Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

What an absolute fuddle! That was amazing. That just took the cake for the fuddle for the day. The Labor Party’s policy of returning water to the Murray-Darling Basin is to build a pipeline from the Murray-Darling Basin to another basin and ultimately have it run out to sea via Melbourne. That basically encapsulates the Labor Party policy. This bill, the Water Amendment Bill 2008, is Labor Party policy. They have spent $50 million and, in real water terms, I think they have got themselves about 849 megalitres. That is Labor Party policy. Labor Party policy is to buy Toorale Station. I think they purchased Toorale Station for $23.8 million—and no-one inspected it. No-one went to have a look at where the Australian taxpayers’ money was actually going. That is Labor Party policy.

These are the sorts of ideas that form the retinue of Labor Party management—whether it is Fuelwatch, GroceryWatch, spending half our surplus in one fell swoop in one night, or spending $23.8 million of taxpayers’ money on a property that no-one ever turned up to have a look at. Of course, what we have really got is the purchase of good intentions and beautiful thoughts but no water. They have not actually purchased any water. And that is a bit of a problem when you are trying to return water to the Murray-Darling Basin. The idea is that you should be buying water—not ideas, not potential. They are buying lots and lots of potential but no water.

One of the major problems they have also taken on board is that, as they go about this sort of arbitrary purchase of water licences here and there, they put at threat the communities which those water licences are built around. There is a serious concern—not so much for the people who get to sell their water licences but for the people who live in the fibre and iron or the weatherboard and iron who are left behind in the regional towns after the water licences go. What exactly do they do? There is nothing in this policy about the Labor Party’s plan for a fair and equitable outcome for the working families who are left behind by Labor’s arbitrary decision-making process. Nothing happens there. What happens if the people of Dirranbandi, St George or Bourke lose their water licences? What is this? Is this part 2 of the Sorry statement: we go to communities—and, in many regions, Indigenous communities—and take away the crux of their income-earning capacity by taking away the water licences of the area? The issue which has not been approached in any way, shape or form is the issue of how we actually deliver a package that is fair and equitable to all concerned in this water debate.

There is nothing in this legislation that deals with what I believe is the elephant in the room, and that is how to get water from another system into the Murray-Darling system. If that does not happen, there is going to be no solution. They will spend the money—do not worry about that; the money will go—but, at the end of this expenditure, if there is any sort of outcome at all, it will be a very minimal outcome.

It seems to be politically incorrect these days to actually grasp the nettle and say, ‘What about the prospect of moving water from the gulf down to the Murray-Darling Basin or using the potential of tidal power from the Ord to move water to other sections of the land or the potential of creating a stimulus package?’ or to say, ‘If you can’t move the water, if that is all too hard—if engineering accomplishments of this nation are something that now belong in the past; if, after the Snowy Mountains Scheme, we just do not have the capacity to think about a substantial engineering project to alleviate the problems that are apparent—we are going to have to move north the people who grow the food.’ Is there any plan towards that? No, there is not.

I hope the reality of the situation has finally dawned on people. I grew up near Tamworth, on one part of the Murray-Darling; I lived at Charleville, on another part of the Murray-Darling; and I currently live on the river—I can see it from my front veranda—in St George, on another part of the Murray-Darling. But so often the whole system is seen as just lines on a map. We lose about a gigalitre per kilometre in evaporation and seepage when water flows along the natural course of the river, which is a natural earth channel. If we want to fix water issues at the south of the river system, then we have to find solutions that are proximate to that part of the river system. We have to look at such things as the re-engineering of the Menindee storage lakes. More water evaporates from the Menindee storage lakes when they are full than the whole of Queensland uses. That is something that should be screaming at people if we are trying to alleviate some of the problems at the lower end. We have to acknowledge that putting water into a charged system—putting water into a system that has water at one end, is uninterrupted and has water at the other end—has an immediate effect. That is completely different from putting water back onto a flood plain, where it will just seep in, or putting water into a wetland area, which might have great environmental benefits but from which there are no benefits at the bottom end of the river.

We need to look at these issues and have an honest appraisal of them. If you are going to purchase water thousands of kilometres away from where you want it, the reality is that it is not going to have an effect. You are going to expend the money but it is not going to have the effect that you want, if what you want is to get more money down to the mouth of the Murray. There is so little support for the north-south pipeline. It is such lazy engineering. Instead of desalination or stormwater recycling from Melbourne, the apex of engineering thought comes from taking the water from where it is in paucity and moving it to another area where there are alternative sources you could get the water from. This does not stand to reason. I hope this chamber rejects the whole concept. It makes a farce of the whole Labor Party approach if one of the cherries on the cake for the Labor Party’s water policy is to move 75,000 megalitres out of the system down to Melbourne. It shows that they have completely lost sight of what this is about.

They say, ‘We’ll get the savings from where the water comes from.’ I will believe that when I see it. How often do these things become just ideas? I will bet London to a brick that, regardless of whether there are savings or not, the water will be ripped out of the Murray-Darling system and moved down to Melbourne—regardless of anything that has happened. I do not for one minute countenance the idea that they are going to build a pipeline and not use it. They are going to use it whether there are savings or not, and that will be to the demise of yet another food-growing area. What is the effect of that for the Australian people? The effect is upward pressure on food prices and food inflation.

The Labor Party, because they now have the carriage of business around here, have to get smarter about how they do business. They need to have an honest an appraisal of some of Labor’s state policies, such as the tree clearing legislation in Queensland, which acts as a barrier to the development of the gulf. They have to acknowledge a moral responsibility to feed not only our own nation but also those around us. We have to acknowledge that 24 per cent of the water that flows off the Australian continent flows through the gulf. Where is our food bowl there? Where is the Labor Party policy—that could have been part of their $10.4 billion profligate waste of money—that would have returned a dividend to the Australian people as well as dealing with the water issue and encouraging people to find a tangible solution?

Let us say that the climate has changed and we are now in an eternal drought. If that is the case, then it does not matter how much money you spend buying water that is not there; it is not going to fix anything. If it is not there, and you believe that to be the case, and you believe that to be the case in perpetuity, then buying nothing creates nothing—no matter how much money you throw at it. The Labor Party need to have the bravery to think outside the box, and I just do not think they have got that capability. I do not think it is in them to say, ‘We’re going to have to look at the engineering projects to move the water from where it is in abundance to where it isn’t.’ They have not even suggested it. For them it is politically incorrect. It is beyond the Labor Party’s capacity in their designing of tax policy to say, ‘If we can’t move the water, we’re going to have to move the people.’ It is beyond the Labor Party’s capacity in their relationships with the states to say to Queensland, ‘You’re going to have to change some of your wild rivers legislation, because we are going to have to facilitate the creation of a new food bowl to take into account the possible demise of the food bowl that is in existence in the Murray-Darling basin’—if they truly believe that the weather has changed and they really want to be sincere and honest in that statement.

If the Labor Party truly believe that there is global warming and that the weather has changed, then surely that would be an indicator that they are going to have to make some hard decisions. But if you look at their policy statement, you will see that they want it both ways. Senator Feeney says, ‘They’re all environmental sceptics over there. They don’t acknowledge that the weather has changed. They don’t acknowledge that the climate has changed. That is why we are going to take 75,000 megalitres a year from where it is not and move it down to Melbourne.’ It is an oxymoronic statement that is completely implausible. You cannot have it both ways. If that is your belief, then start tabling for us the engineering projects that are going to move water from where it is to where it is not. And put some faith in the Australian people. If you are suggesting that we are going to have a major engineering project to move water from the gulf, or from the Ord, for the creation of new food bowls, the Australian people will actually back you, because you show some vision. But the Australian people are on to these bells-and-whistles shows of getting big amounts of money and shuffling it round and round and round in circles until it ends up in the arms of consultants, schemes, ideas and committees but never ends up in an outcome.

I premised at the start that so far we have already spent $50 million. Think of that as sealed roads. Think of that as hospital beds. Think of that as schools. Do not let the words ‘$50 million’ just roll off the tongue. Think of what that money could have been used for. With that $50 million they have bought 849 megalitres of water. To be honest, that would be suitable for a very small farm in St George. That is a very profligate and expensive way to do business.

Once more, they have said that things are going to get better. They are not going to get better when you spend $23.8 million on properties at Bourke that you never bother visiting. They are not going to get better if that is how little respect you have for money. They are not going to get better when you spend $8.7 billion in one night, on 8 December, while you still do not have the money to get the Australian Navy out to sea over Christmas. When that is the type of management you have, when that is the type of process you have and when that is the fiscal responsibility of the so-called economic conservatives, then Australia has a serious problem at hand.

There will be certain amendments to this bill that I hope will be supported. It will be up to the Labor Party then to act on one major issue. Their whole process is flawed, but let us take one issue as an indicator of whether the Labor Party are fair dinkum or not. If this north-south pipeline goes ahead, then we can take everything they say as being a load of rubbish. We will know from that that in an academic, economic and engineering sense these are very lazy people who cannot get their minds around a complex solution to a complex problem. If this pipeline goes ahead it will show in spades that the future for the Murray-Darling Basin under the Labor government is dire. If this policy goes forward and the government do not give any thought to how it is going to affect the regional communities, if the government go forward with their policy of buying up water licences, arbitrarily going into remote districts of the western parts of the states of Queensland and New South Wales without any thought as to what happens to the community after the whole basis of their economy has been lifted up and taken away, we will know that their social policy is also very lazy.

I go back to the start of the Labor government. The start of the Labor government saw the apology to the Indigenous community. You cannot apologise on one day and then go into their communities and take out their economy on the next. You cannot have it both ways. You have to go back to those communities and deliver some long-term economic future for those places. If you do not do that, you start to look like you are all bells and whistles and totally hypocritical. The reason for that is laziness and an inability to drill down into your own policy agenda and look at the possible outcomes and ramifications of what you bring before us.