Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was reminded recently by the chair of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, a former Speaker in this place and former member for Wakefield, Neil Andrew, of a famed quote by humourist Mark Twain. Mark Twain is credited as having said, 'Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over'—and isn't that so true in this nation with respect to the history surrounding the Murray-Darling? But I am pleased to say that in recent times we have had a proud history of bipartisan support when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and the bill that is currently before the House, which will cap water buybacks to 1,500 gigalitres. So I congratulate this place and particularly those on the other side for what has been a bipartisan approach with respect to the plan and, importantly, on the bill before us, the Water Amendment Bill 2015, and the plan to legislate a buyback ceiling. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the contribution made by the member for Indi. Whilst she ended by indicating that it is water—and I think the term might have been 'our water'—can I encourage the member for Indi to accept that this is the nation's water resource. I think it is important as we stand here in the national parliament to understand that.

Why was I so energised and why have I worked so hard to deliver the legislation which sets the cap? Quite frankly, it is because buybacks kill communities. If you as a federal government come into a community with—pardon the pun—a big bucket of cash and buy up water to meet the targets in the plan, you do, in my respectful and humble opinion, irrevocable and long-term damage to the community itself. As the member for Barker, I have a heavy burden in this place. I am, in a sense, the South Australian who represents the river and river communities. In the House tonight we have the member for Mayo, who also represents some portion of the river, and the member for Wakefield—who succeeded David Fawcett, who succeeded Neil Andrew, who is now the authority chair, as I mentioned earlier with respect to the famed quote from Mark Twain.

The heavy burden is that you come to this place knowing that it will be your responsibility to stand up for river communities in South Australia who face the difficulty of a geography that is against them, with respect. That is why I am so pleased that this parliament has, over some considerable time, come to a bipartisan approach when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. We were fighting over this before Federation. Indeed, some people in my community often quip that we would have been well placed in the early 1900s to give responsibility for the Murray to Western Australia and Tasmania, because self-interest is something that has held us back and has created difficulties.

Regarding the heavy burden I spoke about, I think I am ideally placed. I represent the communities on the river but I do not come from the communities on the river. I am an irrigator. Some of the favourite times of my childhood were spent carrying irrigation pipes around our property in the south-east of South Australia on those hot summer nights and laying those aluminium pipes down with my now late brother and father. So I understand the importance of irrigation entitlements and the need for certainty around them. But I do not come from the river communities in Barker; I come from the south-east, where we irrigate from aquifers. So, in a sense, I understand their plight but I am not tarred with any particular interest along the river. I am not, for example, from the irrigation communities of the northern parts of my electorate in the Riverland—Renmark, Loxton, Berri, Waikerie and other communities. Equally, I am not from the Lower Lakes. So I am ideally placed to advocate on behalf of the South Australian river communities and to bring balance to my judgement.

This government, I am proud to say, understands the importance of the river in terms of the lifeblood that it literally pumps into communities. It always takes my breath away when I travel into the Riverland, whether it is via the Barossa or up from the southern regions. You are surrounded by land that is marginal. You come up close to the river and you see these great orchards of green, these great productive environments, these hotbeds of community activity. Meeting with people there, first of all I saw the relief in their eyes when they came to realise that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan had been secured. I congratulate all who were in this place before I came here for having achieved that. It was a significant achievement, one that I remind this House we had been seeking to secure for close to a century—an independent authority with responsibility for the whole of the Murray-Darling Basin system. I saw their relief and now I see them clamouring for certainty. They hear from us—from people on both sides of this place—that it is the stated desire to ensure that this plan is implemented on time and in full. I spoke earlier about that heavy burden, and there it is—'on time and in full'.

But, while we are talking about certainty, here is an opportunity to deliver some certainty. We said, in the lead-up to the last election, that we were going to work towards this cap, that we were going to prioritise water efficiency investments in lieu of purchases. It has always been a target. As a result of this bill, it will be a legislated cap. I remind the House that this is not where we want to end up, but it provides certainty to communities to say that we will not go past this level of buyback, reminding everyone that it is clear that buybacks kill communities.

'On time and in full' is effectively the macro aim, but there is some work that we need to do in addition to the work that we are doing tonight—and I congratulate the parliamentary secretary for having, pardon the pun, negotiated the waters to get us to where we are. We heard from the member for Mallee—and, goodness, he is right—about water storage. In a nation as dry as ours, which enjoys the rainfall that we do, we allow far too much of it to escape. We have not invested in the type of water storage infrastructure that will provide for us insurance in times of drought, and we must do that. Again, that is something that is some way off, but I know it is something that the parliamentary secretary and this government are focused on.

But there is something that we can do sooner than that, and I think it is important that we do it, and it is this. Members of this place might not know, but the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, the largest single water holder in the nation—who, in my view, holds those water rights on behalf of all of us effectively on trust—is entitled to trade. You heard it from the member for Mallee. Indeed, in my respectful submission, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder ought to trade where he can. But unfortunately the legislative framework at the moment prevents him from using the proceeds of those trades for any endeavour other than purchasing more water rights. That kind of runs contrary to what we are seeking to do by this bill. So I encourage all in this place—and I know the parliamentary secretary is working towards this as a response to the review—to come to a point where the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, referred to in this place as the CEWH, is able to trade water: inject that water, if you like, back into productive infrastructure, given the right environmental settings, and take the revenue from that transaction and invest it in some of the works and measures that perhaps the member for Mallee was talking about.

We take our commitment to this plan seriously. We are investing $2.5 million every day to 30 June 2019 in the future of the basin. We know that this basin is ideally placed to meet the food tasks that will come out of Asia. There are 500 million Asians living in the middle class today. By 2020 it is anticipated that 3.5 billion Asians will have achieved that status. They crave the types of foodstuffs that will be delivered out of regions like Barker but particularly out of the Riverland, products of irrigated horticulture. We must secure the future of those communities today, to ensure that they can service that demand long into the future.

On a day such as this, I would be remiss if I did not turn briefly to the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement. Farmers in my electorate are ecstatic about the prospects on the horizon as a result of the three free trade agreements that this government has secured—with Korea, with Japan and, of course, with the globe's most populous nation, China. They see the opportunity. They are excited about the opportunity. But I began by talking about certainty. Just like irrigators on the river want the certainty that comes with legislated protections, so too do my farmers up and down the electorate, not just those who live between block 6and the mouth of the river but all of them. They want the certainty to know that people in this place want to secure the future of Australian agriculture by providing for them access to markets like China that are, again—pardon the pun—ripe for the picking.

I have watched them in the last month or so go from elation, understanding the opportunities finally on their doorstep. It is the current minister who refers to agriculture in this way. Bullish prospects are a bit like free beer: a shingle that hangs above the bar in your local pub, an enticing prospect—free beer tomorrow—but one that never seems to realise itself. That is why I have watched them go from optimism to despair. The despair they have arrived at is because all of a sudden, for base political purposes, those on the other side of this place have decided to play politics with the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.

It has been a difficult thing to watch these farmers who have endured drought, who have endured every difficulty the world and the environment can throw at them, go from optimism to despair. I ask those on the other side to consult their consciences and support our efforts to secure the ChAFTA.

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