Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. It relates to the Commonwealth’s $10 billion water plan. Prime Minister, will communities in New South Wales be able to apply for funding for upgrades to infrastructure such as dams when urban users, irrigation users and environmental flows will be the beneficiaries? Could the Prime Minister also update the House on the tax ruling for those groundwater users who are currently being taxed on payments for water loss?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In relation to the last part of the question, I cannot update the House because I am not the taxpayer and, as the member knows, the secrecy provisions of the taxation act prevent my knowing the details. The New South Wales government knows the details, and I suspect that the member for New England is closer to the New South Wales government than I am. Perhaps, therefore, through you, Mr Speaker, he would be able to obtain an indication from the New South Wales government.

I am quite surprised, given the importance of this issue to the communities affected, that we do not know what the tax office has communicated to the New South Wales government. I do not blame the tax office for that; I blame the New South Wales government. I think the New South Wales government has deliberately played around with this issue. It played around with it before the New South Wales election and it continues to play around with it. I want the issue resolved, and I assume the member for New England wants the issue resolved.

The person who really drove a proper re-examination of this issue is the member for Gwydir, the former Leader of the National Party. He organised a delegation of irrigators to my Sydney office almost a year ago. They persuaded me that the whole cast of the approach being taken in relation to this matter by the New South Wales government, which was denying the capital nature of the transaction, was completely wrong. I hope the substance of the communication to the New South Wales government from the tax office reflects that, but I do not know. And I cannot know without the permission of the taxpayers. The member for New England knows that I cannot know, and he must have had that in mind when he asked me the question.

In relation to the first part of the question asked by the member, the design of the scheme is that there are really two elements. The first element is to provide infrastructure investment to restore the irrigation systems of this country. I do not rule out the second part, which involves buying back of water overallocations, buying back of excess water entitlements. I do not seek at this stage to be totally prescriptive as to what form that assistance might take, but that is the general design of the scheme.