Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

To understand the Nationals' confused, contradictory and weak behaviour over many years, let's step back to their predecessors, specifically former Leader of the Nationals and Deputy Prime Minister Mr John Anderson. He was presiding when the Water Act was passed in 2007, appeasing the globalists. He was presiding when the coalition government stole farmers' property rights and went around the Constitution to do so, appeasing the globalists and stealing from the farmers. He was presiding when the carbon trading scheme was first put out as a policy by the Liberal and National parties—the first policy for a carbon tax—appeasing the globalists. He was in power when the Renewable Energy Target was introduced, when the National Electricity Market was introduced and when the privatisation of electricity assets was stimulated—all to appease the globalists. He was in place when they introduced carbon farming, which increased neighbouring farmers' costs because of feral animals and weeds, appeasing the globalists. Basically to appease the globalists, they destroyed agriculture and the regions.

The common factor in all of these is a contradiction between the policy and the empirical scientific data. It's a contradiction of science, a contradiction of reality and a contradiction of the truth. Look at coal, for example, which is very important to the regions. We took the lead. Senator Hanson and I were the first to support Adani. We went to them to ask why they were being delayed. We were the first to push coal-fired power stations. The first to raise Collinsville.

While we were doing that, recently we saw the Western Australian Liberal leader, now defunct, going to put policies that were more green than the Greens and more destructive than those of the Greens. I put it simply: many Liberals in this place are simply Greens who favour not taxing multinationals. That's the distinction with the Greens. The Nationals use One Nation words and policies, yet support Trent Zimmerman's globalist policies. They follow the globalists. They follow the Liberals. Senator Hanson and I have exposed the Nationals' dishonesty and gutlessness. The core message from Mr Barnaby Joyce's leadership vote is that Australia—cities and regions—needs more One Nation MPs to continue pressuring the Nats. Without us, they kowtow to the globalist Liberals. There's been five years of our presence and at last they're starting to change. Remember Senator Mathias Cormann? When I repeatedly sought the basis for his climate and energy policies, he never replied with data but always with the term 'fulfilling global commitments'. Now he's head of the globalist institute called the OECD.

The core issue in this debacle that has become the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is shoddy governance and dishonest governance that is not in the national interest. That's the ultimate reality and the core. Good governance needs data and teeth. Let's talk about this bill specifically, now that we have the context. Specifically this legislation creates the office of the inspector-general who will be responsible for policing, among other things, water trading. How can this office police water trading without a register of water trades? Well, he can't. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is being blamed for environmental damage to the Murray and Goulburn rivers caused by sending water through for water trades at times when the river would not normally host such high flows. The Barwon-Darling system is perpetually dry, when local First Nations people reliably tell us that the river carried flows eight years out of every 10, so only dry in two years out of every 10. Recent critically important data shows that water inflows into the basin are only down by less than 10 per cent over the last 20 years. It's entirely natural.

The culprit here is not climate variability; it is much more simple. The culprit here is water mismanagement by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. The culprit is terrible governance. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority tried to blame the environmental damage on a sand slug, sedimentation from gold mining 150 years ago, making its way lazily down the river and reducing capacity. This ludicrous sand slug theory is suggesting normal volumes of water is causing massive damage, because the sand slug is making the river more shallow, increasing water velocity and causing scouring of the banks. The information that we need to make better decisions is not available, so how the inspector-general is going to do his job properly is beyond me.

We don't have data on how much water is being taken in illegal flood-plain harvesting in northern New South Wales. It seems to be hidden. We do not have volumetric data on all the inflows into the basin or at the critical outflow point of the barrages in South Australia. We don't know how much water is being diverted away from the Coorong and Lake Albert in South Australia by the man-made drains built for that purpose. Restoring natural inflows of both surface and groundwater into the Lower Lakes is probably enough to complete the plan. We don't know how many water trades are conducted. We don't know how much water is transferred from one zone to another without any accuracy.

Today, I will be introducing an amendment to implement a requirement of the Water Act to maintain a transparent register of water trades. This provision of the Water Act has been there for 14 years. The council of water ministers approved a water trading register in 2008. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority made an attempt to introduce such a register in 2009. By 2012, they had spent $30 million, and still no water trading register. Then they gave up. What a perfect example of the poor performance we have seen out of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority under both the Liberal-Nationals and Labor. I hope the inspector-general can shine a light on the criminal behaviour, self-interest and cronyism that has reduced the Basin Plan to a nonsense, a nonsense that is destroying people, communities and farming. We must get the bad players out of the basin so that those 99 per cent of honest and decent farmers, irrigators, administrators and water authority staff can get on with fixing this mess. So I welcome the government's legislation, which my amendment makes better and gives the inspector-general data and teeth.

I've talked in the past about the seven steps that we'll be taking to fix the Murray-Darling Basin. But we're giving notice that in the next couple of months, we'll be introducing a comprehensive water policy based upon weeks of flying over the Murray-Darling Basin followed by trips on the ground to listen to people at mass community gatherings. The water register is needed. We need to give the inspector-general and people across the basin data. A key step to restoring sovereignty and good governance in this country is this water register. So we will be supporting this bill and then moving the amendment.