Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

And they are supporting upstream irrigation by big agribusiness. We want some security that this funding isn't about helping out big corporate irrigators but is about delivering real water efficiency and real land rehabilitation, so we'll be moving amendments to ensure that the drought minister is properly consulting with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and that the arrangements and grants from this fund are properly compliant with the Water Act.

Finally, we need to be very clear about what this proposed $3.9 billion is for. Yes, there's $100 million going to drought resilience, but that $3.9 billion will be invested in a suite of securities and financial assets. It would be so deeply cynical and ironic if that $3.9 billion, which is designed to generate a self-sustaining $100 million a year drought resilience fund, was in turn investing in the very companies and body corporates that produce the fossil fuels that create drought. The Greens have previously called for divestment from fossil fuels and the tobacco and arms industries across all of the Commonwealth's financial investments, but this is such a clear-cut starting place. How can you not support the concept? It would just be astounding if this Senate thought it appropriate for the Future Drought Fund to invest in fossil fuel companies. To supplement this we believe the investment mandate of the Future Drought Fund should be a disallowable instrument. We must counteract this trend that we're seeing—that is, more and more use of delegated instruments and taking power away from this parliament and putting it in the hands of the minister.

These amendments are sensible; they follow the principles of accountability of the executive to parliament and proper community consultation. They make it clear that you don't need to lay waste to our infrastructure portfolio to fund drought relief. They ensure that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is protected from further wrecking by the National Party, and they make clear the principle that the very fund designed to ensure drought resilience should not be investing in the companies that are causing the climate crisis.

We hope that Labor support these commonsense amendments. But it's hard to hold much hope in them any more when they seem to be rolling over for the government at every opportunity. I mean, they said they were against the government's tax cuts and then they voted for them. They said that Australia needs to act on climate change, yet they voted with the government on a motion supporting opening up the Galilee Basin. Labor says that Newstart payments are too low, yet they voted against the Greens' motion to raise the rate of Newstart by $75 a week. Labor said they were against this bill but then they voted with the government in the House, and we just heard Senator Gallagher saying that Labor are not going to stand in the way. What has happened to Labor's principles? Where is their backbone? What is the point? Labor, it's not your job to facilitate the government's agenda. Yes, you lost the election, but millions of Australians voted for you to represent them. Millions of people voted for you in what is now obviously the vain hope that you would actually do something, that you would actually stand up and stand by your principles. Labor, you said that you weren't happy with the bill and that you didn't want the funding to come from the Building Australia Fund, so let's work together. Support these Greens' amendments to fix the big problems with this bill and to get that money to the farmers who need it.

I say: yes, let's create a national drought fund but not a giant slush fund for the drought minister and the Nationals to continue to prop up their mates in big agribusiness, not if it means ripping out nearly $4 billion from our national infrastructure budget, not if it means ripping up the Water Act and the Murray Darling Basin Plan and building giant new dams for the upstream cotton industry and not if it means creating a new investment stream for coal and oil and gas companies. We can do this; we can create a proper drought fund with proper oversight, and we can make the fossil fuel industry pay for it. Our amendments are sensible. They make important and nuance changes to the bill, and I call on the Senate to support the Greens in holding this government to account and ensuring that we don't exacerbate this truly awful drought blighting our country by once again handing the National Party a blank cheque.