Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise very briefly tonight to speak on something that occurred today in the other chamber, where proud coalition members from Murray-Darling Basin communities moved and second motions that disallowed a legislative instrument. It was an instrument which the previous minister, Minister Butler, the Minister for Environment, Heritage and Water—in a cheap political act one day before the federal election proper started—introduced. I speak of the legislative instrument whereby the critically endangered category included the whole Murray-Darling Basin: the River Murray and associated wetlands, floodplains and groundwater systems from the junction with the Darling River to the sea. As for the scope, the number of communities and the number of businesses and farmlands that were physically encapsulated by that had an entirely new set of environmental regulations and designs overlaid on them as a result of this cheap political trick by the former minister. So I think it is great news for the 10 million Australians that live and work in the Murray-Darling Basin, who produce our food and raise their kids there, to have that taken away from them. I think of my own state of Victoria, where over the last number of years we have come to terms with the conversation around the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and its impact on our capacity to grow food and balance the needs of the rivers with the needs of the community. So to be 'using' these communities again and putting another onerous layer of green tape on people that just wanted to get on with the business of growing the great produce that they do right through Murray-River communities, particularly in Victoria, was just another blow to these communities that have seen drought and flood in recent times and also the uncertainty that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan conversation brought within those communities and that they had thought was over. So I stand with the New South Wales Irrigators' Council, who were championing this movement over in the other place, and similarly with the National Farmers' Federation, who were making very clear the desire of producers and communities to get rid of that extra layer of tape.

This government is serious about decreasing regulation without sacrificing environmental standards. This goes to some of the commentary that Senator Fifield was making in the previous debate around aged care, that somehow the opposition thinks that this relationship is between quality—or in this case environmental outcomes—and the amount of red tape and green tape. It is simply not the case. Similarly, later this week I look forward to when we can work with the states to ensure that we do get bilateral approval and assessment processes under the EPBC Act so that communities and businesses can deal with one set of regulatory framework rather than multiple sets without decreasing environmental standards and outcomes. I think that is an important thing to reiterate, that that is what we actually need to happen.

I want to share with the chamber today some of the commentary from the stakeholders that are involved in this. I think that Tom Chesson from the National Irrigators' Council is very pleased. He bemoaned the fact that farmers were not actually consulted when Minister Butler rushed this critically endangered instrument through, despite the explanatory statement that was lodged with the instrument stating:

A draft conservation advice was placed on public exhibition, and public comments were sought as required by the Act.

You would think that if you were going to overlay over these communities and these productive spaces you would actually talk to the irrigators—there are a fair few out there across the Murray-Darling Basin. The fact is that the act requires government to seek public comments and public commentary, and yet the former minister had not even talked to the National Irrigators' Council when he launched this legislative instrument. How typical of Labor. They will be the first ones in here tomorrow complaining about the government, but they were the ones who did not consult. They made policy on the run, and this is an absolute corker of an example. I am absolutely rapt that Mark Coulton and Andrew Broad and I think Angus Taylor and—help me out colleagues—