Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The subject of today’s matter of public importance debate is: ‘The government’s failure to address the problems confronting working families while spending vast amounts of money on its own political survival.’ I do not think there is any doubt in the community’s mind that the extravagance of government advertising—at many levels of government, not just the current Commonwealth government—is well out of hand and really does need to be addressed. But today I would like to refer to the problems of farming families—in particular, the government’s absolute incompetence at coming to grips with water issues in this nation and the incompetence of the member for Wentworth, the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. If the Prime Minister wants to maintain any credibility in terms of the water debate, particularly within the Murray-Darling system, he has to look very closely at what the member for Wentworth is doing in his ministerial capacity. The people I am talking about, in the Murray-Darling system, particularly those who have received allocations of water—admittedly, under the state systems in the past—are under threat from government policy on water. The incompetence of those who are suggesting they have some control over this debate is coming through very clearly.

The member for Longman has just said, ‘Let’s not go back to 1994.’ I would like to go back to 1995 and 1996, when the national competition policy arrangements were put in place. There were certain things said in relation to water, particularly in 1996, which the Commonwealth took some charge of. One of those things was to establish a national approach to water policy. Certain competition payments were made available through the normal processes; if the states met certain objectives and achievements, money would flow through the national competition payments arrangements.

A couple of other things were suggested at the time, including that, as part of the flow of that money, a recognised water market would be put in place and property rights would be recognised as part of that process. The money would flow from the Commonwealth to the states if those particular objectives were met. Those objectives have not been met, but the money has flowed. My office has done some work on this. The current arrangement being talked about is a $10 billion plan. There are no details, but there is a plan worth $10 billion. My office has looked at the money that has flowed to the states in the last 11 years. It comes to $8.9 billion—paid through the competition payment arrangements, the National Water Initiative arrangements, the Natural Heritage Trust arrangements, the National Action Plan for Water Quality and Salinity and a whole lot of other intergovernmental agreements, including catchment blueprints et cetera. Not one extra litre of water has been put into the Murray-Darling system.

The Prime Minister and the minister, the member for Wentworth, are suggesting that we need a massive investment to solve the problem. You have had the capacity to do it through the national competition arrangements for 10 years, and now you are asking those irrigators and water entitlement holders out there to trust you when you have had the capacity to rein in the states over that time.

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