Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Fawcett for his question. As he mentioned, the government is establishing a northern basin taskforce and that taskforce will be charged to ensure that we better recover water from the northern basin and that we do so in way that is better managed than that of, particularly, the former government.

It is in the context of the northern basin review, which was reported recently, and also the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's recommendation, that the water recovery target in the northern basin be reduced as a result of that review. That review found that the water recovered in the basin so far had had a tremendous impact on jobs, employment and the communities of the north. That review found a particularly big impact on a town called Collarenebri in my colleague Senator Nash's state. I remember driving through Collarenebri four or five years ago. I stopped and got something at the local store and got talking to them. They said they were absolutely devastated and that their whole community had been devastated. The gin had just closed. It had just closed after Senator Wong—while she was minister for water—had bought back over $300 million of water from one company, and that had led to devastating impacts on the town. That is just an anecdote. But in this basin review from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority they said for Collarenebri the recovery of water occurred some time ago and—and this was just reported last month—that:

The reduction in total employment from the recovery of water is estimated to be around … 21% in Collarenebri.

A fifth! Now the people of Collarenebri do not get much of a voice here in this chamber very often. But just imagine for each one of us if we went back to our communities and a fifth of the jobs were not there next week. Just imagine the devastating impact that would have in your towns and your communities. That is directly what happened because of the recovery of water, according to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority. That is the impact and the devastation that were caused by the decisions of the former government. That is what is happening in those towns and communities. They deserve those impacts to be reported to this place.