Keith Pitt (Hinkler, National Party, Minister for Resources, Water and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge my shadow counterpart, with whom we work well on this very important matter of water, particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin. Regarding the comments around Queensland and the State of Origin, we're a little bit embarrassed about the last score but there are still two to go and I'm confident there'll be a recovery.

In regard to the questions around the modelling and the information being used to inform the MDBA and Murray-Darling Basin communities, we have allocated significant funds in the budget to improve that modelling. That will help to build confidence in governments, water users and communities planning for the future. It is a significant investment, one which has been very much needed and which we have accounted for and provided for in the most recent budget announcements. There will be significant and substantial investment over coming years to update the modelling of the Murray-Darling Basin and how it is utilised right across the basin.

In regard to other questions, I suggest that the shadow minister look at the most recent MINCO minutes and the decisions made and advice provided for an update on the status of projects and where we're at. We've engaged someone to ensure that we have an overview of exactly the position of what is likely to have been done and finished by 2024, and where we're at. Quite simply, we have significant funds left and a significant amount of time in which to perform what is necessary to meet the requirements of the plan.

In regard to questions around New South Wales measures, we're working very closely with New South Wales. Up until last June, they hadn't submitted any of their water resource plans for surface water. We managed to get the groundwater plans put forward to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority for assessment, and they are currently being considered. They are complex and technical and they do take time—as did Victoria's, South Australia's and the ACT's plans—and we are working our way through that in a process which I'm sure the shadow minister will appreciate is difficult. It requires consultation and further toing and froing between us and New South Wales.

In regard to the Menindee Lakes and Yanco projects—about which there have been considerable discussions, particularly in the media—at the most recent MINCO meeting there was an agreement with New South Wales that they would bring forward rescope projects for those two opportunities. They were to do that within a particular time frame. I look forward to New South Wales meeting that time frame and delivering on what they said they would.

In regard to the Off-Farm Efficiency Program, as I announced some weeks ago, we have shifted the Water Efficiency Program funding, or WEP, across to off-farm efficiencies. The advice I have is that we expect up to 150 gigalitres of recovery from doing that. We have at least 50 projects put forward already. We're working very closely with the states to ensure that we can get the best outcome with that funding for the projects themselves and the water that would be returned to the environment as part of the plan.

I think I've addressed the questions that the shadow minister has put forward. I'd like to come back to the budget and the things that we are doing to continue to help those people who live in the Murray-Darling Basin, who work in agriculture and who rely on irrigated water. And not just irrigated water. I'm very pleased that the shadow minister acknowledged that we have had a much better season. There has been significant rainfall and storages are in a much better position than they had been previously. That is very positive and is being felt right across the community and the Murray-Darling Basin as a whole. We are continuing to provide practical advice and support. As the shadow minister said, it's a good time to work on drought infrastructure when it's raining and wet. We have put forward another $50 million for the On-farm Emergency Water Infrastructure Rebate Scheme. We have cleaned up what has been a mess of the states' making in terms of allowing overruns on that fund—funding which wasn't available. After, I have to say, a lot of toing and froing between ourselves and the states and territories, we have delivered another $50 million. So that's $100 million that is going towards that program.

I want to call out the agriculture minister for New South Wales, who, I have to say, was more interested in playing politics than in actually delivering on this fund. We have delivered. It was the influence and the advocacy of people like the member for Calare, the member for Cowper, the member for New England and, of course, the member for Parkes, and others, who ensured that this money was made available to clean up what was literally an overrun of some thousands, in terms of the farmers across the country who made decisions for which they should have expected support. That support is now being provided but us. We continue to build confidence. We continue to build transparency. We continue to provide information to those communities across the Murray-Darling Basin, because that trust, that transparency and that confidence is critical to ensuring that we can continue to work with those communities and deliver what they expect from us.

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