Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, I know she knows I know her name: Senator Fisher. I have some very serious concerns about this whole debate. The answer given by Senator Faulkner really leads us to the crux of this problem around Toorale Station. The purchase of Toorale Station shows such a lack of strategy and such an ad hoc approach that it is representative of the entire approach that the government is taking towards the situation with water around this country. I agree with my colleague Senator Hutchins when he referred earlier to ‘taking the politics out of this’. To my mind, there is no bigger issue at the moment for this country than water and how it is managed. Taking the politics out of it is very difficult because, as colleagues in this place know, we sit on either side of this chamber, as in the other place, and there are varying views.

Today I would like to talk about the impact that decisions like buying Toorale Station have on regional communities. We talk a lot about the situation with water around this country. We argue backwards and forwards across the chamber and through the media, but we have to remember that this is about people. This is about people who live in communities. It does not matter whether they live in Adelaide, Melbourne, along the Murray or anywhere else in this country that is dependent on water because it is those people that are being affected by our decisions—the decisions the government make and the decisions that we try to get them to make or to change as the opposition. It is an absolute responsibility that we get that right because those people out in those communities need us to make the right decisions.

Where this gets incredibly difficult is that it has not rained. It does not matter how much policy we put in place, how many determinations we make to change policy or to do things differently—it has not rained. And around the country we collectively have to understand how important that very simple statement is. Mark Twain once said, ‘Whisky is for drinking and water is for fighting over.’ We have to stop fighting over this and put some practical, sensible policy measures in place. We have got to stop arguing about whether or not CO2 is causing climate change. We have to accept that the climate is changing, regardless of the reason for that climate change.

I am very concerned about the lack of planning and strategy that we are seeing from the government in terms of how their policy decisions are going to affect communities—not only rural and regional communities but also those metropolitan communities at the end of the line, if you like. There were references before to a committee, which is running an inquiry at the moment, commenting on the fact that there is a lack of information about the social and economic impact that is going to be brought on rural and regional communities as a result of the decisions on policy being made around water. And Toorale is a classic example. Around 100 jobs are directly being lost. The local community up there is going to be significantly changed in how it operates and, indeed, whether it is sustainable. And yet we have seen no investigation from the government of any kind on the social or economic impact on the community. And yet they have made an ad hoc decision to buy Toorale Station. There can only be some major implications. As I understand it, the government did not even go there to have a look, to actually see. They are working from some kind of evidence or advice provided. They have not even been to have a look.

So my absolute concern is that this strategy is ad hoc. We have seen recently a $50 million water buyback by the government, which effectively bought airspace in dams. I understand that we need to be concerned about the environment. We all are. There is no-one more concerned about the environment than farmers. I can tell you that now. It is their livelihood. It is how they live; it is how they make a living. I did notice that in one of the answers before concern was expressed about the impact on the environment of the pipeline in Victoria. There was no mention of impact on farmers and regional communities! I implore that we all work together on this but I argue that the government is going down a path of ad hoc strategy which needs to be fixed because there are significant life-changing ramifications for those people who particularly live in our rural and regional communities right across the country.

Question agreed to.