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

Thank you very much for that assistance. It is important that somebody speaks for those with the least voice. They are doing the job that is the most important, not just for Australians but for a good part of the world, which is growing food and fibre in the most sustainable way. I would ask you to reflect on what has happened in the cotton industry, in grains, in dairy, in the beef industry, where we are seeing the kind of innovation in the practical development of crops and animal production that uses less water and that is highly efficient and sustainable, and we should be proud of that. We should encourage that, rather than taking away the very resource that makes it possible for them to operate in this land. Talking to dairy farmers who have been pushed out by the increasing competition for water is just heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking to hear of those people who, over generations, have developed herds that have had to be sold off for replacement crops, mostly almonds, which make delicious nut juice. That is one of the products that has now come out of the competition for water.

During estimates, we had a whole day on water, particularly on the Murray-Darling Basin. There was a lot of talk about on-farm efficiency programs, and again I would ask people to reflect on the very practical result of being on-farm and what this means. There are not just measures about usage on-farm but better efficiencies of flows—making sure that streams are clear of weeds and obstacles, making sure that water be allowed to run efficiently to the next point—because these are the sort of very practical measures Australian farmers are able to deliver. It is enormously frustrating to hear people talk from offices a long way away about what is the best decision to make, when it is farmers who, with their hands in our Australian soil, make the decisions to grow the crops that we all rely on.

The government has made a series of buybacks over many years. I know that when Senator Wong talks about purchasing 1,000 gigalitres from farmers, this was water purchased during the millennium drought, when farmers and communities were at their lowest. Farmers who sold their water at that time , in sheer desperation, were told it was the worst decision that they had ever made. How tragic for those people and their families to have to look back at a decision, at a negotiation that they had with their own government, and consider that it was the worst decision that they had ever made—because it is practical efficiency, practical work for on-farm decisions that end up with the best environmental outcomes that we can have.

I reflect on the work that's happened in the reef catchments, where it is the government's signals and messages, the provision of practical programs, that have allowed Queensland farmers to improve the way water runs off their land, how they apply fertilisers and how they operate on their farms. In fact, that's been so efficient that it has resulted in a 25 per cent reduction in nitrogen run-off. It has resulted in the latest reef water quality report card of an A for improvement in water quality. I think that is extraordinary.

I have been disappointed that, for all the rhetoric and all the discussion about water use and water quality, there has not been one acknowledgement from those opposite of the work of farmers and the stress and heartache from making significant changes at significant cost to themselves. When those changes to land management have resulted in better outcomes, better water efficiency and cleaner water, there has not been any acknowledgement. It's no wonder at all that farmers are really wondering what the point is of them getting up and doing the work they do. They feel that Australians no longer care and no longer even want them to be farmers. I know as I travel around Queensland the number of times that farmers have ended up in tears because they believe that nobody believes in what they do any more. Who's going to provide the nut juice for coffees? Who's going to provide the plant matter for vegan food? Who is going to provide the excellent vegetables, fruits and meat that Australian farmers grow? Without the managed and balanced Basin Plan that we are trying provide in these amendments, who is going to do that? Farmers are certainly not. They are broken. They have been broken by the crazy costs of water and the crazy lack of understanding from some parts of our community.

These amendments will achieve environmental outcomes as if the 450 gigalitres was in place. But the outcomes will not be measured by the use of water. They will be measured by practical, on-farm, on-land management changes. We are now seeing this need for a holistic approach, a broader approach, to managing the environment. A great example is where you can have an environmental watering event that may see the growing of a rare native grass. That grass is required by rare native birds to lay their eggs. But unfortunately the eggs will all be eaten by wild pests and animals if we don't fence off the grass and provide a safe nesting habitat for the birds. So we are widening the scope to fund fencing required to protect the vital bird-breeding events.

I'm seeing this kind of fencing approach create incredible outcomes in Queensland, where wild dog exclusions have meant that there are koalas returning to parts of south-west Queensland. Previously the decrease in koalas was blamed on tree clearing, despite there being little or no tree clearing in those regions. It was blamed on tree clearing when the actual culprit was the incredible number of wild dogs that were out hunting off the land and eating native animals. These dogs exploded in numbers because of the number of watering points that graziers and farmers had introduced right across western Queensland. On what were previously arid and semi-arid lands there are now watering points to provide for small kangaroos. There is now such a number of roos, such a plague of roos, that anybody who has ever driven in the west after dark knows it's not safe to do so in a vehicle without a bull bar and some protection, because they are a threat to life and limb.

The sort of projects we're seeing are practical ones that allow for native animals to rebound. One farmer in western Queensland told me that the previous year he had only had 300 lambs survive. He would go out night after night and see lambs torn apart by dogs hunting not for food and not for survival but for the sheer pleasure of it. After the introduction of the exclusion fencing and the removal of wild dogs hunting purely for pleasure in packs, he was able to mark 4½ thousand lambs. What an extraordinary change. This is the same farmer who tells me that he now sees koalas. He hasn't seen koalas there in his generation.

There are many ways to achieve environmental and other outcomes in the Murray-Darling Basin than just buying back water from farmers. There is efficiency of water flows. There are on-farm practices and there are other ways to achieve the kind of environmental outcomes that everybody wants to see. The disappointing part about this debate is that some would like to see the world in black and white. They would like to see farmers and agriculturalists as bad. Farmers and agriculturalists couldn't possibly want to see good environmental outcomes! They couldn't possibly want to see better outcomes in the place that they live, the place where they raise their own children, the place where they may have lived for generations! That couldn't be possible, could it? Instead you would rather paint those people as terrible, terrible people. That lack of understanding is shocking and distressing.

I say to Senator Patrick and others here that I do speak for farmers. I do speak for people in the regions who don't have enough voices in this place. That kind of balance is what we are trying to achieve through this debate. If we truly believe in democracy and truly believe in good outcomes, we know that good outcomes are achieved when there are a lot of voices and there are a lot of different points of view so we can provide balance to the sort of science that some people refer to, because saying science over and over again does not actually make it real—

Honourable senators interjecting—

They're saying science over and over again. I can hear the Greens and Senator Patrick talking about science. They rarely refer to it back to a point. They refer to some mythical number. A mythical kind of magical cloud of science that's going to support their particular potentially uneducated and useful view. So I do stand to speak on this.

Honourable senators interjecting—

I barely feel like I need to go on with the discussion that is going on in the chamber, but how healthy to see this kind of debate happening at a grassroots level. I never interrupt Senator Patrick when he speaks, but somehow my voice is less important than his. It is very discourteous. I ask you not to do that.