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

I also seek to take note in this debate. After listening to the contributions this morning, I would note that I am probably the only person in this debate who was actually in this place at the time of the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, when in 2012, under the former Labor government, the basin states signed off on a plan to achieve a triple bottom line. Do you remember the good old triple bottom line? You still included the economy and how it affected humans, and you brought in consideration of environmental outcomes. I've seen this plan roll out in the communities that I represent—those in the southern basin, obviously, but also, to a broader extent, National Party communities right throughout the eastern seaboard—and it hasn't achieved the outcomes that were sought. The environment has been favoured, shall we say, over the economies, health and future of rural and regional basin communities.

The fun fact is that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan wasn't Moses coming off the mountain with a couple of tablets, words carved into stone never to be changed. The 10 commandments back then are still the 10 commandments today, but the Basin Plan was meant to be adaptable and flexible, because we knew then that we didn't have the data and information available to be prescriptive—to pull numbers out of the air, really, in many cases—about what the environment really needed, what the irrigated agricultural sector needed, et cetera. The reality is that, as we have rolled out the infrastructure projects and gotten better with our technology and our metering of waterways, we're getting a lot better data. And we're realising—to Senator Roberts's point—that we may be watering environmental assets at a really bad time for those assets. I have been on the ground in the Barmah Forest. What is happening there is a tragedy: wet-rooted gums in a country where the trees haven't evolved to have wet roots. Because of inappropriate application of the plan, we're seeing negative and unintended environmental, social and economic impacts across the board. So I would call on all basin states to remember that the Basin Plan was to be adaptive, and not to be evangelical and fundamentalist about how the plan is rolled out.

We've been highlighting, in regional Victoria, a whole lot of issues in the recent past: the conflict of interest for unregulated water brokers; the few rules there are to guard against behaviour that manipulates water prices; the fact that well-resourced corporate entities are gaining unfair advantage over family farms by manipulating the complexity of the water-trading market—and that's not just me saying it; it's the reality, the interim report, recently handed down, of the ACCC's review. The different regimes within basin states makes it very difficult for irrigators to ensure that the market works for them.

The expansion of the almond industry has had a hugely detrimental impact on delivering existing entitlement. In the debate today you might have heard about natural constraints such as the Barmah Choke. Trying to get deliverable water somebody has a share for down the river to be used in irrigated agriculture has been put under incredible pressure because we have allowed unmitigated development of almond plantations downstream of the Barmah Choke. That's why we have been calling for a moratorium on those developments until we can understand the impact. The Victorian state Labor government has done the right thing and put a moratorium on it. But that means the South Australian and New South Wales state governments are now allowing those developments to go ahead. State basin ministers could act right now to stop these developments occurring and putting untold pressure on deliverability for existing entitlement holders, and I call on them to act in the interests of our communities out in regional Australia.

This is complex. It is very opaque. We need to make sure the market is fairer, more transparent and better regulated, not just for the environment but for the over 9,200 irrigated agriculture businesses in the basin. The basin is home to 2.6 million people and produces billions of dollars worth of fabulous food products that we export around the world. To prioritise environmental assets over human outcomes, as has been happening over the last eight years, I think, is a great tragedy.

We have heard a lot about the potential issues of oversight, et cetera. It's not just the Senate. I'm a great believer in the Senate holding the executive to account. We have all had great examples of how that's occurred. In our democracy, it's not just this chamber and our committees that can hold executive government to account. The fourth estate, the media, has a fundamental role in actually ensuring that the public debate is well informed. I am reminded throughout this debate of an article Aaron Patrick wrote for the Fin Review which I think really highlights the importance of that. It is topical on this particular issue but also on the importance of the media. It's entitled, 'Soggy "scandal" doesn't hold water'. The article outlines how distorted the debate has been publicly. There were claims on Twitter: 'Tomorrow is a big day for transparency and accountability in our biggest river system'. They're talking about the acting Auditor-General finishing examining this particular issue of the $3.1 billion program. I'll quote from the article:

Instead, acting auditor-general Rona Mellor, who is accountable to Parliament, not the government, concluded the opposite:—

This wasn't a hidden smoking gun—

Joyce was kept in the dark by his department on key facts, the prices weren't above commercial valuations, and the scheme—which was driven by environmentalists—has obtained almost all the 2075 gigalitres of water targeted to revive wetlands and bird sanctuaries in Australia's most important river system.

Mellor's conclusions received cursory coverage, unlike the original watergate story.

Here we have a journalist actually doing his job: reporting the facts and not letting emotions and perceived political motives—being an activist, shall we say—override, but actually reporting on the facts and ensuring that the public is kept informed of what the acting Auditor-General actually had to say about this. I commend the media for continuing to do this.

I have been here since the Labor Party implemented the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and their management of water and water recovery has been incredibly damaging to our community. Remember the Swiss cheese effect?

We had water being bought out by the Labor Party Senate leader, Senator Wong—when she was water minister—in horrific volumes for an outrageous amount of money. There were stranded assets as water was purchased here, there, everywhere—no strategic intent. We're still dealing with the fallout of those purchases that long ago. She made the largest water purchase ever: $303 million in the Murrumbidgee.

It was the Labor government who embarked on a campaign of damaging direct water purchases from our irrigators. There is a litany of responses. Our government has commissioned a piece of work by Robbie Sefton on the socioeconomic impacts of these buybacks on our communities. It is clear. It is unequivocal. We know it because we live there. It is tabled here in the Senate that it has had a significant detrimental impact on people's lives and livelihoods. You can't ignore the data. You cannot take any more water from our irrigated agriculture communities. The 450 gig will not be coming from our farmers. It will not be coming from the southern basin irrigated agriculture communities. Enough is enough. You have taken enough. There will be no more. We're unapologetic about standing up for our regional communities and what they do best, which is produce fabulous clean, green food.

We're calling for the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to be split into separate entities, scrapping the 450 gigalitres of water recovery. We're calling for no new extraction licences to be issued unless we can actually guarantee there's no increased risk to existing entitlement holders. State governments need to get serious about that.

In the southern basin we are very concerned about the flood plain harvesting practices in the northern basin, which Senator Roberts touched on, that do impact on flows through the system. We need to get serious. As the inspector-general for the Murray-Darling Basin plan outlined in his report, we need to meter that properly. We need to get the data and understand what's happening, because there is a lot of mistrust, and rightfully so, through basin communities about the role of governments in how this plan has been implemented.

In the ACCC interim report, that was handed down recently, there were no surprises there to basin communities. There were no surprises in its recommendations and further work plan on what's actually needed. We need to regulate these water brokers. We need to understand what's happening with foreign ownership of our most precious asset: water. We need to make sure that we have improved transparency.

I want to see regional communities grow, prosper and thrive, and they cannot do that unless they have access to water. It's that fundamental. We need to make sure that as we roll out a plan, that all state basin ministers agreed to in 2012 and the federal government at that time—under Kevin Rudd I think it was, but who can be sure, as it did change a lot back then—signed up to, that it actually delivers on its intent. It was not ever meant to be a plan only for the environment and only for South Australia. It is a plan to continue the productive capacity of regional communities right throughout the Murray-Darling.

Question agreed to.