Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Water is a crucial issue these days if we are to propose any form of further development of regional areas. Currently, areas in my electorate are suffering because of a lack of water infrastructure—and we must build it now. We can't prepare for this drought now—we should have prepared for this drought a decade ago—but we most certainly can learn from the lessons of right now and start building the water infrastructure for the future. I commend the government for their more deliberate stance now of pushing the states and being able to go into the legislation and remove the impediments in such a way as we can start construction of this water infrastructure.

Armidale, they said, would never have water restrictions. It is now on level 4 and about to go higher. They are talking about day zero when we actually run out of water. In Guyra, to the north of us, they are trucking water in. I think it is 0.6 of a megalitre a day. In Morundah, they are trucking in water because they are out of water. In Walcha they are moving to severe water restrictions as the Macdonald River runs dry. In Tenterfield they're trying to find bores to supplement the town's water supply, because their water is running out. This is the scenario over so many areas of the New England and do doubt across Australia.

What it says to us is that we must now start preparing, as desperate as it might sound, for the next drought. It will rain, but when it rains is not the time to start preparing for the next drought. If there's one thing you can do in droughts is build water infrastructure. When there's no water in the river, is the time you can build a dam. It's not when it's in flood or flowing. And, understandably, there's not the political drive to build this infrastructure if there's an abundance of water about. If we had not extended the water infrastructure for Tamworth—which was one of the first things I did as the local member when I arrived there—Tamworth would have run out of water. At the time, our biggest impediment to the extension of Chaffey Dam was the Booroolong frog. Apparently this frog had to be saved for eternity. Even though its range goes from northern Victoria to southern Queensland, it was the reason we couldn't extend Chaffey Dam—and I think to this day we're probably not completely within the requirements of what they call their environmental offsets.

We must get a clear understanding now of what our impediments are to expediting that construction, at both state and federal levels. If there is legislation, if there is regulation, it must be clearly understood and, where required, repealed so that we can get into this process. Australians, no matter what their political colour or where they are, will not tolerate a further lack of water infrastructure.