Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that the Senate has asked for an indication about OPD compliance. Of course, the government appreciates Senator Davey's interest in the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and is working to comply with the order. Given the extremely broad parameters of Senator Davey's request, a considerable amount of departmental and agency resources is being expended to respond. An IT search of the department and MDBA systems identified over one million documents as in scope of the request. Within the department alone, the documents in scope number over 850,000. The standard assumption used in FOI requests is that it takes one minute to review each document. Based on this, to review each document would take one person working full time 8½ years. The department and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority are working to narrow the scope of the search, to identify a volume of documents that can be reasonably reviewed by officials to manage any sensitivities while ensuring that all documents that can be provided to the Senate given these constraints are, to fulfil the intent of the order. Continuing to order these documents will not speed up this process.

Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

I rise to take note of the minister's response, and I appreciate Senator McAllister coming in to let us know that. But it really begs the question—over a million documents. Please note that our request for the production of documents was only pertaining to documents produced since May 2022, since this government came into power. Clearly, if they've been producing over a million documents in that amount of time, that will explain why the government has failed to adequately consult on an amendment that will be before this chamber in the very near future.

The most obvious change since this government came to power is the absolute move away from having an open, transparent and accountable government. I note that the same observation was made this morning by Senator Steele-John, and I couldn't agree more. What we have seen from this government is a flagrant abuse of the promise for transparency that it made prior to election. They ignore those on the front line, whether they be irrigation communities, pharmacists or Western Australian farmers, and they ignore industrial relations and even some arts and communications policies. The government are not being accountable to the people whose lives are impacted by their policies.

The reason we've requested these documents is that the government's policy in the area of water has had a significant impact on irrigation communities. We need the government to be accountable. We need to understand the conversations and assessments the government have had in developing their policy. The government announced on 22 August 2023 that they had reached an agreement with all the basin jurisdictions, bar Victoria, to deliver the Basin Plan in full. One of the specific requests in our OPD was for the government to provide that agreement. Why does that take time to review? That should be in the top drawer. That should just be a matter of, 'Here's that agreement.'

We also want any documents that have been produced pertaining to the December 2018 Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council agreement. In such, has any position changed since this government took effect? That should be on the minister's desk, in the briefing folders. The minister must be considering options for delivering the 450 gigalitres of water for supposed enhanced environmental outcomes that she's considering. The minister should also understand what water recovery options she's looking at and how they're funded. But the government, in their efforts at 'transparency', in the budget papers put 'not for publication'.

Let me remind people that when Senator Penny Wong was the Minister for Climate Change and Water she was very quick and very proud in announcing how many millions of dollars she was going to spend on buybacks and tearing water away from communities. But the new government, because they know how destructive it is and because they know no amount of public spending can make up for the demise of our rural and regional communities, are saying: 'We're not telling you that. It's commercial-in-confidence.' A tender process does not need to be commercial-in-confidence if you know the quantum of money you've got to spend.

The government, by refusing to produce any documents until after this chamber has dealt with and voted on the very important matters related to water amendments before us, are absolutely throwing mud in the faces of those in this chamber. It is disrespectful.

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

I rise to take note as a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community. It's no surprise to One Nation that the Senate is once again debating the lack of government transparency—transparency in this case being defined as: what's the government hiding this time? Consultation from the Labor Party always stops at 39 votes. Everyone else is on a need-to-know basis.

In the case of Senator Davey's document discovery, the government has decided the Senate does not need to know the basis for government policy in a basin that accounts for $22 billion in food and fibre needed to feed and clothe the world, a basin that's home to 2.3 million Australians, including those in my home state of Queensland. Apparently, we Queenslanders do not need to know what informed Minister Plibersek's Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill—a bill on which this document discovery would have cast light. The fundamental failure of the Albanese government when it talks about consultation is its failure to understand that consultation requires disclosure. Already the government has been forced to make three pages of amendments to the bill to make it legally workable. How does anyone get a bill that wrong? Refusing to disclose—that's how. Refusing to consult—'consult' does not mean a quick whip around the staff room at the CFMEU or asking the luvvies at the ABC and the Guardian how to run the country. The Albanese voice referendum showed the stupidity of asking the Canberra bubble and inner city socialists what the rest of the country thinks is a fair thing. In real Australia, consulting means listening, sharing and learning.

Senator Pauline Hanson and I have consulted with industry stakeholders and toured the basin, starting in Charleville, in Queensland, all the way to Goolwa, in South Australia. I've spoken to independent researchers and even shared a plane for three days with Topher Field as we flew over the basin to understand it and film it. I've driven the length of the Murray-Darling Basin three times and my staff another two times, most recently last Christmas. Along the way, I've listened to amazing farmers displaying a level of resilience that at times is superhuman. I've consulted with Aboriginal people, for whom the water in the river is their life, the centre of their culture and the centre of health and happiness. I've spoken with business owners fearful for their future in an agricultural industry this government is determined to replace with fake food made in urban intensive-production facilities. This is an amazing connected river system that has driven prosperity in our beautiful country and can continue to do if only we can save it from Labor's inner-city ignorance and ideologically driven policy.

Today the Senate will vote on my motion to prevent the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 from being given further consideration until the Albanese government properly consults with the states. The Water Act 2007, upon which the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is based, is very clear. The plan is a consensus document of the four states. The federal government does not get a vote, because it's a servant to the states, not the master of the states. The ACT does not get a vote as it's a territory, not a state, and that's fine since the ACT clearly runs the federal government anyway. Giving the ACT a vote would be, in fact, two votes.

The bill digest contains all the information needed to support my motion. It admits Victoria has refused to sign the new agreement, because Victorian farmers have given up enough water already. Good on the Victorian parliament for standing up for its constituents. Good on New South Wales Premier Chris Minns for being brutally honest in saying the New South Wales government is only signing up to the $700 million in federal buybacks federally for water projects and he is not signing up for water buybacks until after those projects are completed in 2027. The government has no consensus on water buybacks, which are, at best, two all. The rest of the bill contains a lot of good reforms to add accountability, improve measurement and reporting, align spending guidelines and budgets with what is needed and extend the deadline for completion.

The council of water ministers met in August, yet we still have not seen the communication from that meeting. It's now November. It seems clear that the states have not signed off on the bill in toto. I urge the Senate to support my motion to send the bill back to the minister with a clear message: take out the bits the states do not support, and let's get the rest of this bill, which is almost all of it, through the Senate this sitting. Let's complete the plan and let's do it properly for a change.

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

I rise to add a contribution to this debate. It is disappointing that the minister has not been able to cough up the details as requested by Senator Davey. Now, Senator Davey and I don't see eye to eye on a lot of things to do with the Murray-Darling Basin. I come from South Australia, and we know what happens when the upstream states don't treat our rivers properly. But let me say this: what Senator Davey has requested is information that is crucial to help this Senate determine what we should do with this piece of legislation. This has been a longstanding issue of debate. I was in here in 2012 when we finally passed the amended Water Act and the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. I was part of a lot of the community consultations in putting that plan together. I sat in meeting after meeting after meeting with scientific experts, who said all the way along that this is not enough. This is not going to save our river. This is not going to put the Murray-Darling Basin on a sustainable footing. The best available science was literally thrown out and ignored. But we had to take what we got. Of course, a big part of that was what South Australia, my home state, fought for, the extra 450 gigalitres to at least get some extra water for the environment.

Over the last few years we've seen floods and rain and runoff at record levels, and some people seem to have forgotten that the dire state of the whole river system is still a problem. As we head back into a drying summer, into El Nino, this is actually when the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is meant to be used. When it's meant to come into its own is in the bad times, not in the good. In the good there's plenty of water around, and people don't seem to have a problem. You need to be serious about sharing the water and looking after the river when there's less about. People get greedy. They want water for themselves. They want to be able to water their crop over there, and it doesn't matter what happens to their neighbour downstream. Communities are being told to truck drinking water in because the quality of water in the river is not for human consumption, or, for those who live in the lower reaches, 'Oh well, suck it up, wait for it to rain.' Or we have the words of Mr Barnaby Joyce, the former water minister, when he told South Australians that, if they wanted water, they should just move to Queensland. The whole point of a plan to share the precious water resources of the Murray-Darling Basin is to have it in place to protect the river and to protect the community when times get tough.

I see nothing so far that's being delivered by this government in relation to this bill that guarantees that that will happen—nothing. I see that the bill is listed for introduction and debate this week. Well, good luck with that. I can tell you the Senate won't be passing it. We're not going to be passing it this week. We want to see the details and a guarantee for how that water is going to be secured, when it's going to be secured and who it's going to be secured for. There's no possible way that this Senate is going to be able to pass a piece of legislation, an amendment bill, that simply kicks the can down the road forever and a day without some ramifications. For far too long people have dragged this out. Too much water is still being taken out of the river system to give it a fighting chance. The whole purpose of this amendment bill is to reverse that: to give our environment the drink it needs and to ensure that towns and communities have clean drinking water. If you can't guarantee that, don't bother bringing the bill to this place.

Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On this matter, I want to go back to the face of the New South Wales Nationals. We have a factional divide between the 'salties' and the 'freshies'. I have my southern 'freshy' National colleague with me, Senator Davey, and I am the northern 'salty'. Coming to this place as a Nat, you have to learn about water. I sat down with Senator Davey, and she unleashed this massive knowledge upon me about the history of the Murray-Darling Basin from The Nationals' perspective and what they think. I'd like to think I can take in things well, but all I was left with was that everyone upstream is stealing water and everyone downstream is wasting it. That seems to be the core. But what I do know is that this summer and next summer water will matter so much. We are taking water away from productive uses and we're taking water away from environmental uses in a way that's not properly regulated. There are things in this act that will clearly help to tighten up some things. I remember talking about this with the national inspector of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and he said that federal legislation combined with state legislation is a mish-mash in all the layers that you'd have to be a moron to be caught. When I asked him how many morons he had caught, he said none because of this.

We know there needs to be change. I think everyone supports some change of different varieties, but you need change in information because you can't improve what you can't measure. We will see farmers killing animal in the next drought, we will see farmers' incomes taken away, we will see regional and rural communities, as Senator Hanson-Young said, without drinking water. We will see all of that. That is why this is so important. The fundamental needs of a sovereign nation are to provide its own energy, to provide its own food and to keep its people safe. If we get this wrong, our sovereignty is under threat because we won't be able to feed ourselves. We see our farmers out there suffering already with low protein prices. There is a write-up in the media about a sheep farmer in Western Australia who advertised to give away 600 sheep—give away, no money—because he didn't want to have to kill them. They're not worth anything and he couldn't look after them. These are the things we're facing across Australia. Farmers in Queensland, New South Wales, Victorian and South Australian catchments need a plan that is well-researched, that is well-thought-out, that has the agreement of the states—much like Senator Roberts said—and that can provide what we need for all our sources.

A great way of getting out of a production of documents is to create so many documents that it's just not viable. It's a wonderful way to do it. If you can create a million documents on this in 18 months—how many years will it take to filter through them at one minute a document?—how long did it take to create them? Way more than 18 months. This is the inconsistency that comes here. There are so many orders for documents in this place that are just ignored or circumvented. It is wrong. The people in our country deserve the transparency and the vision of government. There are certain things—secrecy, I get that, security and defence, I get that—but when we're making decisions about livelihood and the future, there must be clarity. Without clarity, we can't be sure it is a fair or equitable decision, or that their interests are being looked after. I said in June this year that too many people spend time governing to be re-elected and not to build a better nation. Transparency builds a better nation. Clarity builds a better nation. Accountability builds a better nation.

I urge the government and the minister to have a look at the documents, go through them. The key ones will be there. Bring them forward. We heard from Senator Hanson-Young—this bill ain't going nowhere until we get clarity and a bit of discussion. You've got the time. I'm sure that on this side—with Senator Hanson-Young and the Greens—they have vastly different opinions but they want to be able to deal with facts. They want to have certainty. They want these things, and these documents can give them those. If everyone stays strong, this bill will go nowhere until some material documents are put on the table. Australian regional towns, regional people, farmers and the environmental lands out there, deserve no less. It should be done immediately.

Question agreed to.