Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

We have been in this debate for a long time so I will try to be succinct. The first point is that when the Howard government announced their $10 billion plan they did not allocate money for structural adjustment. The second point is that we do believe that the taxpayer, through this program, should assist in restructuring the basin.

We believe that the best way to assist communities with this challenge, and I do not deny the scale of it, is to invest for the future—to ensure that irrigation communities get the benefit of some $5.8 billion of investment funding for investing in more efficient water use and in infrastructure that enables irrigators to do more with less. Not only have we committed the $5.8 billion in our first budget but, through the COAG process, a total of just under $4 billion has been committed towards basin water infrastructure projects. This is an unprecedented commitment to the basin by a federal government. Of course, nothing like this was ever delivered by Mr Turnbull, as minister.

After 12 years of failure, inaction and delay by the previous government, we are acting on the Murray-Darling issue. We recognise that it is a huge task, not just for government but for the communities, for the reasons I have just outlined to the chamber. I have also explained that we are continuing to consider and monitor the rollout of the purchase program, but it is the case that currently the primary economic and social impact that we see in communities in the Murray-Darling area is not a result of the purchase program. It is a result of the fact that these communities are struggling with a long-term reduction in allocation. Senator Nash might not agree with that, but if you go to these communities you know that. Senator Nash also ignores the fact that when we purchase water that money does go back to communities. It goes to those irrigators who choose to sell to us. Some of them do choose to exit, I accept that. But some of those irrigators also choose to utilise those funds for other investments and make other choices with those funds. So we do think that this is the best way to secure the future of these communities in the face of what is an enormous challenge, and I do not pretend that this is not a huge task. I acknowledge that we have a long way to go, but what we are doing is making progress. We will continue to ensure that we obtain information about the impact of these reforms across the basin. As I said, the government has asked the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics to consider these issues so we can monitor their impact on these communities.

It is the case that the government, in the context of the intergovernmental agreement, has agreed to consider assisting states and there are provisions for further assistance if it is demonstrated that communities are severely and adversely affected by basin water reforms. So of course these are issues that we will consider. But I very much believe that the best way forward here is to ensure we spend a very substantial amount of money in the basin to drive the efficiencies, because that economic base is the best way of ensuring those regional communities continue to thrive.

I will address Senator Xenophon’s amendment after he has moved it; it is, I think, an amendment to this amendment. But, for the reasons that I have outlined, we do not support this amendment. What we see, again, is the opposition putting up something that they were not prepared to do in government. They were not prepared to put this in their legislation and they were not prepared to make a transparent funding decision as to proposed structural adjustments.

My final point is this: I do not know if the opposition have a policy on how they would cost this and which part of the current $12.9 billion Water for the Future plan they say should be directed to this. Perhaps Senator Nash would say that we should spend less on water purchases. That of course would be contrary to what they tell the South Australians. Perhaps Senator Nash would say that we should spend less on infrastructure. I would have thought irrigation communities would not want that decision to be made. So there are consequences to the approach that Senator Nash is proposing—consequences that they did not face up to in government that they now want to put through a parliamentary process. In short, we believe the best way of dealing with the challenge that we face is a very substantial investment in more efficient water use and infrastructure, enabling irrigators to do more with less so that we can continue to secure the economic base of these communities in the face of climate change, drought and overallocation. We have put out a range of programs to that effect. In addition, we will continue with the water purchase for the reasons we have outlined and we will absolutely continue to monitor the impact of water reform and water purchase programs on regional communities.