Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In continuing my contribution to the debate on the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Amendment Bill 2010 I will move on from supporting the move to streamline the consumer advice about water consumption of household appliances to a call for a similar rating system to apply to on-farm water use efficiency measures or, at least, for this government to understand how important it is that every irrigator has the support to introduce measures that will save water and increase productivity. It is vital that both those things occur. No farmer, who is of course a businessperson, is going to be able to invest in a reduction in water consumption if it is at the cost of his own capacity to earn an income or improve productivity.

Australian farmers, unlike most others in the developed economies, do not receive massive government subsidies to help them feed the nation. Australian farmers, along with their New Zealand counterparts, are some of the world’s most efficient and effective growers particularly of arid-zone cereals and also in horticulture, sheep and meat production, and dairy and fruit production.

Over the last 50 years there has been a revolution in the way water use efficiency has been the centre of irrigation farming thinking. There has been massive investment, particularly in my electorate in northern Victoria, in whole-farm planning: the introduction of reuse systems which capture every drop of rain as well as surface rainfall in order for it to be reused and pumped back up to the paddocks to be reused again and again; laser grading to facilitate that process; subsurface irrigation installed, particularly underrow crops; and new fast-watering techniques introduced, which require different technologies. Pressurised systems for horticulture and orchards are now commonplace. In fact, where they are not in place it is because the irrigator cannot afford to make the conversions. There is no longer an argument about the importance of pressurised systems for orchards and for some other crops such as tomatoes, for example.

The point about all of this is that at the moment the Murray-Darling Basin Authority has before it a guide to a plan it produced over the last two years which says that the way to find further savings of water for the environment is not primarily through encouraging water use efficiency, in particular from irrigators, but to buy back water from so-called willing sellers. This so-called buyback from willing sellers is non-strategic. It comes at a time when most farmers have just survived seven years of drought. Many fell by the wayside because of the financial pressures of not having sufficient water to continue agricultural production. At the end of those seven years of drought, we have had the worst floods on record. Just at the time when the financial pressures are too much for some of them to remain viable and just at the time when they have the lowest emotional resources to carry on, the Commonwealth government has just put into the marketplace another of these non-strategic water buyback tenders.

The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia, which is charged with the review and analysis of the Guide to the proposed basin plan, put in an interim set of recommendations 10 days or so ago. The chair of the committee, Mr Tony Windsor, has placed those recommendations before the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government. The first of those recommendations was to be more strategic in water buybacks. I am personally disappointed that, while that advice appeared to have been taken seriously and supported by the minister, we have had yet another announcement that the non-strategic role-on of water buybacks from so-called willing sellers is to continue as if there had been no recommendation at all.

Non-strategic buyback of water has nothing to do with water use efficiency, unfortunately. It is about financially stressed farmers bending to the will of their lenders and putting the last of their liquid assets—a bit of an ironic term—or their most easily disposed of asset, their water, on the market so they can pay back some of their borrowings. We do not have, unfortunately, sufficient investment from this government into on-farm water use efficiency, nor do we have sufficient investment into the irrigation systems themselves, some of which such as Goulburn-Murray Water are over a hundred years old in places and need to be smartened up in their own water use efficiency.

I am very concerned at a time when our farmers most need support to get back on their feet after, first, the drought and, now, devastating floods, that this is the time for the government to announce that there will be support for farmers to be able to improve their water use and as a consequence of that improve their productivity, putting them back on their feet financially for the future. In Northern Victoria, in my part of the Murray-Darling Basin—its southern parts—we have been acknowledged as having world’s best practice in tomato growing and in dairying, to name just two of our particular industry sectors. Both of those types of agricultural production were particularly hard hit by the floods. We have virtually had our tomato crops for this year wiped out—this is manufacturing tomato growing—and, tragically, that means that our multinational manufacturers of food product are reaching to imports to replace what was before locally produced tomato ingredient.

Unfortunately, that cannot be helped this year, but we are very, very concerned that it will become the habit of these manufacturers, as they find the dollar supports them and it is easy for them to reach to the overseas market for things such as tomato paste and diced tomatoes, when our own locally grown product was world’s best in quality. Indeed, the prices they were being paid meant that there was not much fat at all in the system for the growers. So we need that on-farm water use efficiency investment from the Commonwealth, as well as from the states. Having made that investment, I think it is more than in order to suggest that farms which can be shown to be most efficient in water use have a rating or a standard that is recognised by the consumer. We need to show that the product was produced in a way that was friendly to the environment, particularly in relation to water consumption. These sorts of improvements can be readily identified and measured.

Again, in our part of the world, farmers have themselves invested literally billions of dollars in these measures. In the past they have received some support to help do things, such as whole farm plans and reuse systems. This was in order to try successfully to manage to stop groundwater accessions, which of course led to salinity problems in the past. We are now concerned that some of this water will be lying on parts of my electorate for another 12 months, and all these floodwaters could again exacerbate the groundwater salinity levels. We need, right now, some Commonwealth investment to make sure that irrigation systems on farms are repaired as a consequence of the floods destroying them and that we have, instead of the quick and dirty buyback of water from financially stressed farmers, the government understanding of the problems of water price distortion in the markets and an understanding that water buyback does not lead to more efficient production.

Instead, the government should focus on the billions of dollars that the coalition had put in place for this investment and put at least $5 billion into on-farm water use efficiency measures. The dividends will be absolutely magnificent. The country’s food security will be improved. We will have the farmers able to continue to manage the environment as they want to. The jobs that spin off from agricultural production will be there and will be multiplied. There is a win-win in every way that you look at the investment in on-farm water use efficiency.

I commend this bill, which began by making sure that labelling of domestic appliances that are water users is as efficient and transparent as it can be and helps consumers make the right choices about purchasing things like dishwashers, washing machines and so on. But I suggest this government also look at water use efficiency standards, assessments and labelling in relation to on-farm water use efficiency measures. I think that will serve the nation very well.

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