Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on this bill, the Water Legislation Amendment (Inspector-General of Water Compliance and Other Measures) Bill 2021, and these amendments. There is probably no other topic more important in Australia than water and water management. It doesn't matter whether it's in the Murray-Darling Basin or the north of Australia, water is the thing that we all have the most interest in. But water management is a very different thing when you're on the ground in those communities, compared to when you're sitting in an office in Canberra or possibly even trading water, where it becomes an economic asset that is a very highly valuable product. It can drive communities that rely on water assets to the very brink.

Senator Canavan has already touched on the removal of farmers and agricultural workers from the Murray-Darling following the buybacks of water. This is devastating to those communities. It was always a central tenet of the development of the Basin Plan that there would be a measurement of the socioeconomic impacts on Australians. There has to be a balance on these things. As we know, the best environmental outcomes are only achieved when communities are thriving and successful.

The buybacks, particularly in the kind of patchwork way that they have happened, the piecemeal way that they have happened, mean there are some farming communities that are no longer viable or are struggling to put together the infrastructure and support that is necessary to support industries—cotton gins, farming processing, the kinds of repairs and maintenance that are needed for tractors and heavy machinery as they operate in those systems. So the practical result of the discussion that we're having is enormous impacts on farmers. It is devastating to hear the impact on dairy farmers who have not been able—

Senator Patrick interjecting—

Senator Patrick, I will take that interjection, because you are not interested in farmers. You are only interested on focusing on certain parts of the community, so I'm here to talk about the people who have the least voice of all, who are the people in the agricultural industries and the farmers who grow the food and fibre, who keep our communities vibrant.

Senator Patrick interjecting—