Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to continue this speech, after I started it last night for a couple of minutes. I'll reaffirm and point out again that, as a South Australian, I'm very proud to be speaking on the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 because in South Australia we remember what we went through during the last drought. South Australia is one of the driest states in one of the driest continents in the world—and no doubt there will be more droughts to come. I recall, clearly, walking across the lakes at Goolwa, which is next to the Murray mouth, during our last drought period and being able to see the dead fish on the riverbank just lying there because we had gone through one of the most horrendous droughts. There were no water flows. As I said last night, be assured that, as day follows night, there will be more droughts in this country.

So I am very proud that we have announced this bill, that we have presented it and that we doing something to restore our Murray-Darling that we all depend on here in Australia. It is a region with 16 international significant wetlands. It's a refuge for 35 endangered species and a shield for 120 waterbird species. It's a sanctuary for 50 native fish species and a home to 2.3 million people, including 50 different First Nations peoples. It's generating $22 billion in agriculture and contributing $11 billion through tourism. That's our Murray-Darling Basin. All those points I have just made will be nonexistent, not just the species, such as the waterbirds and the native fish, but the generation of $22 billion in agriculture if we don't do something. If we don't do something to sustain the river system, there will be no agriculture in generations to come. That is why this bill is so important. A rich history of cultural heritage that spans generations is intertwined with this land.

During the last federal election, the then opposition, the Labor Party, pledged to uphold the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It was a promise that we took to the people, and we are now delivering on that promise to restore the 450 gigalitres. That's exactly what we on this side of the House are doing. Let's just take a moment to think about the catastrophe that would continue to unravel had we not won the last federal election and had the coalition continued to be in power and if our government of today had not taken a stand. Imagine all the species and human beings that would be left struggling with a future of uncertainty. That's what that 450 gigalitres does; it gives certainty to the environmental flows, which means our agriculture will be sustained, our communities will be sustained and, of course, the environment will be sustained.

Our Minister for the Environment and Water pushed for this Murray-Darling Basin Plan just a few weeks ago, and I had the honour of standing alongside the minister to proudly announce that our government had successfully negotiated an agreement with basin governments, one of which was the South Australian state government, my home state. This agreement commits us to fully implement the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, including, as I said earlier, the most important part, which is the 450 gigalitres of water for environmental preservation.

Our voters and our constituents shouldn't need to remind us of the devastating impacts of climate change, and we should not need to remind those on the other side how serious this situation really is. The evidence is quite clear. We have already seen reduced flows across the basin, and we cannot afford to see matters get worse. Without the Murray-Darling Basin, we could face towns running out of water in the next droughts, and there's no doubt there will be droughts to come. I know that there is a lot of emotion on the other side from some of the MPs who represent those towns, but what they have to understand is that the businesses, the agriculture and the communities that exist along those towns won't be in existence in years to come unless we do something now. Without the Murray-Darling, we face towns running out of water and businesses not being able to sustain their agriculture. That's why this bill is so important.

These aren't abstract consequences. These are real lives, real communities and real ecosystems that, unfortunately, the previous government turned its back on. We saw that they tried to cut the final recovery targets to keep them below the scientific recommendations. They deliberately slowed the process delivering water to the basin. Because of this, it's now next to impossible to deliver the plan on the original timeline. In nine years they delivered just two gigalitres of the 450, which put them on track to complete the plan sometime around the year 4,000, perhaps, if we were lucky. On the flipside, even while we weren't in government, on this side of the House we didn't give up on the future of our basin. All you have to do is look at some of the speeches of the South Australian MPs on the Labor side to see how we were continuing to take the fight up to the then government. We didn't give up the fight, but unfortunately the government of the day gave up the fight and the Australian public. The plan should have been almost done by now. It should have been done and dusted, but it's not.

In the short time that our Minister for the Environment and Water and our government have been in power, we've delivered or contracted 26 gigalitres in total, much more than they did in nine years. After years of delays, roadblocks, excuses and divided politics on that side—and we saw the Nationals and the Liberal Party being in two mindsets when they were debating this, and they brought some changes to the original plan to this House; we all recall that—this bill is about getting back on track. It's about sustaining our river, sustaining our communities and ensuring that we have sustainable communities and environment in the Murray-Darling Basin.

It's a testament to the dedication on this side to the basin and its people. That's because we hold ourselves accountable, because we know our environment is important. As I said, it wasn't that long ago that we had that devastating drought here in Australia. I recall clearly that the entire South Australian population was demanding that we do something. In fact, our local newspaper in South Australia, the Advertiser, held each and every member representing South Australia in this place to account. We were receiving phone calls from journalists every day, demanding to see what we were doing about the River Murray. In fact, back then this was not a campaign just by environmental groups, green groups or politicised groups; this was a campaign by the entire state of South Australia, including News Corp's Advertiser. We are held to account to restore the River Murray, to bring back sustainability to it, to ensure those communities in the Murray-Darling Basin are sustainable well into the future.

If we were to take the advice from the other side, we'd sit back and do nothing and not have those environmental water flows going back into the river, which would devastate communities in years to come, ensuring that there would be no agriculture, and the extinction of species. We've taken a holistic approach that understands the connection between our environment, our communities and our economy. Everyone in this place should be here to support all three aspects. Those who delayed the completion of the plan in the past have a lot to answer for, but those who choose not to support the plan now should consider the harm they'll be causing to those groups that I spoke about—the community, the economy and the environment.

I'm talking especially about those who preach a green earth and accuse our government of inaction. This simply is not true. It is they who are blocking positive action, not us. You should be embarrassed in this place to preach as much as you do but not act on environmental sustainability, and especially on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. This isn't a matter of politics; it's a matter of responsibility in this place. It's about our world and a sustainable environment, including the sustainable communities and economies in the Murray-Darling Basin. It's about our world. It's about sharing water so that the basin can sustain future generations, and future generations of agriculture, so we can continue to grow food and produce to feed Australia but also feed the world and enhance our exports, value-adding to our food. This bill offers more time, more options, more money and more accountability, not more restrictions, as we saw from the other side. It's a lifeline for the basin.

This bill is because the previous government, those across from us, didn't act. This bill is because they deliberately ignored the Murray-Darling Basin. This bill is because, unlike those across from me, we care about actually getting the job done. We went to the public with our commitment before the election, and now we're delivering. It offers more certainty for farmers, more help for affected communities and more protection for the environment, native plants and animals. Climate change, with its shifting rainfall patterns and rising temperatures, has undoubtedly made water management more challenging in Australia. We are the driest continent on this earth, and South Australia is certainly the driest state in this country. If we don't act to secure our water future, who knows what lies ahead? So, on this side of the chamber, we're working towards a water market that is fair and transparent. We want to increase accountability, and we want water market decisions made public. I know this government welcomes accountability, because we have one clear agenda—to get this job done. If we don't act to secure our water future, who knows what lies ahead?

As we consider the implications of this bill, I ask everyone to rise above politics and focus on our shared responsibility to protect this vital resource for generations to come. Supporting the Murray-Darling plan is not a matter of political ideology; it is a matter of national necessity. The Murray-Darling Basin is not just a physical space on the map; it is a symbol of our shared responsibility, and it's a reminder that our actions today will echo through generations to come. Shaping the legacy we leave for our children and our grandchildren is a call to action, a call to put aside our differences and protect this very important ecosystem. But we need to do it together. So I urge everyone in this House: take a moment and remember the previous droughts, the countless species that call this basin home, the communities that rely on its water and the economic opportunities it provides. You can preach as much as you like, but this is a very important— (time expired)

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

COULTON (—) (): I, too, rise to speak on the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023. With reference to my friend the member for Adelaide on the other side, who talks about rising above politics, I'm afraid that, for the people that I represent, in the third of the Murray-Darling Basin that's the Parkes electorate, this is about sustainability. It's about survival. It's about jobs. It's about culture, and it's about a fair share. We need to have a little bit of a history lesson here. One of the advantages of being in this place for as long as I have is having a memory of what happened. I supported the Murray-Darling Basin Plan when it came through this House. Not everyone did, but the clear majority did, and I supported the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The 450 gigalitres of extra water was not in the plan. It wasn't supported in this House by me, and it came with very, very clear conditions: it had to have no social, no environmental and no economic effects to deliver that water. It was a deal that was done at the time under former Prime Minister Gillard with the former water minister, Tony Burke, to gain Senate votes in Adelaide. That's the history of it. What this bill is doing is bringing that into the basin plan for the first time and removing the conditions that were around that water.

I remind the members in here on the other side with their speaking notes that South Australia is going to suffer under this bill. The Riverland is going to experience severe impacts, particularly to their permanent plantings, which will affect not only the economy of the Riverland in South Australia but also the ability of this country to feed itself. We do rely on the horticulture in that part of the world.

The other thing that's being portrayed here is that nothing's being done and quoting the fish deaths at Menindee, which is in my electorate, as a failure of the plan. There are various reasons why those fish died, but I want to point out that at that time it was the deepest waterhole in the Parkes electorate, which is a third of the basin. There are other issues at the Menindee that we need to look at, such as a fish ladder on the main weir so there's an escape route for those fish. But basically a large number of fish—and it's a large number because of a successful breeding program delivered by environmental water to make that breeding program happen very successfully—in the drought that followed got captured between two weirs and ran out of oxygen. That's what happened to the fish at Menindee. Everyone piled in—all the Greens and everyone piled in when they drove up—and said this is a scandal caused by government. But this was a natural event.

During the drought that people speak of, you could play cricket in the bottom of all the rivers in the Parkes electorate. The dams were empty, the rivers were empty, and the communities were suffering. There was no irrigation, but we tend to forget about what happened in the drought when the dryland farmers had to try to keep their stock alive and the fact that there were no crops for years. No-one talks about that. The idea that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is going to turn an ephemeral system like the northern basin into Europe is a nonsense. We saw that in the drought. When it stops raining for three years, there's no water. That was followed by a flood. How much did the Basin Plan help with the flood? We still had communities being inundated. It's the natural cycle of life. The Basin Plan is clearly designed to moderate and take the edges off these events and to keep the rivers flowing for longer. I might say the rivers are flowing for longer because of dams that were built for irrigation. A lot of the water that's now in those dams in the northern basin were built by previous governments back in the fifties and sixties for irrigation. Those dams are now storing water and keeping the river flowing for longer. That's the nature of it.

The other thing that people need to understand is that allocations of water are done on a percentage of the water that's available. I think irrigation takes about 17 per cent of the water in the system, or something around about that figure, and so the idea that irrigators are taking all the water is also a nonsense. The water is shared via allocation, an allocation that irrigators pay a lot of money for. And what's that water used for? It's used to produce food. It's used to produce oranges, almonds, grapes, apples and stone fruits of all sorts. It's used to produce rice. It's used to produce cotton to clothe us. I'm incredibly frustrated by just the base ignorance of the people coming in with their talking points who are prepared, through their ignorance, to support a policy that's going to decimate the income of fellow Australians, without even having the courtesy to think through for themselves what this means. It's incredibly frustrating.

I do agree with the part of this legislation that extends the time for the delivery of the plan because it is complex. But we mustn't fall into the trap of saying nothing has happened. The Macquarie River in my electorate is actually overrecovered, so more water has gone back into the environment than was predicted as necessary by the plan. We've seen some amazing work done in the Macquarie with the modernisation of the irrigation schemes there. The lining of the channels is taking a lot the farms out of the irrigation industry with poly pipe for stock water, so that what's there now is much more reliable and much more efficient. The wastage from those channels has now been reduced so that 97 per cent or 98 per cent of the water is delivered because it's not soaking away into the earthen banks. In some places, centre pivots have replaced flood irrigation where necessary.

As we're going into another dry period, where do people think that the hay is coming from that is keeping their livestock alive? It's coming from lucerne farmers, who are irrigating at a dry time, like now, to provide fodder to keep our livestock alive and healthy. To get involved in this as some sort of a philosophical debate—and everyone gets their fair share. In deference to the South Australian members here, I'm not someone that wants to attack South Australia. I understand that there is a large population base in South Australia that absolutely relies on the river. We've got to understand that. But the idea that by just shutting down irrigation industries we're going to turn the Murray-Darling Basin into Europe is a nonsense. We are always going to have to battle with the variations of climate.

Since time began, the rivers have run and the rivers have run dry. That is why, in the northern basin, cotton is grown. Cotton is grown when there is available water. When there's not water, they just fallow their land. There have been attempts over the years. Some years before I was in this place, before the millennium drought, Bourke, in my electorate, had a thriving grape and citrus industry. The millennium drought killed those trees, so it became very clear in the northern basin that you cannot have permanent plantings, because when it goes dry the trees die, and that massive investment is lost and you can't replace it in any short time. But cotton and, further south, rice are grown when there is available water.

The idea that somehow cotton is an evil industry is a nonsense. I heard one of the ministers yesterday make some of the most patronising comments about farmers: 'They need to learn about some of the technology that can help measure the water,' and things like that. There are more kilograms of cotton per megalitre of water and per litre of diesel grown in Australia than anywhere else in the world. These are very, very precisely managed farms. There is not an ounce of water wasted. If we don't grow cotton, we're going to be importing something else from overseas.

I was at a cotton farm two weeks ago, interestingly, with the Speaker of the House, where we saw they're now running their cotton gin with solar. They've got a program now with more solar to produce hydrogen, so they can run their pumps and their tractors on hydrogen, and they're developing that further into anhydrous ammonia so that they're actually, through solar, producing their own nitrogenous fertiliser to grow the crops. This is the level of technology that we have now in the basin. Yet we have this base argument of, 'Well, we'll just take more water away from the north because they're wasteful and evil, and we'll let it run down.' How is the 450 going to be delivered without flooding the rivers in the member for Nicholls's electorate? How is it going to get through the choke points in the river? How is it going to get down the river without eroding the banks?

In my time, back when Senator Wong was the water minister, we saw the devastating impacts when water purchases are made willy-nilly. The purchase of the water from the Twynam Pastoral Company in the Macquarie and Gwydir valleys caused enormous economic hardship—not to the Twynam Pastoral Company; they took their $330 million or whatever it was and went off and invested it somewhere else. But the community of Collarenebri was decimated. From the biggest employer, 100 jobs went, out of a town of 500 people. I'd encourage those on the other side to come with me to Collarenebri and talk to the local people about what that means.

It's the same in Warren. Warren is a resilient town, and they're battling on. But the purchase of that water had an effect on them.

When Senator Wong purchased Toorale Station, west of Bourke, and the water that came with it, 100 jobs went out of Bourke. Because it became a national park, 10 per cent of the rate base of the Bourke Shire was lost. And that impact is being felt today.

We do need common sense in this. We also need to look at the modernisation that is continuing to go on. Farmers are deepening their storages. There's over-bank irrigation. There's the trickle or dripper system that the pecan orchardists at Biniguy, near Moree, have completely converted their plantations to—and I believe, in a previous life, the member for Nicholls was involved in that project. They're the sorts of things that we need to be doing to conserve water. It's such a valuable, valuable asset.

But we're hearing nonsense here—that the drought somehow is caused by the greed and avarice of irrigators. That's nonsense.

We've been hearing a lot in this place in the last few weeks about our Aboriginal brothers and sisters. I'd just point out that one of the biggest employers of Aboriginal people in my electorate is water. Okay? If we want to have a tokenistic Voice, do we want to take away the jobs that employ these people in a gainful way? I'll just leave you with that thought. They are the communities that rely on the river, not only for employment but for the social aspect of it. I represent Brewarrina, with the 60,000-year-old fish traps. They are very, very important to those people.

We want to make sure that everyone gets a fair share of the river, in a way that's practical. This is a political move. The minister has no skin in the game. And we need to vote against this terrible legislation.

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the member for Parkes, who's just spoken on this topic of restoring our rivers and the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023. He's a good fellow and he represents a large part of New South Wales. But, on some of these accounts—not on all of them, but on some—I hate to say it, but you're wrong, Member for Parkes.

As to history and getting a fair share: you don't have to have been in this place for over 20 years. I've been here for seven years. I'm not sure what the median term is for people who serve in this place. But I can tell you that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was brokered by a Labor government and was agreed to by Nick Xenophon, and it was brokered to try and break the stranglehold of disputes, over a century, on water. So, if we really look at this through a historical lens, this plan has been a hundred years in the making. It has taken a while to come to fruition. As with a lot of monumental changes, it does often take a lot of iterations to get correct.

In terms of getting a fair share and being fair dinkum about this plan: yes, there were mistakes made, but this plan was put in place to solve a decades-long problem. And it has taken a lot of work.

The member said that the current minister has no skin in the game and isn't fair dinkum about this. That is really patently untrue, and it's not fair.

We've all got to work together in this place to solve this intractable problem of water. We live on the driest continent on the planet. We have a lot of challenges.

As the chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, I do want to pay my dues to Australian farmers. They are some of the most innovative and thoughtful human beings, farming this country in environmental and sustainable ways. They provide food and fibre for all of us here in Australia—not just us here, but to other parts of the world as well. If you got up this morning, had your Weet-Bix and slipped on your shirt to go to work, it's odds-on that it was an Australian farmer that produced that for you, using our very precious water.

There have been incredible innovations. I can remember going down to the Murrumbidgee irrigation scheme, which is part of the Murray-Darling scheme, and looking at some of the government funded programs that had been put in place and helped eliminate water wastage. I've used a siphon, and there's actually a real technique to getting that water flowing with a siphon. We are hearing that, these days, with modern excavation techniques, we're able to use laser levelling to provide the water to travel over the countryside. This stuff is completely different, so we're doing away with a lot of that old irrigation. It will take a while to come in and it does take money to implement on farms, but these things are happening.

There has been a fair bit said about cotton. I want to speak on behalf of cotton. In the past it took a lot of water, and many people believed that it was wasteful. They thought about places like Cubbie Station soaking up millions of litres of water to grow cotton. But, again, science has come to the fore, and I would plead with anyone: science doesn't lie. Here in the House we've got the minister who takes care of science, and I'm pleased to be able to speak about this with him present. Through the science of cotton and the genetically modified cotton, boll 2, we have been able to change the way cotton is grown in Australia. It doesn't require the water. These days we are able to grow a cotton crop in Australia, harvest the cotton, grow a different crop and then put a flock of crossbred ewes over that. There's so much innovation happening that we really have to stop thinking like we did 20 years ago or 50 years ago about this. We have to give credit to our farmers, and I want to do that because they are embracing the technology. But they also know that we need to put a plan in place. Some of the irrigators in this have been absolutely terrific. They know that we need to share the water. The entire basin needs to share the water, and that's why I am particularly passionate about this.

Again, speaking about history, I just want to say that it was such a shame when the then Deputy Prime Minister, Barnaby Joyce, came out and said that, if the people of South Australia had a problem with the way in which the Murray River was operating, they should all move to where the water is. Clearly the Deputy Prime Minister of the time, in 2017, was a proponent of relocation, having done so himself to sit in this very chamber, but I can't attest to all of those people in South Australia having to move to where the water is. He has said in this place that there wasn't 'a hope in Hades' of that 450 gigalitres being delivered. Well, you know what? It is going to be delivered and it needs to be delivered. And it can be done in a fair and equitable way.

I want to point to why it's important, with another example. I've been dealing with, again, farmers who are working with science, and what they've come up with is an incredible idea, where they go to feedlots—40,000-head feedlots—take the manure, the putrescible waste, as it's referred to, and take the methane from that. They use that methane to power the feedlot, and in the future it'll power an abattoir. This is happening at Hay; it's being built now. Then what they do is run the remaining animal refuse from there and put it through industrial-scale vermiculture—worm farming. They then turn that into fertiliser, which is going to provide really fantastic bespoke fertiliser to adjacent crops. They're hoping to sell some of their water as part of the Murry plan, and that is going to provide equity so that they continue this project. They are fully aware of where the water's going to come from. I said to them, 'Can you afford to sell the water to make this successful?' And they said, 'Yes, we've done our planning.' So, when people talk about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and where the water's going to come from, I'd like to say that not all farmers and irrigators are against this. They can see the benefits. They can see how we couple science with modern manufacturing and how we value-add to our primary product.

This is the key in Australia; we have to make it here. That's where this plan and buying back this water is going to create such a difference for so many people. I am pleased that there are members from South Australia in the chamber, because they know how important water is, they know they deserve their fair share and they know that not all irrigators are against this—and irrigators are people who are innovative, and they know that they can make the most of the water that they have.

I want to continue on this issue. The Murray-Darling Basin is home to unique and ecologically significant wetlands. I was at AgQuip a few weeks ago, out at Gunnedah, another great part of New South Wales, as chair of the agriculture committee. I was wandering around between magnificent headers and all manner of agricultural equipment, and seed sellers. It was just magnificent. And who do I run into but the Office of the Inspector-General of Water Compliance. Inspector-general Troy Grant had stepped away to have a bit of lunch; he'd probably gone off to have one of those fantastic steak sandwiches that everyone loves at AgQuip. So Troy wasn't there, but I was speaking to his deputy. The office of water compliance are doing incredible work in really cracking down on how water is measured, how it is used and making sure it is not wasted in the Murray-Darling Basin. This is their role. They took over the role, and it's a statutory body. Troy Grant was in the Berejiklian government, so we've tried to be very fair about this.

This is so important. The Murray-Darling Basin region contains 70 per cent of Australia's irrigated land, and it also grows 60 per cent of our food. I've been working with the ag committee on a food security inquiry, and, I have to tell you, since COVID, food security has been something that is top of mind for many people in Australia. We need to keep our food secure. That's why taking a step back, looking at how we use this water and making sure it is used effectively is so important.

Usually in the ag committee when we do inquiries—and I've sat on the ag committee on and off for most of the seven years I've been here—we get between 50 and 60 submissions. We are sitting on just shy of 200 submissions for this inquiry. People are exercised about it—and not just the general public, although there have been many of them, but also our top peak bodies. The National Farmers Federation, irrigators, peak bodies that represent dietitians, and food manufacturers have all submitted to this inquiry. They know how important food security is. They know how important it is to have a steady supply of food not only for Australians but also for our South-East Asian customers.

So we get it. We know what we need to do. We know that there is so much forethought that needs to go into this. And the way we do it is by equitably sharing the water, by making sure that we don't waste water in the Murray-Darling Basin and by getting behind innovative programs like water banking rather than siphon watering. These irrigators know how to use water so efficiently. I was up at the Ord River only recently, looking at some of the modifications they're making. In a country like Australia, we understand water. Our irrigators and our farmers understand water. They know that it needs to be fair and equitable. They do deserve a proper price for water. And we have to ensure that water is used equitably to create food security, to create the export dollars and to create the jobs. This is why I am in favour of this bill, and I do commend it to the House.

I thank the minister, Tanya Plibersek, because, unlike what some of the opponents who have stood in this House have said—'She just doesn't get it'—in fact, she does. She's been getting it for years. She understands how this needs to be done. She knows it's got to be done fairly. We are taking into consideration the implications in our irrigation areas. We know that people in South Australia deserve to have water as well. So this is why it is so important.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does that include irrigators?

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolutely it does, yes. I'll take the interjection from the member at the table, who is, himself, from South Australia. If he was fair dinkum about this, he'd back this plan. He'd be working with his irrigators to ensure that they have enough water.

Yelling at me will not solve this issue. I have been talking to rural irrigators right across this country. Irrigators in the Murrumbidgee and across Australia know that we need to work with them, not against them, to put this plan in place.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unbelievable! You're killing them.

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's not unbelievable. What we're actually doing here is creating good legislation that talks to people and says: 'How can we provide enough water to you? How do we make sure we're food secure in Australia? How do we make sure we've got sustainability of the river? How do we adequately restore this 450 gigalitres? How do we ensure for future generations that there is a Murray-Darling Basin that our young farmers can grow in and that our children can enjoy? How can we actually ensure that we look after it?' How reprehensible would it be for someone in this place as a member representing South Australia to say that they do not—

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Representing irrigators?

Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You don't just represent irrigators. You represent all of the people in your catchment, who deserve to have water and who deserve to have adequate and fair use of not only an area that is very, very ecological but also an area where we do need to produce food and fibre. We acknowledge that. But what we need is sensible debate and we need good legislation. This Labor government is not into yelling at people. What we are into is working with them. We are into sustainable, science based, future-facing legislation that will not only help sustain those irrigators in the long term but provide all of the requirements that we need to ensure the river system is healthy and that people can continue to irrigate and farm for future generations ahead.

So I would implore the opposition to get serious about water and the Murray-Darling Basin, stop yelling at us across the chamber and come on the journey with us and their people so we can ensure their future.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What I find unbelievably disappointing about the Labor government and particularly Minister Tanya Plibersek on this issue of water is the fact that they are tone deaf and do not understand irrigation communities such as mine. Sunraysia is absolutely reliant on water. We have, in my patch, particularly in the Gannawarra shire, a situation where we now have a patchwork quilt. This is the history of buybacks, that awful time when buybacks occurred and when farmers who were doing it tough, as they do from time to time, decided: 'No, I just can't keep going. I have to sell my water so that I can live in retirement.' That has created a patchwork quilt of dead land right next to farms that are still irrigating.

The risk with the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 is that we will see our food and fibre production in Australia depleted and our overall value in horticulture and agriculture depleted. It is our regional communities that will be suffering. This is an awful bill. The key point about this bill is the fact that we do not have a socioeconomic neutrality test still in place. That was the saviour of the legislation before this new legislation that is being brought to the House. To remove that neutrality test of socioeconomic positivity for communities is a huge mistake. This bill tears up the bipartisanship that has been a feature of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, bipartisanship that has been a feature since John Howard announced the $10 billion water efficiency plan and the passing of the Water Act in 2007 that Labor seeks to amend today.

It's not just the lack of bipartisanship for a partisan Labor bill that the Greens are not supporting; worse still, even Victorian Labor are not supporting it. It is astonishing. It really is a miracle. Not only is the government trashing regional communities, but it is also trashing bipartisanship as well. The bipartisanship that has been a feature of the Basin Plan thus far carried through to when the coalition was in government, with the Nationals striking an agreement with all basin states to guarantee that neutrality test, the primary target of the buyback agenda Minister Plibersek seeks to push through by the end of this parliamentary year. That neutrality test was the safeguard implemented by former Labor water minister Tony Burke. At the time he actually understood what was going on and the risks that were being posed to regional communities. Now the new minister is dumping this central component of the Basin Plan.

Labor's intent to buy back annual water licences must be considered alongside how much irrigated agriculture or horticulture has already been sold in the basin. In a column in the Daily Telegraph on 25 August, the acting CEO of the New South Wales Irrigators Council, Christine Freak, stated that the Basin Plan had already removed 2,100 gigalitres from farming, on top of 875 gigalitres she says came out prior to the plan. People have always struggled to get their heads around the gigalitres and megalitres or the 'number of Sydney Harbours' of water I'm talking about here, but Labor has never got its head around the socio and economic costs of water surrendered by farmers.

In 2015, the then CEO of the National Irrigators Council, Tom Chesson, said in a Senate inquiry submission that the 'gross value of irrigated agricultural production across the basin was $1,135 per megalitre'. Eight years on, you can take that as a conservative figure and note that nearly 3,000 gigalitres of that has left production according to the New South Wales Irrigators Council. This equates to annual production losses of $3 billion—again, rounding down to be conservative. In today's money you could save $3.5 billion per annum in direct income. That's how far back the basin communities already are in direct income from irrigated agriculture and horticulture, without even calculating the indirect value-add component of local jobs and spending in local economies.

In my electorate of Mallee, the Mildura-Swan Hill region is expected to have a gross value of production in horticulture of $2.2 billion by 2029-30. We are on a great and positive trajectory after the damage of the millennium drought, but now this water minister wants to seriously compromise the projected growth in my electorate through buybacks.

The National Farmers Federation water chair Malcolm Holm claims the minister is in effect saying the new round of buybacks will exceed one-third of the remaining recovery target, which is close to 1,000 gigalitres. If the NFF are right and, say, 300 gigalitres were to be recovered via buybacks, there goes around $300 million to $350 million more in direct income from irrigated agriculture and horticulture, not to mention the indirect flow-on economic and social impacts to our local communities.

This is a point the National Irrigators Council made in 2018, and we in the National Party listened. Their submission to the Productivity Commission stated:

Assessment of water recovery as being 'cost effective' must take into account a full range of flow-on impacts and strategic value of targeted purchases. It should not be a simplistic assessment that only compares the dollar value per mega litre to the taxpayer.

They went on to add, quite accurately:

… such simplistic assessments ignore the flow-on impacts in communities, the value of future production and employment opportunities.

The Nationals and Liberals on this side of the chamber understand this all too well. Labor simply doesn't care because it holds zero seats in the basin. Sure, there's Adelaide, but remember the desalination plant federal taxpayers contributed $328 million towards thanks to the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd governments? It's been running at a reduced capacity ever since it was completed. In the most recent reporting year, to August, the desal plant produced 5.3 gigalitres, when it has the capacity of 100 gigalitres. Reportedly, it has run at no better than 10 per cent capacity since it was built, but I digress.

I think every sensible person in the basin accepted the need to extend the time frame of the Basin Plan. Some even said the plan was always adaptive. When the minister was first briefed on the Basin Plan, 18 months ago, she was told that the time frames were unrealistic. The minister has had 18 months in government to work with the states, as the former coalition government did, to deliver water savings without compromising the sustainability of communities along the basin. In fact, this government has gone out of its way to exclude their Victorian Labor colleagues. As I said, when news of the new Basin Plan deal first broke—and I say again here: I commend the Andrews Labor government for supporting our farmers. The Victorian Minister for Water, Harriet Shing, had previously said her government was opposed to buybacks, and they have stood their ground. Go them! And I don't say that very often. It is pleasing to see. The New South Wales Labor government, by contrast, has been far quicker to backtrack on the concerns about buybacks they raised in opposition. I fear that the Albanese Labor government's exclusion of Victoria from this agreement—you could argue this government is using standover tactics to get Victoria to the table—could mean that many millions of dollars in water infrastructure improvements are off the table for Victoria.

Nature has delivered us some reprieve from the dire millennium drought, which framed the policy development when the Water Act and the Basin Plan were created. I remember those years. Recent flooding has given the system a good flush, albeit with terrible consequences for the livelihoods of some, including in my electorate. It has to be noted, though, as my Nationals colleagues have been saying, that the flooding could have been mitigated with more water storage capacity in the system. Who would think? Sadly, though, the policymakers were too busy listening to the false prophecies of the likes of Tim Flannery and were scared off by the idea that we'd have more water than we'd know what to do with. Of course, the climate narrative has shifted—from global warming, when the plan was conceived, through to climate change, where extreme weather events were expected to become more frequent, to now what the UN Secretary-General calls global boiling. It's hard to keep up.

It will also be hard to keep up with how much taxpayer money Labor intends to spend to recover the additional water buybacks. It has been estimated that the amount of water to be recovered is equivalent to that of the entire Sunraysia district, in my electorate. Just imagine if every irrigated horticultural property in Sunraysia closed and sold up, if the water were taken away and the land became useless. The economy would wither as fast as the vines and the fruit trees. That would at least be more visible than the reality Labor proposes in this bill—the invisible devastation of growers exiting the industry again all across the basin. In the past, Labor have used the terminology 'willing sellers', in one of the great furphies of the buyback debate. I was thinking during the night: it's like saying that somebody who is going through incredible mortgage difficulty and has to put their house on the market is a willing seller. Who in their right mind thinks that is a reasonable approach? It's nothing but coercive.

Few growers are more distressed than the wine grape industry, which is prevalent in my electorate. I met with some of them recently. The oversupply in that industry and the impact of China's sanctions against Australian wine are still hurting. If this bill passes, Labor will go into that wine market looking for so-called willing sellers—those mortgage holders who are going through a hard time. Let's be clear on one thing: the government will pursue water sellers across the basin, in Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales and maybe even Queensland. The fact that Victoria isn't part of this 'deal' on the Basin Plan doesn't mean the minister is not going to come hunting for willing sellers in Victoria. The minister could perhaps come back to the House to clarify that. It seems to me that, wherever there's a willing seller, Labor will buy their water. Potentially leaving Victoria out of this deal could mean little or no infrastructure spending but full exposure to the buyback program alone—none of the benefit but plenty of the risk.

The NFF estimated late last month that they think the starting price for the buyback program will be $3 billion.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Four.

Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, my colleague says maybe $4 billion. Other estimates range from $5 billion to as much as $20 billion. A 2022 statutory review found it could cost $11 billion to meet the targets. Let's put this in perspective: amidst a cost-of-living crisis when Australians can well remember the brief vegetable price bubble during COVID-19, Labor's focus is not on the cost of living. Labor's focus is squarely on making good on the promise it made to voters in the Adelaide suburban seat of Boothby—and my colleague the member for Boothby is across the chamber—in early 2022, so it wouldn't swing back to the Liberals. That's where this 450 gigalitre pledge was made pre-election, not on the side of the Murray or the Darling rivers, not in Mildura, but in Adelaide with then opposition leader Mr Albanese beside the candidate for Boothby, who's in the chamber, former water minister Penny Wong and the newly minted Labor Premier Malinauskas.

Back in our regional communities like mine, in the electorate of Mallee, previous buyback programs left irrigation districts as a patchwork quilt, as I said earlier. The coalition's focus in government was more on water-efficient infrastructure because this meant irrigated agriculture and horticulture could continue. What a great idea! Our irrigators have become increasingly efficient, as I have noted from the previous speaker, and cropping techniques are getting the best value for the water supplied. But Minister Plibersek's patience has run out because South Australian Labor wants 450 gigalitres.

I have to say that it was astonishing to me that the minister made this announcement on the banks of the Torrens River in Adelaide—amazing!—not in my electorate of Mallee, not on the edge of the Murray, not at Barmah Choke, where there are so many issues. She stood in Adelaide, where her votes are, where Labor's votes are. For anyone to think this is not simply a political move, they haven't got a clue. This is absolutely political, and I'm calling the minister out on it.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak to a welcome piece of legislation for South Australians, the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023. We know a healthy Murray-Darling river system is good for the economy, good for agriculture, good for tourism and good for the environment. It's good for Australia. A healthy river system means it's healthy from the top to the bottom, and we in South Australia are, of course, at the bottom, downstream on the Murray-Darling river system. We are dependent on those upstream for water quality and water quantity, but our farmers, our tourism, our economy and our environment in South Australia are no less important than in the upstream states.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was conceived to provide fair outcomes for all. We simply cannot have a first come, first served approach to a vital resource such as water in this country. The implications are too serious for the economy, for agriculture, for the environment and for the very survival of downstream towns and communities, and we do need to be prepared for the inevitable next drought. In 2012 the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was enacted by a Labor government to achieve just this outcome—an equitable outcome that works for all states and protects us from the vagaries of drought. The Liberal-Nationals government were then in for a decade, and they did next to nothing. They delivered a measly two gigalitres in a decade—that is, less than two per cent of the 450 gigalitres of environmental water promised. Since being elected in 2022 the Albanese Labor government has added a further 24 gigalitres to that—that is, 24 gigalitres in just over a year compared to the Liberal-Nationals' two gigalitres in 10 years, so 12 times the amount in one-tenth of the time.

While I'm new in this place, there are many of those opposite that are still here from that last lost decade. They did nothing for the river communities, and they've particularly done nothing for those of us downstream, particularly those opposite that are from South Australia and directly representing those communities. The Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill is one of those pieces of legislation we wish we didn't have to propose, but it is a necessary piece of legislation to fix a decade of inaction by those opposite.

My friend Sally Grundy and her family run the last station in the Murray-Darling Basin. Mundoo Island Station is situated on three islands right at the mouth of the Murray, the most downstream of downstreams. Her husband's family have farmed this land since 1876, and Sally has fought a hard battle for the local environment for decades, as well as running the station. Sally told me about the importance of water quality and water quantity to downstream water users and the importance of a good environmental outcome along the Murray-Darling and particularly at the Murray mouth. Downstream users get all the accumulated nutrients and salts from the entire system, and so they need sufficient flow to flush this out to sea. This requires sufficient flow to keep the Murray mouth open, including in times of drought. To not flush it, to leave this accumulation of nutrients and salts at the bottom of the river, leads to disastrous economic, agricultural and social problems, in her words, due to the reduction in water quality. Salinity levels need to be kept below 1,000 EC, electrical conductivity, units to ensure water quality for stock and domestic use.

When we talk about domestic use of Murray water, it's not only those communities on the banks of the river that use the Murray for water; pipelines take Murray River water to Adelaide and as far away as Yorke Peninsula and Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, in the electorate of Grey, to provide water for domestic use. So, when those opposite talk about their concerns for the agricultural sector and rural communities, I would invite them to remember that the lower end of the Murray has agriculture and communities as well and that that agriculture and those rural communities around the Murray mouth—in the electorate of Mayo, the Lower Lakes, the Coorong; and the stretch further up to the rural city of Murray Bridge, in the electorate of Barker—also rely on Murray water.

Having worked for many decades in the local environment, Sally is passionate about ensuring the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is delivered in full. She knows how important it is for her local community and the agriculture sector. I discussed this bill with her. She was pretty across it anyway. She tells me that the slightly extended time line is warranted, considering the lack of achievement to date. The plan must be delivered in full. She supports voluntary buybacks. This should be an option on the table to assist in returning water to the environment. The environmental flows are not just for environmental benefit; they are important for maintaining water quality for agriculture and domestic use.

She points out that the Lower Lakes are often overlooked, and certainly the debate I have heard here in this place to date seems to largely ignore the Lower Lakes region. The river is the lifeblood for communities across the entire system but particularly at the lower end, where we are so dependent on the goodwill of those upstream. Sally is passionate about the local environment on and around the station—the unique Coorong, one of 16 internationally significant Ramsar wetlands on the Murray-Darling Basin, which are important particularly for the migratory shorebirds that arrive annually from as far away as Siberia and Alaska, needing healthy feeding grounds in order to return to their Northern Hemisphere breeding grounds. Regular surveys must be undertaken for endangered species, because, once they're gone, they're gone. She tells me that the yarra pygmy perch that they used to see around her station are no longer seen in the Lower Lakes.

So it is disappointing to me that those opposite, who profess to be so passionate about the Murray-Darling Basin, profess to be committed to helping the agriculture sector and rural communities, draw a line somewhere in the middle of South Australia and don't seem to care about those in the lower Murray communities and industries. However, I will point out some good sense recently from some South Australian Liberals. I'd like to thank the member for Sturt for his recent comments, reported in the Australian newspaper, that the 450 gigalitres of environmental water should be delivered, including through voluntary water purchase. And Senator McLachlan, in the other place, said it was imperative that we prioritise the welfare of our natural world by securing this water. Maybe the other members opposite, some of whom have been here for significantly longer than these two—and particularly those whose electorates cover some of these communities that will be affected by a dying lower Murray River—should look to these newer colleagues on this issue and see some sense.

It is clear that what has happened under the previous government, the Liberal-National government, has not been working. They were not doing the right thing by South Australia and those downstream that are dependent on the Murray-Darling system. Unlike the Liberal and National parties, Labor is united on delivering this plan. The original plan deadline was June 2024, and in the early years we were well on track to meet those deadlines. But the Liberals and Nationals spent a decade sabotaging the plan. They tied up projects with impossible rules so they couldn't deliver water savings. The former Liberal South Australian environment minister, now Leader of the Opposition in South Australia, rolled over and agreed to letting this happen despite the impact it would have on South Australia and particularly the important environments of the lower Murray. The Liberals and Nationals blocked water recovery programs. They tried to cut the final recovery targets to keep them below scientific recommendations, and as a result progress slowed to a dribble under the previous government. Because of this, it is now impossible to deliver the plan on the original timeline.

This legislation will rescue the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The legislation is important for basin communities and for every Australian who cares about the environment. At last year's federal election, I was there when the Labor Party committed to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full—congratulations for all of those people who recognised it was by the Torrens. With this legislation that we are debating, we are fulfilling that promise to the river system and to every Australian who depends on it.

On coming into government, a review made it clear quite how bad things had got under the previous government—that it would now in fact be impossible to reach the original deadlines. The minister has recently struck an historic agreement with the New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and ACT governments. It's a reasonable agreement, a balanced agreement, an agreement that took more than a year of detailed consultation to piece together. Our government has worked with states and territories, with farmers and irrigators, with scientists and experts and with environmentalists and First Nations groups.

What this legislation will do is give basin governments more time to deliver the remaining water based on expert advice. This includes the recovery of 450 gigalitres for the environment by 31 December 2027 and the delivery of water infrastructure projects by 31 December 2026. It gives us more options to deliver the remaining water, including water infrastructure projects and voluntary water buybacks. It gives us more funding to deliver the remaining water and support communities where voluntary water buybacks have flow-on impacts. Importantly, it gives us more accountability from Murray-Darling Basin governments on delivering the remaining water on time. Federal government funding will be contingent on achieving water recovery targets within deadlines.

This is about a return to common sense. It's about remembering what the point is—to ensure a healthy, sustainable basin for all of the communities for the future. This is a complex plan with a simple objective: to set the river up better for the future. This plan has been off-track for many years. Minister Plibersek recently received official advice that it simply can't be delivered by its original deadline of June 2024. Put simply, we want more options, not more restrictions. If the bill doesn't pass this year, the current legislation requires states to withdraw their unfinished projects, about half of them. This means a major part of the plan will fall over, incurring substantial costs and delays.

Delivering the plan is good for the environment, it's good for local jobs and it's good for communities. Our government made a commitment to delivering the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full, and that is exactly what we are doing. Remember, these Basin Plan targets were a bipartisan agreement more than a decade ago to support the sustainability of the river system. After a wasted decade, these challenges are now even more acute.

Australia is facing an environmental emergency. If we don't act now and preserve the Murray Darling, our basin towns will be unprepared for drought, our native animals will face the threat of extinction, our river ecosystems will risk environmental collapse, and our food and fibre production will be insecure and unsustainable. A healthy basin also means healthy communities. It means a river that families can enjoy, that promotes recreation and tourism and, most importantly, that provides clean drinking water to three million Australians every day. That's an important moment for basin communities and for any Australian who cares about the health of our environment.

We can never forget why Australian governments designed the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in the first place. We know the next drought is just around the corner, and that is why we have a Murray-Darling Basin Plan in this country: to help us through the dry years, to make sure there's enough water flowing through the river system at its lowest moments to make it to the next rain. South Australia is, obviously, at the bottom of the river, and Labor has strongly advocated for South Australia for many years about this, since well before my time in this place.

All I can do is urge my colleagues in this place and the other to support this bill. Remember why a healthy Murray-Darling Basin is so important, why we need the plan to be delivered in full. If you support agriculture, then I urge you to support agriculture downstream as well. If you support rural communities, then I urge you to support the communities downstream as well, including those that are dependent on drinking water from the Murray, even though they are hundreds of kilometres away on the York and Eyre peninsulas. If you support the environment, then I urge you to support the downstream environment, including the Lower Lakes, the Coorong and the Murray mouth. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is about a healthy and sustainable system for all, from the top of the catchment all the way down to my friend Sally at the Murray mouth. This plan is needed. I commend the bill.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, here we are. This is the point at which bipartisanship on the Murray-Darling Basin—pardon the pun—has evaporated. Until this point, we had both sides of the political spectrum in this country committed to a plan on the Murray-Darling Basin. History tells us that the basin has historically been over-extracted, so, as a nation, enlightened with that scientific reality, we developed a plan, which was about recovering water for the environment. The member for Boothby has just delivered what I can only describe as a typical metropolitan view of what the Murray-Darling Basin is about. I'll deal with some of the inaccuracies, because they're important, but the reality is that what the member for Boothby just spoke about was effectively the environment—about this plan being about the protection of the environment. It's a misunderstanding of the plan, with respect. The plan is about balancing the needs of the respective water users in the basin. It's about balancing production with the need to conserve important environmental assets.

Do you know what? What I've learned as the member for Barker, who represents the river in South Australia almost exclusively—with the exception of the member for Mayo, who has an interest around the mouth and Lake Alexandrina—is that you will never find stronger advocates for the environmental assets in the Murray-Darling Basin in South Australia than the irrigators who live on that river. Do you know what frustrates them? It's that they have to be lectured by the likes of the member for Boothby about a river system that they've lived on their whole lives and protected their whole lives.

While I'm talking about the member for Boothby, it's time for some home truths. The member for Boothby came in here and positively asserted that the former coalition government only recovered two gigalitres over its 10 years in government yet the Labor government has been able to recover 24 gigalitres in the 14 or 15 months it's been in government. That's interesting, because the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder—according to that search engine named Google, which presumably the member for Boothby has access to—currently, as of 31 July 2023, holds a total of 2.88 gigalitres. Sorry; I should say that's 2,888,695 megalitres. The reality is here that the recovery is well on track, and we're dealing with the 450 gigs of additional water.

It's important that we talk about additional water.

When this agreement was bipartisan, there was an agreement to recover 2,750 gigalitres with an additional 450 gigalitres, provided that we could do it in a way that met the socioeconomic neutrality test. What we're now seeing is that the Labor Party is going to remove that socioeconomic neutrality test. They're effectively saying: 'We're going to recover the water. Bugger the impacts for regional communities.' Well, I'm here to talk about those impacts and what they look like. Despite the fact that the Australian Labor Party during the last election assured people in my community that we wouldn't be using buybacks as a blunt tool to achieve this objective, here we are. I warned my community. I warned South Australians we would be in this position, and here we are.

So what does it mean? Well, South Australia's contribution to the target of 450 gigalitres will be 38 gigalitres. The Renmark irrigation district, before buybacks the last time, had a total allocation of 45 gigalitres. Today it's at 32 gigalitres. Water was removed the last time we did this, and there has been a series of other programs, which I supported, that were about maintaining production by having government provide capital in exchange for water savings, which were transferred to the Environmental Water Holder. That's the way you do this—you maintain production, you use less water with more efficient delivery systems, and you provide the dividend to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. It's a win-win. But I told you that the Renmark irrigation district's contribution is 32 gigalitres and South Australia's contribution to the 450 gigalitres will be 38. That's the whole of the Renmark irrigation district. Imagine sitting down with a farmer and saying: 'This land that you've invested in, this farm, this enterprise that you thought would be in your family for generations, for the grandchild that you christened, who you thought would be a citrus grower just like you—no; we're taking the water away.' An irrigation district without water is just a desert. Take the water away, and the people leave.

When this was done the last time, when buybacks were permitted—of course, we ruled out buybacks, or at least we capped them at 1,500 gigalitres, because we knew that buybacks kill communities—and the Renmark irrigation district went from 42 gigalitres, as an example, to 32 gigalitres, 30 per cent of the Riverland population got up and left—gone. I'm not suggesting that South Australia will make this contribution by simply wiping out Renmark and saying we'll move on. That's not what's going to happen. This recovery will be spread across those irrigation districts in my electorate, and it will impact the viability of all of them. The member for Boothby might well say, 'It doesn't matter; it's not my electorate.' It's really about winning the seat of Boothby for the Labor Party, isn't it? That's what this is about. But spare a thought for those irrigators and those communities. When you come in here and say that irrigators support this as good for horticulture, I'm telling you it's not.

Just as an example, we're talking about 50,000 to 70,000 hectares of prime horticultural endeavour. I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation before coming in here. It could be as many as 30 million orange trees. So those opposite want to save the environment by telling farmers they should pull out of 30 million to 35 million orange trees, pile them in the heap—because that's what happens—and set them alight. If you're not connected to the Riverland and you're not particularly passionate about irrigators in this country or, like those opposite, you hate farmers and farming, spare a thought—

I withdraw it.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. The member for Lalor.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the member to withdraw the imputation.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I already have. Mind my passion on this. I withdraw it. The member can probably understand my passion, given what farmers in my electorate are about to go through. They are about to be shunted off their land.

If you don't care about those farmers then spare a thought for those consumers who are going to walk into supermarkets and be confronted with a wall of produce—fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts—courtesy of jurisdictions overseas. That's the reality here. Those opposite talk a really strong game about Australian made, but what about Australian grown? And by the way, you'll be lucky if you can afford those fruit, vegetables and nuts because, of course, they will be much more expensive. That's the pure reality.

I want to spend the time I've got left asking something of the South Australian minister for the environment. The South Australian minister for the environment, unlike the Victorian minister responsible in this space, hasn't done any modelling of what impact this will have on South Australians. The Victorians have done that. That's why they're opposed to this approach. They say that it will increase the cost of temporary water by $72 a meg; that it will cost the Victorian agriculture industry about $400 million. That's every year, each and every year—$400 million. That work hasn't been done in the South Australian context as the South Australian minister for the environment champions this cause.

I'm going to ask something of the South Australian minister. Through you, Mr Deputy Speaker Goodenough, I want her to make a commitment to South Australians that none of this water will come from South Australia. You see, the Australian Labor Party wants South Australians, particularly in South Australia, to think that this is a zero-sum game for South Australia, that all of this water can be recovered from those horrible nasty irrigators in New South Wales and Victoria, and perhaps Queensland. If that's what the South Australian Labor Party believes, make it thus. Give us a commitment that none of this water will come from South Australia. Protect South Australians who, like the member for Boothby acknowledges, are at the end of the pipeline. Give South Australians that comfort. I would welcome that announcement. So my challenge to Minister Close is to reassure South Australians that they're not about to lose Renmark and, indeed, the whole of the Riverland irrigation districts by removing this water from them. Take it from those upstream states.

My personal position, and this is why I am opposed to the bill, is that we should only do this if we can recover this in a socioeconomically neutral way. There are programs like 3IP, where farmers were offered capital in return for the water savings that capital delivered. If I can deliver water to an orange grove in a more efficient way and save water by using that technology, and that cost can be borne by the Commonwealth, then in return the Commonwealth can have the water saving. That's how you deal with this challenge in a way that doesn't kill communities.

The alternative is the option that those opposite are taking—that is, coming into a community that is suffering desperately because of low commodity prices and getting them to sell you their water. And by the way, once that water has left the consumptive pool, let's call it the irrigation pool, and been placed in the Environmental Water Holder's hands, it can never go back. It will never be used for production ever again in this country. So while those opposite want to talk about food security provenance, you can't do it without water. So instead of working with irrigation communities to make their enterprises even more efficient and offer up the dividends to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, we have a circumstance where they're going to come into communities and purchase the water from what they say are willing sellers. I encourage the member for Boothby to go to the Riverland and talk to red-wine producers. They're the kind of willing that comes with utter desperation. It's akin to saying to someone who had to sell their home and is now living rough on the streets, 'Oh well. You were a willing seller.' It's disgraceful.

While I'm here, can people stop using the argument that we're prepared to sell water to foreign investors but not to our own government. The reality is we want this water to remain in the consumptive pool. We want it to sustain river communities just like we want it to sustain the environment. The very people who irrigate from this river are the people who were working on salt interception schemes before the Murray-Darling Basin existed. These people care about their communities. They're connected to the land. When our Indigenous brothers and sisters provide a welcome to country, I listen. They talk about their connection to their country. My irrigators are just as connected to their country. The difference is that this government is going to walk into their kitchen-dining room, offer them a cheque and tell them to pack their bags and leave. It's a sad day for Australia.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

State disputes about water in this country date right back to before Federation. Indeed, if one looks at some of the debates that occurred in 1898 before Federation, I understand that, in the last section of those debates, nearly a fifth of the time was spent debating the very water issue that we are debating today, and it was predominantly a debate between South Australia and the eastern states. As a result of that debate, we now have section 100 of the Constitution, which says:

The Commonwealth shall not, by any law or regulation of trade or commerce, abridge the right of a State or of the residents therein to the reasonable use—

and I stress the words 'reasonable use'—

of the waters of rivers for conservation or irrigation.

The words 'reasonable use' were included as a compromise at the time of those debates, and they now appear in the Constitution. The reality is that the disputes over water were never resolved. They continued ever since that time, and they continue today in this chamber.

In 2007, when I was elected to this place, the dominant issue for South Australians, in addition to climate change, was the state of the river Murray. I can well recall the photographs of the dying lakes not just in South Australia but right across the river stream into the eastern states as well. River communities were undoubtedly decimated, as were environmental assets. In fact, in South Australia, the Lower Lakes became mud and nothing else. Food production and livelihoods were also, in many cases, actually put to an end because people had to sell their farms in order to survive. Some went broke and others managed to hold on. In addition to that, businesses in all of those communities were struggling to survive, and many of them closed down.

I know all that not only because I actually have a lot of friends in those country towns but because, more importantly, when Labor was elected in 2007, we started looking at what we could or should be doing as a government to follow up from the 2007 Water Act that the Howard government had introduced to try to rectify these problems. Labor also then said, 'What's the next step from here?' In 2010, there was an inquiry commissioned by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia. That inquiry included 12 members of parliament: six government members and six non-government members. All of the non-government members came from regional communities across Australia, particularly those that had an interest in the Murray-Darling Basin system. The inquiry not only went to just about every community along the Murray River but, more importantly, also heard evidence from a whole range of experts with respect to what we should and should not be doing. The situation was dire.

In the end, the inquiry came up with 21 recommendations. There was no dissenting report on that inquiry, and the 21 recommendations are still there for all to see. And, quite frankly, from listening to debates in this place, nothing has changed. You could do the same inquiry and I suspect you would end up with the same recommendations. It was that inquiry that was the precursor to the 2012 legislation that then went through this parliament. Again, whilst there was some disagreement at times, ultimately all the parties that had an interest in the river Murray agreed to the 2012 legislation, including to the 450 gigalitres that South Australia had asked for.

With respect to the 2,750 gigalitres that was originally the amount that was meant to be returned to the Murray, even that figure, on the basis of the expert evidence that we heard throughout the inquiry, was considered to be the bottom-line figure. It wasn't the real figure that most experts suggested we should be returning. It was a bottom-line figure that was reached—again, as a compromise—to try and come to a deal with the eastern states. That is the basis for the legislation that the Basin Plan was built on and that this government is trying to now reinstate.

In 2018 the South Australian government, as a result of abuse of the system in the eastern states, where water was effectively being stolen, established a royal commission to look into the river Murray system. Sadly and disappointingly, the federal government did not participate in that royal commission. But the royal commission, headed by Bret Walker SC, nevertheless did its work. Now, I don't know how many members in this place have read that royal commission report, but I can say to members that I did. It is the best analysis of the problems with the river Murray system that I have ever read. It sums it up perfectly, after a year of inquiry and listening, again, to both growers and experts right along system. Richard Beasley, who was the lead counsel, has since then made several comments about the state of the basin and so on.

Instead of members coming into this place and just expressing a point of view, here we have an inquiry report from this parliament and a royal commission report of 700 pages, with its 44 recommendations—which I suspect very few people have ever even read—that should guide us with respect to how we manage the river Murray. The state Liberal government at the time also tried to brush off the royal commission report and push it to one side. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan had been neglected from the intent that it was meant to serve back in 2012, so much so that, when we had the drought along the Darling system in 2019, when we saw millions of fish dying in the water—this was outside South Australia, so it's got nothing to do with South Australia. But the river system was collapsing before the waters even got to South Australia, because of mismanagement. We had the Academy of Science prepare a report with respect to all of that. I suggest to members that perhaps they read the report from the Academy of Science because again it goes to the very heart of all the issues that we are trying to address right now.

The reality is that the Murray-Darling Basin is far too important to mismanage. Three million Australians rely on its water, and products from it go right throughout Australia. Forty per cent of Australia's agricultural land is within the basin. There are 2.3 million people who actually live within the basin. Then there is something like $11 billion of tourism spending and a billion dollars of recreational fishing that are all attributed to the Murray-Darling Basin area.

On top of that—and this is important—there are 30,000 wetlands, 16 of which are World Heritage or Ramsar listed wetlands.

There has also been for years now the loss of animal and plant species that were threatened because of the droughts and because of the overuse of the River Murray waters. The reality is that overallocations did take place. They took place predominantly in the 1980s and 1990s in the eastern states. Those overallocations have to be brought back—that is, the water has to be brought back—because the reality is you cannot take more water out of a system than what flows into it. It's as simple as that. And if you do not return that water then the whole system ultimately dies.

People talk about the Lower Lakes. All too often, I hear people talking about the Lower Lakes as if that is the only draw on water. The Lower Lakes is one part of the system, and it is only one part of the system. In 2007, both the two major lakes, Albert and Alexandrina, were drying up and the fish were dying. The Coorong was so salty that fish simply couldn't survive within it and we had to have dredges every day trying to open up the Murray mouth in order to get some fresh seawater into the system.

The truth of the matter is that, when Labor lost office in 2013, the Murray-Darling Basin Plan was abandoned. That is the reality of it. Members opposite can deny it all they like. In fact, we had attempts by National Party members in this place only in recent years to actually try and dismantle the Murray-Darling Basin system. Fortunately, those attempts failed. But the reality is that the commitment to the plan by the last coalition government was simply nonexistent.

The reality is also this: if the system dies, it will not just be South Australians that miss out on water; it will be everyone, right throughout the basin. So having a healthy system is for the benefit of everyone in this country. This legislation tries to do that. It tries to do that by listening to the expert advice of the scientists that we have engaged along the way for the last couple of decades, by listening to the expert advice of people who live along the system and by trying to reach a manageable Murray-Darling Basin system that everybody can live within.

With respect to this legislation, yes, it restores the commitment to the plan and, yes, it restores the 450 gigalitres of additional water that was added to the restoration of the river, but it also does a lot more than that. It actually ensures that the water market itself has some integrity. Quite frankly, that has been one of the problems with the system. Not only is the water market something that personally I have had very little confidence in; the truth of the matter is that even the water market was abused. We saw when they were in government the coalition members were pretty choosy about who they allowed sales to take place for. There was some water sold under the buyback system, but have a close look at who sold it and who bought it.

The legislation also extends the time frame under which we hope to restore the waters to the system—again, giving everyone time to get the system under control. I do accept the arguments put by those opposite that communities will be affected. But, for those communities, there has been additional money put aside to try and help them recover from the impacts that the water buybacks might have on them.

I say this with respect to even the water itself. Members talk about irrigators going broke and not being able to provide for the rest of the nation and exports and the like when water is taken away from them. The water that comes into South Australia does not come in at the Lower Lakes end; it comes in at the border with Victoria. It services the whole South Australian Riverland region. The South Australian Riverland region produces 30 per cent of Australia's wine crops in addition to so many other horticultural products. It's a key part of South Australia's agricultural production. If the River Murray system is not restored, it'll be all of those growers who'll also miss out. I say this as someone who has spoken with some of those growers and spoken with a person who not only was a grower there but was given the job of assisting other growers with how to survive during the drought period. It is important for those people in South Australia's Riverland to ensure that this plan is put into effect and that the river is sustainable, because if it's not they also lose out.

The last point I'll make about the water buybacks is simply this: water trading is already allowed to happen. The truth is, once water trading has been introduced, it's not up to the government to decide who sells and who buys water. It is a free market. Anybody can do that. If willing sellers want to sell their water—either because they have invested in irrigation efficiency measures and have a surplus amount of water or because they have changed their crops and have a surplus amount of water—they should be allowed to do so. That will not affect those communities. That is a choice they make because they no longer need the water. If by some chance they simply want to get out of agriculture because they've reached the retirement age, again, it's their water. It's their right, just like it is for anyone else who owns property in this country, to buy and sell whenever they choose. With those comments, can I say this legislation simply restores what this parliament and the nation—because the state premiers agreed to it in 2012—back to what it should be, and that is a Murray-Darling Basin Plan that is sustainable.

Debate adjourned.