Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I only just realised that this motion relating to the Snowy Hydro Corporatisation Act 1997 was on the table in the House for debate as I was passing by a television. I have taken the opportunity to come into the House not just to talk about the Commonwealth government’s motion on the table but to put my point of view and my objection to the states selling the controlling shares, 58 per cent, in the Snowy Hydro. I believe it is an amazing issue not only for the people of the Riverina but for all Australians. The fact that 58 per cent of the Snowy Hydro will be sold off by the New South Wales government, in conjunction with the 13 per cent that the Commonwealth holds and the additional holdings of the Victorian state government, is to me a blight on the history of Australia.

I have reason to be concerned because much of my electorate was delivered and advantaged by the introduction and the building of the Snowy Hydro Scheme. Snowy Hydro, as we know, owns all of the assets of the Snowy—the dam walls, the foreshore, the tunnels, the lakes and the power stations. The proposal is that all of the Snowy Hydro be sold. As we all know, the Snowy Hydro is owned by the governments of Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.

A constituent of mine has recently outlined his issues. David Hain, in his correspondence to me, wrote:

There are many arguments against the sale of the Snowy but they reduce to two. Firstly, cultural and secondly that our politicians are spending our financial and ecological future for the sake of present political and financial expediency. They are, in effect, selling the family silver to finance—

their operations. We talk about New South Wales presumably already having earmarked their spending of the proceeds from any sale of this scheme. I am sure it will go into much needed funding for education, health, the environment, community services and infrastructure, but why should you sell off the family silver in order to fix the mismanagement of your state over a period of years? To me it seems absolutely disgraceful to be selling off an icon such as the Snowy to satisfy the mismanagement of the government in New South Wales over a long period of time.

It is no secret in this House that I am anti privatisation. I did cross the floor to vote against the sale of Telstra because we as a government were selling the controlling shares of Telstra. I will not be crossing the floor today if there is a vote called on this motion because the government has only 13 per cent of the shares in this company—it is not selling the controlling shares—but I do want to record in the strongest terms my objections to this sale. As I said, there are many reasons, but two primarily, that confront us. As my constituent says:

Selling the Snowy will soon create irreconcilable conflicts of interest between each of the shareholders, irrigators, environmental needs, electricity generation, recreational users, tourist operators and country towns downstream. It will perpetuate existing conflicts.

As it is impossible to foresee every future contingency no present financial, operational, political or environmental contracts will suffice.

I certainly agree with my constituent in that regard. As he writes:

There is only one Snowy Mountains in Australia, one water runoff from them and one Snowy scheme, which is unique and cannot be repeated, duplicated or replaced.

The three government owners, each for their own reasons, are selling this very significant icon off. I would like to bring into play at this point in time the book called Snowy: The Making of Modern Australia by Brad Collis. It is an extremely poignant and pertinent history of the Snowy. It brings to you the sense of pride and the heartfelt strength of unity that was able to be brought about because of the devastation in Europe after the war. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced. We had great cities being turned to rubble. Millions of people were homeless, starving and facing a bleak future.

After World War II and the devastation in Europe, across the other side of the world Australia—an emerging nation with a limited population—had a dream and a vision. The vision was to secure Australia’s sustainability, acknowledging the requirement for electricity and water. Chifley got a cable from the United Nations which asked whether he would accept 100,000 displaced people. Chifley threw his hands in the air and said: ‘My goodness, 100,000? What an enormous number of people to bring in.’ But his government had dreams and aspirations, and he asked questions: how do we harness the snow from the alps? How do we bring that into a contributing process to ensure the sustainability of Australia? How can we harness water to provide us with electricity? More importantly—and there was some argy-bargy between the states and the Commonwealth on this—how can we deliver irrigation to the Murrumbidgee, the Murray and other areas across Australia that can provide us with production for domestic and export benefits for the people of Australia?

The request from the United Nations coincided with Australia’s desire to build the greatest vision, the greatest dream. Chifley, in his wisdom, decided that tens of thousands of people from Europe’s razed cities and refugee camps could begin a journey that would transform not only their lives but the face of an entire nation. We saw allies, oppressors and victims working together to build the nation of Australia. On the cover of this fabulous book Snowy: The Making of Modern Australiaand I commend it to everybody—we see the epitome of what this is all about. It says:

The Snowy, the making of modern Australia, celebrates one of the most dramatic and inspiring episodes of modern Australian history. It is a tribute forty years on to the vision behind the scheme, the expertise of its designers and the tens of thousands of workers from more than thirty different countries who made it possible.

I quote again:

The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme began in 1949, was twenty-five years in construction, and remains one of the world’s greatest engineering and social achievements. Many of the workers who poured into that rugged mountain frontier in a strange new land to build new lives for themselves and their families had recently been enemies in the most devastating war the world had ever seen. They created, under extraordinary hardship and isolation, one of the wonders of modern engineering and sowed the seeds of an entirely new society.

I stand before the parliament today in the recognition that my irrigators councils believe that the privatisation of the Snowy will mean no difference for the water entitlement holders in my electorate. I can only take them at their word that they have discussed this, that they have investigated this fully and that that is why they support it.

My irrigators—Murrumbidgee Irrigation and others—say they widely support this sale and that it will not have an adverse effect on water entitlement holders. However, I stand in this House today to put forward my strongest resistance to this sale. The Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme is an Australian icon, and the building of it was a feat that will never be repeated. The scheme has built Australia. I cannot see such a vision—where an amazing feat has been achieved that has secured the Australian people’s future through the delivery of electricity and water—ever coming out of a parliament again. As a result of this icon having been built, we have fed not only our nation but also millions of people across the world.

I discovered that this motion was on the table when I walked past a television, and I wondered what was happening. I have now had an opportunity to put on record my strongest opposition to any sale of the Snowy and my strongest opposition to selling into private ownership 58 per cent of the entire Snowy network to fund mismanagement by successive governments in New South Wales. I oppose it vehemently—as, I believe, will the majority of people in my electorate—because the Snowy is about more than just selling the family silver to enable the New South Wales government to make promises in the lead-up to the next election to retain office. I thank the House for this time to enable me to put on record my objection to this sale.

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