Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

These are great amendments and they should be supported, but can I say: wouldn't it be nice if we could debate in this parliament and in the public about preserving the right to legislate to protect our water, our environment and our labour conditions without one side calling the other racist or xenophobic or discriminatory?

That is what happened when the Greens stood up here in this parliament and said, 'Perhaps it's not a great idea to enter into trade agreements that give away our right to regulate for the best interests of the Australian people and the environment because it might affect the profits of foreign corporations.' The government railed at that and said, 'You're being racist and xenophobic.'

But now, when we are arguing exactly the same point—namely, the right to look after our water and our farmland in this country—the tables have turned and Labor are calling the Liberals xenophobic and discriminatory. There is nothing at all discriminatory about this parliament passing laws that protect the environment, make sure that we have clean air, make sure that we have clean water and make sure that people are well looked after, and that is what these amendments do.

The Greens, for a very long time, have said there is something special about land and water. There is something special in particular about water, because without good water we cannot have good agriculture. In an era of climate change, when our water and our land are under threat and under pressure like we have never seen before, and we know that we are entering a century where, unless we get climate change under control, issues of food security are going to rise higher and higher on the national agenda and become issues of national security, it makes perfect sense to say, 'We want to know who owns the water that we all rely on, that every person in this country relies on.' That is what these amendments do. These amendments mean there will be now be a register of water interests around the country so that we know who owns the water in Australia. For Labor to come here and say that that is offensive is just plain, cheap politics and it is disingenuous.

It is also the case that these amendments have secured another important reform. We are now on the road to having water treated the same as other assets, so water might be subject to a further review process. The government has committed to looking at that. What is objectionable about that? What is objectionable about treating water in the way that we treat other resources—namely, it has to be subject to some kind of test? Most right-thinking people in this country would say, 'That is a very good thing. Let's have a test before we sell off our water.'

Other disingenuous comments have been made about why there are different levels. I am sure that the Labor Party knows full well that the problem with free trade agreements is that, once you have signed up to them, they restrict your ability to legislate in the future because you have to take into account past deals. As bad as they might be, you have to take those past deals into account. That is why the Greens, unlike Labor or the coalition, have said we should not be signing up to these free trade deals that in many respects trade away our sovereignty—because in the future, if you want to do things like this, if you want laws that mean we cannot sell off our water in this country without at least a register or some kind of test, then you will be forced to have different levels because of having signed up to these trade deals. That is why we should not do them in the first place. That is why we should not do them.

So I am thrilled that these amendments have been requested, because they give effect to a longstanding Greens principle that there should be a register of overseas ownership of water in this country. We would rather have had a lower threshold for the test, down to $5 million, but we were not able to secure that. However, the move to $15 million is good, and we are very, very excited that we are on the road to water now being subject to the same kind of test that other assets are subject to so that we can have a discussion about whether it is in our national interest to sell off the water that we all rely on.

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