Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I think it's worthwhile going back to the beginning of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Let's remember what was going on when this plan was introduced. Australia was in the grip of a drought that had been running for many years. We saw the Murray-Darling River system vulnerable and dying. This was a river system that was dying. It takes something to get John Howard coming to the aid of the environment, but at the time things were so dire and so catastrophic that Prime Minister John Howard pledged $10 billion to get the states together to prepare a new system to guarantee enough water to try to secure the health of the Murray-Darling.

Then in 2009 it started to rain and the drought broke. Of course, the short-term thinkers on both side of politics thought, 'Bewdy, problem solved.' The idea that we might enter into drought again did not occur to them. The denialists in the coalition, those within the National Party and those in the pocket of big irrigators decided not to uphold the original principle, which was to ensure that we had a vibrant, living and healthy river. They again fell captive to the short-term thinking that dominates our political system. We squandered the opportunity to set up the communities that rely on a healthy river over the long term. We lost that opportunity. We are now more exposed than ever before because it won't be long before the next decade-long drought comes along, with more ferocity, more severity, and causing more damage than we've ever experienced.

The scientists surveyed the whole basin and said that, if this were to be a healthy river system and if the river system were to survive for the benefit of future generations, the environment needs at least a minimum of 4,200 billion litres. Of course we then got into an auction. That auction was effectively a race to the bottom. The offer from the Labor government scaled it down to 3,200 gigalitres. It was again revised down and presented to the parliament, and we ended up with 2,750 gigalitres, which again was approved by both sides of politics.

In one of the first hearings of the South Australian royal commission it was clearly and comprehensively put that the policy is 'a fraud on the environment'. The river will continue to die. It has been deprived of the water that is needed. We have ended up with not a plan to save the river but a plan to consign the river to a certain death. This bill—the Water Amendment Bill 2018, which was stitched up between the Nationals and the Labor Party—is going to make the fraud even worse, because even 2,750 billion litres is not enough. What we're going to see is it further reduced by another 675 billion litres down to just over 2,000 gigalitres. That's less than half of what the science is saying that we need to keep our river networks alive—less than half. If we compare the aspirations from when this plan was first announced to where we are now, there's no conclusion other than to say: this is a failed plan, dominated by vested interests that will consign the river to die. The environment has lost out and those irrigation communities that depend on a healthy river have lost out. But do you know who has won out of this? The big cotton irrigators upstream have won. The river's dying.

I have to say, Senator Leyonhjelm, it is remarkable that a man who is trained, notionally, in a scientific profession could completely misunderstand what is going on when it comes to the Murray in South Australia. The river's dying from the mouth up and we're relying on dredging in the Coorong year in, year out rather than putting water down the river where it's needed. Our institutions have been corrupted. The institutions who oversee this plan have presided over floodplain water theft, occurring in plain sight. Ninety-five per cent of the system is not needed. We're seeing water that's saved through infrastructure not going back to the environment, despite the fact that those things were promised. We have fraud charges that are expected to be formally laid against Norman Farming, one of the country's largest cotton farmers, which is run by John Norman, father-in-law to the water minister. That is why John Howard at least had the sense to never let the Nationals be in charge of water.