Perin Davey (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. Through that committee, we have travelled to basin communities in Moree, Goondiwindi, Shepparton and Deniliquin. My colleague on the other side, Senator Deb O'Neill, heard firsthand the pain of these communities. She heard from them that buyback has to stop and that the impact on the water market has affected their businesses. People who haven't even actively participated in the Basin Plan are being negatively impacted by the Basin Plan, just as innocent bystanders. That is poor public policy.

In one of these hearings, it was put to us by a witness: 'Stop with the games and actually legislate what you tell us your policy is.' We have government statements saying, 'We don't want any more buyback; we will focus our water recovery off farm.' All our amendments today are doing is actually putting that into legislation. We know that the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council have agreed to a strong, robust social and economic test for the 450. All we are proposing is to put that test into legislation. We know that both the New South Wales and the Victorian water ministers have asked for flexibility with the sustainable-diversion-limit projects. That's what our amendments propose, so that those state governments have the capacity to make sure the projects they undertake will actually deliver the environmental benefits that they're meant to and that we want them to.

I've been accused of being a climate denier today, but I am not. We know climate change is happening. We know there is an incredible risk of sea level rises, and we know that, while everyone is looking upstream and saying, 'Give me more water,' no-one is looking downstream and asking, 'What's going to happen when sea levels rise above the scope of the barrages?' Nobody is looking at how to manage that risk, and that is a significant risk. We have heard from scientists who have told us that, while, yes, the Lower Lakes are Ramsar listed, Ramsar is not for a fixed point in time; you can apply to adjust it in accordance with what's happening. We've heard from scientists that the ecology of the Lower Lakes in the Coorong is changing due to climate change. But, instead of looking at the Lower Lakes and what can be done to help save them, everyone is looking upstream and accusing farmers—the very people who produce your rice, wheat and potatoes—of being greedy. They are all painted as being greedy corporate irrigators. My husband works on a corporate farm. If it wasn't for some of those corporates, there would be people in rural and regional Australia without jobs. But I have also sat around the dinner table, the kitchen table and the coffee table with farmers at breaking point because they are so scared that the government is going to come out with another big cheque book, that their neighbours are going to sell out from under them, that their costs of doing business will continue to rise exponentially and that they will have no choice but to walk away from the job that they love and from the family homes that they've been in for generations.

Enough is enough. We need to respect our people and our farmers. I don't care whether they're South Australian farmers or New South Wales farmers—from the north or the south. I don't care if they're irrigators or dry land. What I do care about is those farmers deserve the right to farm. They were given a property right and they have seen that being slowly undermined, because we are fixated on a number. I want to get back to the intent of the Basin Plan.

Senator O'Neill interjecting—