Peter Andren (Calare, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I must say that this debate on the Snowy Hydro caught me somewhat by surprise, having expected a full and thorough inquiry and a piece of legislation to effect privatisation of these publicly built assets which, as many other speakers have said, are iconic in the Australian history. They have the rich history of postwar immigration and the role of showing that Australia had the will and the expertise to create a water delivery process of such immense value to this nation. As we all know, water can be a huge asset but also can create enormous difficulties. The control of that flow of water, irrespective of the electricity it has generated over those years, has created a situation now along the Murray-Darling where we are confronted with a crisis of environmental proportions that few continents on this planet have seen.

I well remember the debate over the full privatisation of Telstra in this place about a decade ago. The then shadow minister for the environment, Mr McLachlan, and I had a chat in this chamber after that debate, in which I had said that the 2001 program for the restoration of the Murray-Darling was in fact a 2101 project, so vast were the challenges facing us. Mr McLachlan agreed fully that it was a 100-year program and that the $1 billion then being set aside for the environmental program was but a drop in a very deep well.

The proposed divestment of public ownership of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme means that the public will lose control of that asset. It shows a lack of commitment to the long-term difficulties of that river system. While I understand now that section 7 of the 1997 bill provided for the Commonwealth only to require approval of parliament through a process like this, I think most Australians would have expected a full and proper debate, publication of that debate and a full inquiry into the ramifications of the privatisation process. The Labor and coalition parties have combined here to accede to the wishes of the Victorian and New South Wales governments and, as the previous speaker, the member for Kingsford Smith, said, with no proper provision for the sorts of flows into the Snowy River in particular as had previously been agreed. My Independent colleague in the Victorian parliament, Craig Ingram, has severely criticised the position of the New South Wales government to go it alone and totally sell its 58 per cent share of Snowy Hydro. He says:

The NSW decision to totally dispose of its shareholding in Snowy Hydro undermines the two other shareholders (Victoria and the Commonwealth), the security of irrigator entitlements and future needs of the environment ...

The Snowy corporatisation agreements lock the delivery of water in for the next century and any changes during that time to the needs of the irrigation industry or environmental flows would be almost impossible under a privatised Snowy Hydro.

As Mr Ingram clearly points out:

Does the NSW government believe that there will not be any need for adjustments in the irrigation industry or the environmental flows in the next 100 years?

He and others describe this as a ‘blatant grab for cash’. We all know that the New South Wales government is severely strapped for cash. God only knows why and how, given the flow of GST funding. Despite the claims it is not getting its fair share, what is New South Wales doing with its resources when it is leading the charge to privatise one of the key pieces of public infrastructure? The continued control of the Snowy system by the governments of this country, I believe, is absolutely essential to maintaining our impetus to ensure the environmental outcomes that are so desperately needed along the river system.

The Snowy is part of the nation’s building infrastructure, as Mr Ingram said. It was built with taxpayers’ dollars, without addressing the security of environmental flows at the time. I would suggest that this parliament should have adopted the very reasonable suggestion made in the other place by the Leader of the Australian Democrats, Senator Allison, that at the very least this issue should go to a full and public inquiry before these steps are taken. It has been written here, there and everywhere that the Victorian, New South Wales and federal governments are the owners of the Snowy system, but they are the protectors, the guardians, of this public investment. As with telecommunications, I would argue, as do the majority of the public, that these assets are of such importance and of such environmental significance that it is not for the government of any three-year cycle to dare to suggest that it is theirs to flog off.

No doubt the 19.8 per cent return on investment that the Snowy delivers is the reason for selling it, and what an attractive pie it will be to the private sector. What commitment will they have to the environmental consequences of the process? Whatever steps we put in place to protect the environment, there is absolutely no certainty that the guarantees we are seeking, as reflected in the amendment from the opposition—that local employment will increase through use of local specialist contractors, that it will lead to innovative maintenance and upgrade programs, that it will not affect water releases or water rights downstream—will eventuate. I suggest the only way to ensure that outcome would be the continued public administration and ownership of the very infrastructure which is required to deliver it. Reading through some of the contributions to the debate in the other place, I see that the Australian Conservation Foundation have reported that the percentage of stressed and dying red gums along 1,000 kilometres of the Murray has increased from 51 per cent to 75 per cent over the last 18 months to the end of last year, an increase of nearly 50 per cent.

I do not have to recount chapter and verse the crisis of the Murray-Darling river system—we all know how stressed and distressing that situation is—but the public would at least like the right, through their parliament and through a properly set up inquiry process, to put their views. The previous speaker referred to a meeting this week where the concerns of people living along the river system, particularly the Snowy River, were canvassed. They are certainly not convinced that the provision for the inflows that have been promised will in any way be guaranteed with the full privatisation of Snowy Hydro.

Through its amendment the opposition wants guarantees of the government’s claims that the privatisation will not affect water releases, that Snowy Hydro will meet its obligation to release specified volumes of water into each of the Murray and the Murrumbidgee rivers every year for the next 72 years and that Snowy Hydro will meet the environmental flows for the Snowy, Murray and other rivers. They are very admirable aims, but I suggest that issues like Cubbie Station and the lack of overall national responsibility for water storage, and our water policy generally, are part and parcel of the whole problem that we face here.

At the weekend I was talking to a landowner from the Barwon-Darling region, whose income and opportunities have been severely restricted by the situation at Cubbie Station with the harnessing of water. With the Murray-Darling we have what should be a national river system under national supervision because the states have shown they do not have the foresight to properly supervise those assets in the national interest. So what do we do? We meekly accede to the wishes of a cash-strapped government to flog off this asset for short-term political and financial gain, so they think. The long-term interests of our river system—the water delivery and the environment—are left as somebody else’s problem down the track. At the very least this process needs a proper and full parliamentary inquiry. That is the very least the public would expect in their infinite wisdom of these things.

Once again, the major parties in this place have combined to surrender the assets of this nation that were built on the blood, sweat and tears of generations past. I find it absolutely outrageous—I do not find it amazing; I have come to expect that sort of thing in this place—that here we have a collusion of the major parties to rid us of this national asset. Whatever the well-meaning intent of the opposition’s amendment to the motion, it guarantees absolutely nothing. What we will be guaranteeing is the slow death of the Murray-Darling system once the control of that water is fully privatised.

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