Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to talk about the Murray-Darling Basin and the allegations of water theft aired on the ABC's Four Corners program on 24 July. I believe they are shocking both in their flagrancy and their sheer scale. They are allegations that have angered my Mayo community and many, many South Australians. Water rights in the Murray-Darling Basin can be owned and traded, but the river itself belongs to all Australians. The allegations of complicit corruption amongst some New South Wales government officials are, if anything, even more concerning. The Sydney Daily Telegraph alleges that there have been some secret deals between the New South Wales Nationals and large irrigators, one of whom is the subject of the Four Corners investigation. We are not talking about small amounts of water here, and some of the properties in question have multiple mega dams which are measured in multiples of the Sydney Harbour rather than in mere multiples of swimming pools. The federal government has spent billions of dollars of taxpayers' money on water buybacks, and now we have no idea what they have to show for it. The communities in my own electorate right at the end of the Murray, the most vulnerable part of the Murray, now feel very angry and betrayed, and rightfully so. Let me tell you something about the southern end of the basin, where we have still have not recovered fully from the effects of the last drought.

Farmers on the river, and particularly in the Lower Lakes, have told me how much their agricultural techniques have changed in the last few decades to adapt to less water, and how, despite all of the new efficiencies, it won't be enough if the river does not fully recover before the next drought hits. Only a few months ago a group of business leaders sought a meeting with me because they feared northern irrigators would start clawing back water. Little did we know that the clawbacks may have already occurred, and under the table. Indeed, family farms in country towns the entire length of the River Murray and its tributaries have the right to ask what is happening to our water, and to get a clear and honest response. Instead, we have seen what can only be described as a farcical response from the Leader of the Nationals, whose party has such a bedfellow relationship with its mega irrigators that it defines the very meaning of conflict of interest. I believe, in light of the allegations, it is only proper that Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce step aside from the water ministry, and that the portfolio should not be held by a National Party member until all of the allegations can be resolved. To do anything less will destroy what little faith downstream communities have left in the regulatory framework that is supposed to uphold our national Basin Plan. Fishers at the end of the river system have accused the Deputy Prime Minister of placing his foot on the Coorong's neck. They are petitioning the Prime Minister to remove the Deputy Prime Minister from the water ministry and they are demanding a full independent inquiry into the Four Corners allegations and no cuts to environmental flows, and I agree with them. There are incidents—

See this speech in context