Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I do know, Minister. I remind you that I am in fact an environmental lawyer, so I am quite confident in my familiarity with this arrangement. It is 9½ billion litres of groundwater, which is almost as much as all of the other local users—most of them agricultural and farming—combined. They don't have to pay. It's free. It's unlimited. That is precisely why we are in the predicament that we are in. You cannot say that giving free water to a big coalmining multinational company, while the region is drought declared—and the minister wasn't here; I remind him that 65 per cent of our state is drought declared—is a good decision. That is exactly why we are moving an amendment to point out that the decisions to give a free ride to the fossil fuel industry—not just on their taxes, on subsidies for cheap diesel and on accelerated depreciation but on free, unlimited water, which nobody else gets—fundamentally undermine the utility of this so-called Future Drought Fund. I hope that, on that basis, we will receive support for our second reading amendment when I move it. And I'm sure the minister also knows this, although it predates his time in parliament: in 2011 an irrigator had their licence application rejected in the very same region that Adani have now had a 60-year unlimited groundwater entitlement given to them.

I want to move onto the surface water that Adani has also gotten a very nice, cushy deal on from our state Labor government. They've got a surface water licence of 12½ billion litres per year to extract water from the Suttor River. That licence was actually granted without public consultation, because again our state government gave Adani a free ride. Even though it was tightening up the water laws for everyone else at the time, it made an exception for Adani. So, 12½ billion litres of surface water from the Suttor River—again, that region is suffering from crippling drought. How can you stand here and say that you are trying to tackle the drought when you have no climate policy, when you're giving subsidies to fossil fuel companies and when other government regimes—I acknowledge this is the state government—are giving free water to those same fossil fuel companies that are not only depriving the farmers of that water but are also, when their product is burnt, exacerbating the conditions that will worsen the drought, not to mention all of the other climate impacts. These are impacts that not only our land managers have to face, but we all have to face. The sheer hypocrisy of this situation is really getting a bit boring.

The other thing that we found quite concerning was the approach that was taken with this bill. I accept that an earlier version of this bill was tabled—when was it?—in November last year, but it has been significantly changed since then. Of course, it has been expunged from the Notice Paperand reintroduced—we're in a new parliament; we've had an election since it was introduced—and yet this bill in its current form, with those changes that have been made, was only introduced to the House yesterday morning. It was rammed through the House yesterday—I understand Labor were a bit cross about that yesterday, but apparently they've changed their position on that today—and it's been brought to us today. And here we are now; we're talking about it. It has been just over 24 hours, and yet this government expects this bill to be passed without proper scrutiny. I'm sure they won't even consider any of the amendments that we'll be moving, even though our amendments go to actually tackling climate change, which could help us to reduce the severity and devastation of future droughts.

It just feels to me like this government is trying to be very performative—it's desperately trying to wedge the opposition—and it seems to have forgotten that it's actually here to govern the country. Now, we have very different views about how it should be doing that, and that's fine, but you've actually got a job to do. It would be useful if you started to pay attention to that, rather than just scoring political points off your opponents: making them squirm, ramming stuff through, making them backflip. They're always going to backflip; we see that time and time again. We kind of expect that now. We get that. It's very damaging when you treat this institution with such little regard. The cut-off order exists for a purpose. The rule that you can't ram a bill through in a sitting chunk exists for a purpose, and yet you've just thrown it out of the window. This bill was rammed through the House yesterday, and now you want to ram it through the Senate. We think that's not good process.

We've put up amendments that we think would strengthen this bill. They go to having a proper climate policy. They go to not giving a free ride to those water-guzzling fossil fuel companies. They go to the greater transparency measures that my colleague outlined, which would actually give this chamber more oversight over the particular projects that were to be funded from this fund, but we don't have a terribly good track record of getting support for our sensible, measured, well-thought-through amendments. I don't expect we'll get a lot of support for them this time around either, so all the more reason to have a proper process for this bill, so it could be scrutinised, so the opposition party could at least have a proper chance to send it through their caucus. They were rightfully concerned yesterday that they didn't have a chance to do that. I'm not quite sure why they've changed their mind and why they didn't object to exempting this bill from the cut-off order this morning and ramming it through. I think there was an abrogation of process there.

But here we are. We have a bill that will hopefully provide some support to farmers, but it won't start flowing for 18 months, it won't tackle climate change and it won't tackle the deep unfairness of mining companies getting free water while farmers in that very same region are struggling. Farmers are having to tighten their belts and are wondering where their water is going to come from while Adani gets a 60-year groundwater licence and a 12½-billion-litre licence for surface water. Seriously, what more can we give to this company? What on earth are you saying to those farmers when they are desperate for an explanation as to why they are not getting the water? I don't know what it is that you're saying, because I know that Bruce Currie, one of the farmers, was very distressed about the inequity, as quoted in an article that I have just here:

It's bloody-minded and barbaric.

He's a grazier who lives in the region, whom I have met over the years in my role as senator for this state. He said:

This is going to definitely impact on the integrity of [the Great Artesian Basin].

I don't see legislation here to address the threats to the Great Artesian Basin or the drawdown from the overallocation of free water to mining companies. I remember one of your former colleagues, who has left us now—in fact in the first inquiry I was involved in when I started in this chamber in 2011—called for protection for the Great Artesian Basin.

Senator Sterle interjecting—

I'm not too sure that you should be proud to be opposing protection for the Great Artesian Basin, because that is what that Senate committee inquiry recommended. We have seen zero action on that. It has been eight years and there has been nothing to protect the Great Artesian Basin. I do think that these farmers and land managers are a bit cluier than you give them credit for. They are pretty cross that their entitlements are getting restricted when mining companies have free reign.

By all means rush the bill through—we thought it should follow the proper processes but it seems that no-one actually minds so much about what the proper processes are any more—but please consider supporting these very sensible amendments which would make sure this parliament can have proper scrutiny over not just the broad plans but the actual projects that are sought to be funded. That builds on the amendments of the former member for Indi, Cathy McGowan, in her time in the other place. This amendment notes that you are just going to undermine any sort of genuine drought response by continuing to turn a blind eye to the free ride that the big fossil fuel companies are getting when it comes to water.

I thought the National Party were meant to represent farmers. They keep taking a whole lot of donations from fossil fuel companies in recent years and they're nowhere on this issue. People deserve representation. Everyone, no matter what political background they come from, deserves to feel like they have a voice in this place. I'm very saddened because the bush are feeling abandoned. I hope that the National Party do some soul-searching and try to remember whom they initially said they were going to represent, because the farmers that I meet with are deeply concerned about climate change. They can see the impacts of it not just on their water supply but on the fragility of their land and the severity of the bushfires.

Minister Canavan knows this—his own backyard was affected—yet we still have no decent climate policy. I don't know how often members of the government meet with climate scientists—and I don't expect that particular members of the crossbench who don't accept the climate science have any meetings—but I urge the government to genuinely consult with the expert climate scientists and get a real handle on what we can expect is going to be wreaked on our lands, our precious environment and our communities if you continue to do very little, an inadequate amount, on climate change and if you continue to subsidise hand over fist the very industries that are fuelling this problem and are worsening and deepening the droughts. You've backed the wrong horse. You really have. It is not fair that we have billions of dollars in subsidies going to coalmining and coal-seam gas companies when farmers are struggling, when species are being sent to the wall with the extinction crisis that is already under way, when half of the reef has been bleached.

These are not just social and environmental impacts; these are also economic impacts. I would have thought that the government, though they clearly don't care much for the social or environmental impacts, might be moved by the economic impacts. So, please, I urge you to do some genuine consultation with climate scientists, in particular those who know about the impact on water. Sadly, in that 60-year unlimited groundwater licence that Adani was handed by the Queensland state Labor government, the modelling did not take into account the climate impacts on groundwater and water generally. It was not required to because, evidently, our laws are so incredibly weak. That is a gross oversight. We don't lack scientific advisors, but it seems the government and our state government lack the will to actually listen to them. I urge support for the second reading amendment, and I formally move that at this point.