Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

All right, I will take it back. There you go. He worked on an irrigation channel. Most of the members of the Labor Party would not know an irrigation channel if they fell over one.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

I see the member for Moreton nodding, because he knows—present company excluded—that that is so true. Admittedly, Tony Burke came to Griffith, which is in my area, and bravely fronted the good folk there. Certainly, I gave him credit at those meetings, because it was important that we heard from him. He had a title as long as your arm—'population', 'sustainability', 'communities' and 'water'—but essentially water was in there. He was also a former minister for agriculture. At least he did go there. But the trouble with the minister was that he went, he listened but he did not act. We had a Murray-Darling Basin Plan which took so much water out of productive use in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, the MIA. It was just cruel to those farmers.

I read now from a report from a very old book titled Water into gold. I have to say that water is the most important thing that we will discuss in this House today. National security is obviously very crucial, too, but at this point in time water is one of the most crucial things that we will discuss in this House. The foreword to this book was written by Alex F Bell, CMG. He writes: 'The vision of Alfred Deakin that given water the most arid spaces could and would furnish produce the equal in quality of any grown throughout the world was realised by the courage of the Chaffeys and those who served under their banners and who, in the face of great handicaps, carried these river areas to a success, which has given prosperous cities and towns where 50 years ago a few sheep grazed on stations and regarded as dangerous country by the settlers who were opening up the pastoral districts of the Murray River area.' He could have easily included the Murrumbidgee area as well. That was out of the 1946 edition, the seventh edition, of this book. It is correct.

What we saw when Labor was in power—and we talk of bureaucracy—

Mr Champion interjecting—

I am not using these reports as a prop—was that Riverina farmers, the good farmers in the Murray and Coleambally areas and elsewhere in the Murray-Darling Basin area, including South Australia, were expected to go through these sorts of voluminous tomes, to analyse and read them, whilst they were getting on with the job—and they do a fine job, too—of growing the food and fibre to feed and clothe our nation.

In the Riverina alone, the ABARES statistics for 2012-13—so that is a while ago and they have obviously increased in value since then—were that the gross value of agriculture production in New South Wales was $12.1 billion, of which 16 per cent came from the Riverina region. It is probably higher now. In 2012-13 wheat contributed $443 million to the value of agriculture production just in this region. Fruit and nuts, excluding grapes, accounted for 12 per cent—that is $231 million—with the major crops being oranges, $129 million; apples, $36 million; and cherries, $6 million. Canola accounted for 11 per cent at $227 million; rice seven per cent at $148 million; and vegetables six per cent at $127 million. The parliamentary secretary, Mr Baldwin, who is sitting beside me and who will in a moment sum up the bill, knows this well. He recently came to my electorate and visited Narrandera, Griffith, Coleambally and Whitton—

Mr Perrett interjecting—

and Southern Cotton—and he saw for himself the great benefit that water gives to the Riverina region and the great benefits that the Riverina region gives by transforming that water into food and fibre to feed this nation and, indeed, many others. The parliamentary secretary saw it with his own eyes. He was impressed—as he should be. This legislation is very, very important. The cap on water buybacks of 1,500 gigalitres makes it doubly important that this legislation passes. The Abbott-Truss government is strongly committed to progressing water reform, and we will continue the principles of the National Water Initiative. The water sector has made great progress on water reform. The sort of reform that we want to see from this side of the House will make sure that we do not continue to buy water ad hoc out of those productive areas. What we are doing is we are capping the buyback, which is important, and we are capping—

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