Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to highlight to this House the intense pressure which irrigation communities in my electorate of Farrer are under at the moment. Drought, low water allocations and uncertainty associated with the new government policy have had a cumulative and devastating effect on family farms, small towns and rural businesses and communities. As if this were not enough, these communities in the Murray Valley now face a Labor government intent on a market buy-up of the water that is the most important asset to these towns, with no clear strategy or vision about what is intended to be achieved by that buy-up.

The Minister for Climate Change and Water has announced a $3 billion water buyback in the budget. I remember that when we were in government we, as members who represented irrigated agriculture, always said that we would die in a ditch before we saw a government enter the market and buy water. I am quite frightened, as are the people whom I represent, by what this may mean for us. But, as if this were not enough, no-one from the government has bothered to come down and explain what the buy-up of water will mean or how it will even work in practice. Minister Wong has announced a stakeholder consultative committee to:

… evaluate the success of the first ever Commonwealth Government water purchase in the Murray Darling Basin.

Those are her words. But the New South Wales Murray Valley appears to have been forgotten by Minister Wong, and it is just not good enough. There are no members from our community of general security water users in the New South Wales Murray on her stakeholder committee. There are plenty of good people, and I recognise their skills and look forward to their input, but every section of the basin has its own needs and interests that need to be represented and, when it comes to water entitlements and allocations, every section has its own peculiarities. For example, Murray Irrigation represents 2,500 family farms and, given that they do not have permanent plantings, they could be right in the firing line under this buyback. How dare the minister ignore this group? In her press release she says:

Water purchase by the Government is a relatively new frontier, so we are acutely aware of the need to learn from our first foray into the market.

Well, that does not fill the farmers whom I represent with confidence. Not only does the minister not know what she is doing but she is not prepared to ask the locals for their input and advice.

The minister mentions that $5.8 billion will be invested in sustainable irrigation infrastructure and projects. She would want to put that money on the table fairly quickly. I point out to her that, in order for farmers to invest in their own futures, they need to have confidence, and confidence comes from certainty and transparency. So far, the buyback is not transparent. It is secretive. The government deals directly with farmers. In some instances, the farmers are told, ‘No, we don’t want the water at the price that you have tendered for; perhaps you would like to lower your price.’ But there is no register; there is no indication of what a fair price would be; there is just this monstrous buyer in the marketplace. We know that that must surely have a distorting effect.

As I have told the House before, water is not being bought from willing sellers but from stressed sellers. It is not enough to say, as the government has on occasion, ‘Well, this is not a compulsory acquisition.’ It might as well be. If you are under financial pressure and your bank manager says, ‘Sell your water,’ you may stay in your house, and maybe you do not appear to be going broke and leaving the district, but your future is affected and sometimes ruined. The government seems determined to crash its way into the market with this $3 billion chequebook. I do not know how many entitlements it will buy, but it might be as much as 30 per cent of total entitlements.

It is a flawed strategy even for what the government wants to achieve. You can spend $10 billion, but you cannot make it rain, and without rain all the government is buying is airspace in the dam or empty buckets. Nothing changes environmentally. Buying these entitlements as part of a 10-year plan hinders and discourages investment and efficiency gains at regional and farm level, and any chance of strategic improvement is severely constrained. Instead, this policy will impact on the ability of our irrigation communities to adjust to world-class standards.

Responsible government policy takes notice of economic, environmental and social outcomes. In government the coalition recognised this. This water buyback transfers the ownership from irrigators to government, but there is no change to the allocation of the river. Buying entitlement in the Murray this year means no extra water for the environment, because the systems are on zero allocation. The dollars that have been put on the table could be spent in a way that secures our irrigation future. (Time expired)