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

As always, Senator Birmingham has a particular spin on something. This is not just a transparency measure; it is a legislative instrument, which can be disallowed in this chamber and which seeks, ahead of time, to set targets on a decentralised basis. Frankly, it demonstrates a misunderstanding of the nature of the irrigation investments that the government is currently working on.

First, there are the state priority projects, the detailed proposals for which are at various stages of being developed and submitted to the government for due diligence assessment—and I have been very clear publicly that they will be subject to a proper due diligence process. My expectation is that these proposals would include details of achievable on-farm and off-farm water efficiency savings that can be realised from the projects and the time lines over which these savings would be achieved.

One size will not fit all. A project in the Riverland is necessarily going to be different to projects in some of the Victorian regions or projects in some parts of New South Wales. The sort of central-planning approach that the coalition is suggesting really does not understand the realities of the ways in which these projects are being brought forward. It is reasonable for projects, in any arrangement for funding, to have clear requirements. It is our expectation, if projects satisfactorily pass the due diligence assessment stage, that obviously the Commonwealth would enter into contracts with project proponents and that those contractual arrangements would include issues such as water recovery targets; conditions on the distribution of water efficiency savings between environment, irrigation and other purposes; as well as time frames. That is a responsible approach. The amendment essentially seeks that the Commonwealth mandate targets and time lines ahead of receiving all project proposals from the basin states and from private irrigation corporations. We do not believe that is an appropriate approach.