Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I heard the member for Sturt mention the eradication of feral pests. This is a debate, after all, and I acknowledge that in her contribution. I well recall when I took then prime minister Scott Morrison to parts of Queensland to look at the drought. We're always in the country of drought. Indeed, as Dorothea Mackellar quite correctly pointed out in her poem, 'Core of my heart', we are a nation of flooding rains and droughts. At any given point in time, somewhere in Australia will be beset by drought. The member for Sturt is quite correct about what she points out about feral animal eradication.

The dingo and dog fence that was funded by the former coalition government led to an increase in lambing rates in those parts of Queensland, and elsewhere where we rolled out that fence. Farmers were reaping the benefits. When it comes to the environment, that is a practical means to be able to protect the environment and increase farmers' wealth. When we do that, we're doing a good thing for and on behalf of all Australia.

The member for Sturt is from South Australia, quite obviously, and it's really important that, when we look at the context of a bill such as this—a non-controversial bill, perhaps—we look at history. The explorer Charles Sturt made three expeditions exploring the river systems of south-eastern Australia. Quite often, the boats or canoes were carried on people's backs rather than being used to float down the Macquarie, Murrumbidgee and Darling rivers to the Murray River and then on to Lake Alexandrina and the mouth of the Murray River in South Australia.

Much has been made, in recent years and decades, of the river system we have in Australia. Unfortunately, there are some in this country who would think of our river systems and think of a European situation. Our river systems are not that. They are very much ephemeral rivers—they'd probably call them streams in other countries—and Australia is not Europe. It is not. We have a situation where we have flooding rains followed by droughts, and we can't convert our river systems, particularly the ones in South Australia, and pretend as though they are a European system, because they are not.

In 1828, Sturt followed the Macquarie River through the Macquarie marshes to the Darling River. In 1829-30, he backed it up by tracing the Murrumbidgee River—Murrumbidgee meaning 'deep or wide water'—to its junction with the Murray River and continued down the Murray to its mouth at Lake Alexandrina. It was a crucial discovery that showed that the western-flowing rivers of New South Wales discharged into the Murray River—in good times. In dry times, many of the river systems that Sturt explored were in fact dry gulches or dry river beds.

His third expedition of 1844-46 set out to explore the interior of Australia, travelling along the Murray and Darling rivers before the expedition headed north. He crossed the Sturt Stony Desert and pressed on into the Simpson Desert—he was a tough fellow—before being forced to turn back due to extreme conditions and ill health. Once upon a time schoolchildren in Australia were taught about this. I'm not so sure they are now. I speak often to the former Liberal senator Bill Heffernan. He can quote chapter and verse where any river system in Australia flows and how it flows. We have good discussions, but these days I find that children don't know as much as they should about the river systems upon which our nation depends.

I see the shadow assistant minister at the table. His communities, like mine, are very reliant on the Murray-Darling system. We have this perception in Australia that, when it comes to the environment, our river communities must cede. But our farmers are the world's best environmentalists; they are. Thank you for nodding, Deputy Speaker Chesters. I know that, at Bendigo, you, too, are very much in the Murray-Darling system. You've got farmers who are very reliant on having sensible policy not just from this place but from our states as well, and I'm not quite sure that our irrigators have benefited all the time from sensible policy from this place.

Again, I state that our farmers grow the very best food and fibre, and at times they have been demonised and maligned by the Greens. Thankfully, we have only one representative—probably one too many—in this House of Representatives now. The Greens have bedevilled our farmers. The Greens, by their very policies, want every drop of water to run through our river systems and out the mouth of the Murray, and that's just not how it should be. That's just not how nature was meant to work.

Our farmers need that water. They are allocated that water and—here's a thought—they pay for that water. Who would have thought it? They actually pay for that water, and they pay a lot of money to be able to access that water, use that water and work for and on behalf of those people in this country who—wait for it—eat. I don't think that we give them the credit that they deserve. When it comes to our river communities, when we go and buy back large parcels of water and bank them for environmental purposes—and, let me tell you, the government, through the CEWH and other means, is the biggest owner of water in the system—we also take away productive water which can then no longer be used for productive purposes. The EPBC Act is important. The environment is important. But so, too, is making sure that those river communities are functioning. They will do so in an environmentally sustainable way.

We sometimes forget our explorers. John Oxley, when he went out to the land beyond Griffith, came out with the statement that no European man—that's what he said; I'm not being a misogynist—would ever see fit to use that land, because it is just beyond use. It was our soldiers who were then sent out to soldier settler blocks, and they turned a virtual desert into a Garden of Eden and grew food. They did so through a channel system. Later on they did so through the decades of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, which was an irrigation system. Those dams were built for irrigation; hydroelectricity was just a benefit of the scheme. They did so with the Barren Jack Dam and, as it later became known, the Burrinjuck Dam, turning what Oxley described as an 'inhospitable environment' into something quite special that we should be very, very proud of. I think sometimes we all take too much consideration of the environment at the expense of those people who eke out a very meagre existence, and it's their relatives, the people who have followed in their family lines, who continue to make sure that the Murrumbidgee and Coleambally irrigation systems are vital to our nation.

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Board of Management Functions) Bill 2025 does acknowledge that the Commonwealth reserves—namely, Kakadu National Park, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and Booderee National Park—are located on Indigenous land. We understand that. We understand the importance of our Aboriginal people in the context of this particular debate, but we must also not go too far. We must not have overreach. I appreciate people are now forbidden or discouraged from climbing Ayers Rock, Uluru. But these days it's going to cost you money to take a photo of Ayers Rock to post a holiday snap online. Anyone wanting to shoot content at Uluru national park needs to pay for a photo permit. It cost $20 a day for commercial photography or $250 a day for filming. Some might see that as fine. I appreciate that the Indigenous rangers and people who look after the park need to make the most of their investment and their labours; I get that.

But the ban that the Victorian government has placed on some of the rock climbing in that state is getting to the point of overreach. It actually is. People who do this as an adventure sport are now forbidden to climb on the various landscapes they once enjoyed. We just need to be a little bit careful about overreach. We absolutely do. When it comes to overreach, nobody does it better than the Victorian state government. I appreciate they've got a mandate to govern, but goodness gracious they do go a bit beyond where their governance should go. This government is currently planning reforms to the wider EPBC Act to be introduced into the parliament apparently in November. I could say I look forward to seeing what that entails, but 'looking forward' would not be probably the correct terminology, because while this bill is not controversial, what may come about possibly is.

Even though this government has got a massive mandate in the House of Representatives, 51 seats, it doesn't necessarily have that wide a mandate over in the other place, in the Senate. They have to take legislation through the Greens, and the Greens are a worrying lot. If they were just an environmental party, you could understand it, but these days they have much more of a 'Let's change Australia's social fabric' remit. That's the Greens. That's their mantra. They don't always come with good intent. Once upon a time, under Bob Brown, they wanted to solve the world's environmental problems and the climate et cetera. You knew where they were coming from. These days they want to solve the Middle Eastern situation, they want to cut out traditional sports such as horseracing—and where will it stop? I don't know, but it is a concern.

This particular legislation is crucial if it goes through the House—and it will, because the government has a big majority, and we're not objecting to it. But it's also important to note that in government, whilst those opposite might tell you that this is not the case, we had a good record when it came to the environment. The Great Barrier Reef was going well under our government, under the policies that we put forward and under the funding we gave.

Don't shake your head, Member for Hughes; it's absolutely true. But when you've got decisions being made like the McPhillamys goldmine near Blayney being put on hold for no good reason, you start to worry about—I won't say the environmental credentials or the Indigenous credentials—the commonsense credentials of those opposite, if I may, because that was not stopped for any good reason. You've got a situation where winemakers, like Darren de Bortoli, are pulling up vines and where river communities are put on hold because of the Murray Darling Basin Plan. You've got decisions being made by a government that, yes, does have a mandate. But they don't have a mandate to pull apart regional Australia. I know that I, the member for Nicholls and the member for Lyne will fight the government every step of the way if they try to do that.

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