal was negotiated by the former water minister, Barnaby Joyce, who spent too much money purchasing the water. This, of course, is the government that says that they are the arbiters of all wisdom when it comes to budgets and the economy. Mr Joyce crows about the fact that he's the only accountant in this place, yet he signed off on a deal where he spent too much money—more money than was required—for a company that his mate in cabinet Mr Angus Taylor has a connection to. It's all very cosy on that side, on the front bench. It's all very cosy indeed. No wonder this government doesn't want the public to know what has been going on. No wonder this government is obsessed with secrecy. It's all okay, in their nice little cosy circle on the front bench, to scratch each other's backs, to pay each other's bills and to snuggle, snuggle. They just don't want the public to know what they're up to. That is why time after time after time in this place they are in contempt of Senate orders.

This particular water purchase is just one example. Only in the last sitting period, this Senate asked for a number of reviews and reports in relation to the Water for Fodder Program. Despite this Senate asking for that documentation to be tabled, released and given to us so that we could do our job it wasn't. In fact, it wasn't released until it was given as an exclusive drop to a journalist weeks later, after they had been in contempt of the Senate. The Senate wasn't allowed the information but they gave it to their mates at News Corp. So not just is it contempt for the Senate, it is contempt for the Australian people, because this is the Australian people's right to know what is going on, and it is our job as senators to get them that information.

Last week this government blocked the Senate from sending a piece of legislation to a Senate inquiry. The government wants to rush in their environment law changes to make it easier for the big corporations to dig more mines, cut down more trees and put more profits in the bank balances of Rio Tinto and others. This government stopped this Senate chamber from being able to refer this legislation to a simple inquiry. The arrogance and the cover-up of this government grows day by day. The Australian community should be very, very wary. Every time this government says no to information being revealed, or a Senate inquiry occurring, or a particular bureaucrat appearing before a Senate hearing the Australian people are becoming more and more aware that that means there is something being covered up. Of course, this government stopped senior federal bureaucrats from appearing in front of state based royal commissions. Whether it's the Ruby Princess or the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission, this government doesn't want the truth out there. They just say: 'No, we're not answering any questions. We're not even going to show up.' The obsession with secrecy is palpable, and you've got to ask why. What are they hiding? Why are they covering this up? Why are they denying the Australian people's right to know what on earth is going on by denying this chamber the ability for us to do our jobs?

Former water minister Barnaby Joyce obviously thought that this money was his own personal piggy bank, that he could spend whatever he wanted and give it to his mates with no accountability. No wonder he didn't want the Senate to get into this. No wonder this government has covered up these documents for so long. These bogus claims of public interest immunity just so they don't have to answer questions are becoming more and more of a joke. In my home state of South Australia, more and more voters are voting against the major parties. More and more voters are saying: 'No, we don't want this: their way or the highway. We actually want people in this place who are prepared to hold the government to account, to keep the bastards honest.' That is our job, and we will not be denied it. However long it takes, we will stand up and call you out. However long it takes, we will stand up and make sure the public know what is going on in their names and with their money. You may try to gag debate, you may try to block Senate inquiries, you may try to stop documents from being released, but in the end the truth always wins out. We will hold you to account and we will make sure the public have the full information of what you are doing in their name and with their money.

You can't trust the government. You just can't trust them. You can't trust them with aged care, you can't trust them with issues of transparency and you certainly can't trust them with the environment or water. The most recent water minister, Keith Pitt, is carrying on the long legacy of carrying that National Party mantle for this government, holding the water portfolio and keeping the public in the dark. And, of course, what do we know Mr Pitt is more focused on at the moment than doing his job as water minister? He's trying to knock off the current Deputy Prime Minister. He wants his job. That's what he's more interested in; he is more interested in knocking off Mr McCormack so he can have the job for himself than he is interested in anything to do with managing the Murray-Darling Basin or making sure that the public know what's going on.

The government are obsessed with themselves, and why do they cover it up? Because they don't want anyone to know that all they care about is self-interest, paying off their mates and keeping each other in a job. It's pathetic, and it doesn't matter how many times you deny us in this place as senators on the crossbench from asking the questions, we will keep asking. We will keep pushing for the information to be out there. This self-obsessed, secrecy obsessed, power obsessed government keeps going. The public see through it. They see what you are doing, and, ultimately, it'll be your own downfall. But stopping this place from doing its job? No. You're never going to get away with that.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just before I start, Mr Acting Deputy President McGrath, through you, I note Senator O'Neill earlier today referred to Senator Birmingham as the Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia. He is not that minister. He represents that minister in this chamber, but he has his own portfolio responsibilities, and I'd like to get that on the record.

What we're talking about today is an order for the production of documents that was originally lodged in 2017. At that time, the decision was made that parts of the information requested had an element of commercial sensitivity. That seems to be what the furore is about. But let me explain why commercial sensitivity in an issue such as the water market is so real. Back in 2010, the Financial Review noted that, before the government began its buyback process, prices for permanent water licences were trading at around 50 per cent less than when the government started purchasing water. Government actions in the water market have an impact, so it is quite right that we take time in releasing commercial information about water prices to let the market restabilise.

But I note that Senator Patrick and his friends on the other side want to talk about the government doing dodgy deals and the government keeping things in house. I note that there have been a lot of shared talking points on the other side today, and they have obviously done a deal. When they talk about water purchases and wanting openness and transparency about government water purchases, they draw a line at 1 January 2017. Why is that? Is that because, back in 2010, when the Financial Review did its investigation into the impact of government actions in the water market, they were particularly interested in a purchase by the government from the Twynam agricultural company? It was a $303 million deal that the Financial Review found was at least a $40 million premium across all of the water licences purchased—one bulk lot of water licences.

We are talking about licences across multiple valleys, for which Twynam got a premium. In the Macquarie, they got a nine per cent premium. In the Gwydir, they got a nearly 10 per cent premium. In the Lachlan, it was a 17 per cent premium. In the Murrumbidgee, they got a premium. But the crossbenches and the opposition don't want to investigate that water purchase. Why is that? It is because that was a purchase done under former water minister Penny Wong.

Senator Patrick interjecting—

I agree with you, Senator Patrick: two wrongs don't make a right. But what we, as the government have done, is learn from the way Labor conducted their water purchases. In fact, Labor themselves changed their own water purchase processes to a round of blind tenders. It was found that blind tenders did not have the same negative impact on the water market as did the open tenders that were so prevalent in the early days.

Another water purchase that we could talk about is the purchase of Toorale station and Toorale station's water holdings, which was done back in 2008 with no tender. The day before a public auction, the New South Wales and federal governments—

An honourable senator interjecting—

Yes, a blind tender. But this was done quietly, and they turned Toorale station into a national park.

One of the differences between the premium paid on Kia Ora's water licence and the Toorale Station experience is that part of the contract for Kia Ora was that they had to decommission their on-farm levee banks to ensure the water was returned. Even though the purchase of Toorale Station occurred in 2008, as late as last year, 2019—with good rainfall for the first time in years up in the northern basin, and an estimate of 23,000 megalitres of water from localised rainfall flowing down the Warrego River—a mere 600 megalitres a day managed to get from the other side of Toorale Station, because the levee banks are still in place. The levee banks were never removed.

If we are talking about what is efficient use of taxpayers' money, we need to look at that. Leaving those levee banks there has meant that no water flows back to the Darling. Contrary to then Minister Wong's assertions that it would lead to at least 20 gigalitres a year in extra flows down the Darling River and 80 gigalitres a year when there's flood, that has not occurred. That water still gets captured by the infrastructure on Toorale Station, which now the New South Wales government is looking at upgrading so that it can water the ecological wetlands that have evolved there over the 100 years of levee banks existing on that station. Was that a good and efficient purchase of water? If the intention was to keep and maintain those wetlands on Toorale Station, all well and good. But that was not how the deal was sold to the Australian public at the time. At the time, it was said that it was going to restore the health of the Darling River, but that water doesn't get to the Darling River. So let's think of that.

We’ve had water purchases right back from 2008, so if we're going to investigate water purchases we have to investigate every single one of them, not just pick a random date in time that suits the purposes of a conspiracy theory of the crossbench and the Greens. We need to look at all of them, to go right back to the very beginning of water purchases, because what we have seen time and time again is water purchase tenders or water recovery programs. The opportunistic ones take advantage of it. The stressed farmers who have their backs against the wall take advantage of it. But the people who are left hurting at the end of the day are the farmers that remain who, unlike Johnny Kahlbetzer, can't take their $303 million and go and purchase land in South Africa and start farming in a whole new nation. They are left behind, trying to compete in the water market against the huge and enormous almond developments that have blossomed in South Australia, have blossomed in north-western Victoria and are now blossoming in sections of New South Wales—all downstream of natural delivery constraints, like the Barmah Choke, like the Lower Goulburn Choke. The water can't get through. Those people are left competing and struggling.

Meanwhile, the purchases that Senator Patrick wants us to focus on today, the Kia Ora and Clyde purchases, are actually having great environmental outcomes. They are effective, because, as I said before, they decommissioned the infrastructure. They now allow the natural flows to flow down the river. We heard at Senate estimates this year that around 100 gigalitres made it to the internationally recognised wetlands associated with Narran Lake.

I might add that that water delivery had great outcomes for birdlife, including the Australasian bittern. Where else did we get good outcomes for the Australasian bittern, which is an endangered species? On our rice farms. The Ricegrowers Association should be commended for the environmental and ecological work they've done to help with the Australasian bird-breeding events in the Riverina and now at the Narran Lakes wetlands, which is a fantastic use of environmental water. It is getting down the river. The $80 million purchase of this river represented 30 per cent of the water needed to be recovered in that valley. We keep getting told by the Greens and others that we need to get on and deliver the Basin Plan. But, when we undertake a purchase that is consistent with the valuation that requires decommissioning to ensure we get the environmental and ecological outcomes we want and we do a big lump sum at once, we get slammed for it.

Let's also bear in mind how many water licence holders there are in the part of the river relevant to Narran Lakes. There are four, and we've purchased one of them out. When you have such a limited pool of contenders—and no-one else is expressing an interest—the way water works, you can't go out with a Basin-wide water tender program and expect to get outcomes in the Narran Lakes when you're purchasing water from a river that goes nowhere near it. It was purchased within the valuation. As highlighted by Senator Birmingham in his response, it was a purchase that covered the value of the water, it covered the decommissioning and it was a highly sensitive area of the river. Tick, tick, tick—it ticked every box. The only reason why Rex Patrick has a bee in his bonnet is that, when he first lodged his order for the production of documents, it was so close to the time of the purchase occurring it was deemed commercially sensitive. And I get that. I support ensuring that our government actions do not impact on the water market. This is why the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has open and transparent processes for operating in the market. This is why we saw such negative impacts on the water market through open-purchase tenders, which even the Labor Party walked away from. It's because the impact on the water market was negative. It was having a negative impact on our farmers and their ability to produce the food and fibre our nation needs.

So I say, Senator Patrick, that I understand your frustration, and obviously it's an ongoing frustration. As I said before, you've shared your talking points about all of the FOI successes you've had in the past with all of your colleagues over on that side. However, when we're in government and we are responsible, we need to make sure that we proceed with caution so we don't negatively impact on the jobs and businesses of the people we represent.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek to take note of the minister's response. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I note that there is a reason this matter will not go away, and it is not just the dogged pursuit of this scandal by Senator Patrick, for which he is to be complimented and commended. I've spent many weeks touring the Murray-Darling Basin, listening to locals who are telling me that this deal is crook. The government purchased water licences that have been assembled into one line by a local company called Eastern Australia Agriculture that Mr Angus Taylor formed, owned and registered in the Cayman Islands before selling out to unknown buyers. Mr Joyce, as minister, bought this on behalf of the government. This is a case of the Liberals and the National Party working closely together—no split here.

Let me share the context and the facts so that people can make up their minds themselves. This was not real water; it was overland flow, meaning that the water can be taken only if the Condamine-Balonne Valley is in flood. By its very nature, overland flow is unreliable water. A qualifying flood occurs once every five years on average. So, this is lower security than low security. This is why overland flow is the cheapest form of permanent water licence—the cheapest. The Australian National Audit Office gave this water a very generous valuation in the range of $1,100 to $2,300 per megalitre. It's also worth noting that the unredacted valuation document advised the Commonwealth that a price in the lower end of that range would be appropriate, most likely because the actual value of this water in the market at the time was between $750 and $950 a megalitre. This is based on the only previous large sale of overland flow water in the lower Balonne, in 2008, for just $800 a megalitre and despite the water being valued on Eastern Australia Agriculture's own books at just $950 a megalitre.

In a move that makes a joke of good governance, the government paid $2,745 per megalitre. That's almost three times what it is valued at on Eastern Australia Agriculture's books and way over double what the Australian National Audit Office valued it at. Much attention has been given to who Eastern Australia Agriculture are, so I don't need to go there as well. I would just like to point out that water flows into the Murray-Darling Basin in 2020 are exactly equal to their long-term average. The whole premise of this purchase of reduced inflows caused by climate change requiring urgent government action is statistical rubbish—it is nonsense. One Nation agrees that there are substantially reduced flows coming from the Northern Rivers into the Darling and then into Menindee Lakes. This is not coming from climate change, and it is not being caused by farmers taking water for which they have a legitimate licence. These reduced flows are being caused by illegal floodplain harvesting.

The minister is not doing enough to restore the integrity of water licences in the basin and, through that, restore environmental flows that are being hijacked by illegal floodplain harvesting. The question now is: why did the government buy this water at all? The water was purchased by the Commonwealth towards environmental flows under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan—the infant born out of the Water Act 2007 that's now doing so much damage in this country. What does not make sense is that flood flows are environmental flows. This periodic flooding waters native vegetation in an entirely natural cycle. Australian flora, as most people understand, has evolved to thrive on receiving a good drink only every few years, followed by long periods with only the natural rainfall to tide them over to the next flood. The government has effectively bought environmental flows for use in a flood and paid $80 million of taxpayer money to do it—$80 million to pay for environmental flows in a flood.

What extra good would that little bit of new environmental water do in amongst all that environmental floodwater flowing down the river in a major flooding event? Nothing! It wouldn't do a thing. The only way this water could have been useful to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office is if the water had been stored in a public dam and then released after the drought to produce environmental flows at the discretion of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office. Once water is stored in this manner and released at the discretion of the owner, it is not overland water; it's general security water. Here's the problem with doing that. The licence attached to overland water allows that water to be used only on the property the licence belongs to. It has no legal standing once it's removed from the property.

The Commonwealth government was prepared to pay $1,800 per megalitre over the market—that's three times the market—for 27,000 megalitres of water, because it had every intention of quietly reclassifying overland water into general security water. Where are the approvals for that? Where's the business case? Where's the due diligence? Where is the environmental impact study to show that watering forests outside of their natural cycle does any good at all? The office of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has been watering the Barmah Forest, for example, nonstop for 18 months now. The forest has never been allowed to dry out as it naturally would. The result, thanks to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, has been devastating to the natural environment. Trees are dying; native grasses are dying; the flora of the forest is black with rancid, dead water.

At no time has this aspect of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan been reviewed. The minister's department has allowed water purchases that were not needed at a price that borders on criminal incompetence. The minister's department have treated the terms of their water licence as a joke and set out on unsupervised, unaccountable vandalism of the natural environment. Meanwhile, the government's mates are laughing all the way to the bank. What a scandal!

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also seek to take note in this debate. After listening to the contributions this morning, I would note that I am probably the only person in this debate who was actually in this place at the time of the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, when in 2012, under the former Labor government, the basin states signed off on a plan to achieve a triple bottom line. Do you remember the good old triple bottom line? You still included the economy and how it affected humans, and you brought in consideration of environmental outcomes. I've seen this plan roll out in the communities that I represent—those in the southern basin, obviously, but also, to a broader extent, National Party communities right throughout the eastern seaboard—and it hasn't achieved the outcomes that were sought. The environment has been favoured, shall we say, over the economies, health and future of rural and regional basin communities.

The fun fact is that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan wasn't Moses coming off the mountain with a couple of tablets, words carved into stone never to be changed. The 10 commandments back then are still the 10 commandments today, but the Basin Plan was meant to be adaptable and flexible, because we knew then that we didn't have the data and information available to be prescriptive—to pull numbers out of the air, really, in many cases—about what the environment really needed, what the irrigated agricultural sector needed, et cetera. The reality is that, as we have rolled out the infrastructure projects and gotten better with our technology and our metering of waterways, we're getting a lot better data. And we're realising—to Senator Roberts's point—that we may be watering environmental assets at a really bad time for those assets. I have been on the ground in the Barmah Forest. What is happening there is a tragedy: wet-rooted gums in a country where the trees haven't evolved to have wet roots. Because of inappropriate application of the plan, we're seeing negative and unintended environmental, social and economic impacts across the board. So I would call on all basin states to remember that the Basin Plan was to be adaptive, and not to be evangelical and fundamentalist about how the plan is rolled out.

We've been highlighting, in regional Victoria, a whole lot of issues in the recent past: the conflict of interest for unregulated water brokers; the few rules there are to guard against behaviour that manipulates water prices; the fact that well-resourced corporate entities are gaining unfair advantage over family farms by manipulating the complexity of the water-trading market—and that's not just me saying it; it's the reality, the interim report, recently handed down, of the ACCC's review. The different regimes within basin states makes it very difficult for irrigators to ensure that the market works for them.

The expansion of the almond industry has had a hugely detrimental impact on delivering existing entitlement. In the debate today you might have heard about natural constraints such as the Barmah Choke. Trying to get deliverable water somebody has a share for down the river to be used in irrigated agriculture has been put under incredible pressure because we have allowed unmitigated development of almond plantations downstream of the Barmah Choke. That's why we have been calling for a moratorium on those developments until we can understand the impact. The Victorian state Labor government has done the right thing and put a moratorium on it. But that means the South Australian and New South Wales state governments are now allowing those developments to go ahead. State basin ministers could act right now to stop these developments occurring and putting untold pressure on deliverability for existing entitlement holders, and I call on them to act in the interests of our communities out in regional Australia.

This is complex. It is very opaque. We need to make sure the market is fairer, more transparent and better regulated, not just for the environment but for the over 9,200 irrigated agriculture businesses in the basin. The basin is home to 2.6 million people and produces billions of dollars worth of fabulous food products that we export around the world. To prioritise environmental assets over human outcomes, as has been happening over the last eight years, I think, is a great tragedy.

We have heard a lot about the potential issues of oversight, et cetera. It's not just the Senate. I'm a great believer in the Senate holding the executive to account. We have all had great examples of how that's occurred. In our democracy, it's not just this chamber and our committees that can hold executive government to account. The fourth estate, the media, has a fundamental role in actually ensuring that the public debate is well informed. I am reminded throughout this debate of an article Aaron Patrick wrote for the Fin Review which I think really highlights the importance of that. It is topical on this particular issue but also on the importance of the media. It's entitled, 'Soggy "scandal" doesn't hold water'. The article outlines how distorted the debate has been publicly. There were claims on Twitter: 'Tomorrow is a big day for transparency and accountability in our biggest river system'. They're talking about the acting Auditor-General finishing examining this particular issue of the $3.1 billion program. I'll quote from the article:

Instead, acting auditor-general Rona Mellor, who is accountable to Parliament, not the government, concluded the opposite:—

This wasn't a hidden smoking gun—

Joyce was kept in the dark by his department on key facts, the prices weren't above commercial valuations, and the scheme—which was driven by environmentalists—has obtained almost all the 2075 gigalitres of water targeted to revive wetlands and bird sanctuaries in Australia's most important river system.

Mellor's conclusions received cursory coverage, unlike the original watergate story.

Here we have a journalist actually doing his job: reporting the facts and not letting emotions and perceived political motives—being an activist, shall we say—override, but actually reporting on the facts and ensuring that the public is kept informed of what the acting Auditor-General actually had to say about this. I commend the media for continuing to do this.

I have been here since the Labor Party implemented the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and their management of water and water recovery has been incredibly damaging to our community. Remember the Swiss cheese effect?

We had water being bought out by the Labor Party Senate leader, Senator Wong—when she was water minister—in horrific volumes for an outrageous amount of money. There were stranded assets as water was purchased here, there, everywhere—no strategic intent. We're still dealing with the fallout of those purchases that long ago. She made the largest water purchase ever: $303 million in the Murrumbidgee.

It was the Labor government who embarked on a campaign of damaging direct water purchases from our irrigators. There is a litany of responses. Our government has commissioned a piece of work by Robbie Sefton on the socioeconomic impacts of these buybacks on our communities. It is clear. It is unequivocal. We know it because we live there. It is tabled here in the Senate that it has had a significant detrimental impact on people's lives and livelihoods. You can't ignore the data. You cannot take any more water from our irrigated agriculture communities. The 450 gig will not be coming from our farmers. It will not be coming from the southern basin irrigated agriculture communities. Enough is enough. You have taken enough. There will be no more. We're unapologetic about standing up for our regional communities and what they do best, which is produce fabulous clean, green food.

We're calling for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to be split into separate entities, scrapping the 450 gigalitres of water recovery. We're calling for no new extraction licences to be issued unless we can actually guarantee there's no increased risk to existing entitlement holders. State governments need to get serious about that.

In the southern basin we are very concerned about the flood plain harvesting practices in the northern basin, which Senator Roberts touched on, that do impact on flows through the system. We need to get serious. As the inspector-general for the Murray-Darling Basin plan outlined in his report, we need to meter that properly. We need to get the data and understand what's happening, because there is a lot of mistrust, and rightfully so, through basin communities about the role of governments in how this plan has been implemented.

In the ACCC interim report, that was handed down recently, there were no surprises there to basin communities. There were no surprises in its recommendations and further work plan on what's actually needed. We need to regulate these water brokers. We need to understand what's happening with foreign ownership of our most precious asset: water. We need to make sure that we have improved transparency.

I want to see regional communities grow, prosper and thrive, and they cannot do that unless they have access to water. It's that fundamental. We need to make sure that as we roll out a plan, that all state basin ministers agreed to in 2012 and the federal government at that time—under Kevin Rudd I think it was, but who can be sure, as it did change a lot back then—signed up to, that it actually delivers on its intent. It was not ever meant to be a plan only for the environment and only for South Australia. It is a plan to continue the productive capacity of regional communities right throughout the Murray-Darling.

Question agreed to.