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

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, my question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Senator McKenzie. Last Friday I wrote this letter to the Minister for Water Resources, Drought, Rural Finance, Natural Disaster and Emergency Management, Mr David Littleproud:

Dear minister, I am writing to you to urgently request the release of 200 gigalitres of water from the Commonwealth environmental water reserves currently being held in Hume and Dartmouth dams. The purpose of the release is to allow additional irrigation allocations to water rights holders along the Murray River in southern New South Wales and northern Victoria. Without the water, crops currently in the ground will fail and rural communities will be adversely affected.

That 200 gigalitres represents a measly five to seven per cent of the water in the Hume and Dartmouth dams, with spring snow melt yet to come. As Minister for Agriculture, do you support my request for immediate release of this emergency water to farmers in your state and in New South Wales to stop their crops from dying?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

I just want to clarify, am I being asked as the Minister for Agriculture or as the minister representing the minister for water?

Scott Ryan (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

I interpreted that as a question directed to you as representing the minister for water with Senator Roberts' opening comment.

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

Agriculture.

Scott Ryan (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Okay. I misheard in that case. The Minister for Agriculture, Senator McKenzie.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

Obviously, I know it's been a busy weekend for National Party MPs and senators, with our federal conference. I'm sure Minister Littleproud will be getting to the details of your letter this week. What we do support on this side of the chamber—and I'm sure all of parliament supports—is that Australian irrigators, Australian farmers, can continue to produce. It is incredibly tough out there. That is one thing we did hear at the National Party federal conference over the weekend. That is particularly so in Queensland, New South Wales and sections of Victoria. The majority of the two million Australians that live in the Murray-Darling Basin are producing the food and fibre that we export around the world. They are doing it incredibly tough because of the drought. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is in the process of being implemented. Eighty per cent of it has been implemented thus far. There is obviously a lot of discussion around the CEWH and how some of those environmental holdings can be used, and there are a lot of different ideas around how to use that water, particularly in tough times such as the drought which we're going through. Those questions should be appropriately addressed to the Minister for the Environment, because, as you know, Senator Roberts, it is Sussan Ley, the Minister for the Environment, who has responsibility for the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder.

Scott Ryan (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Roberts, a supplementary question?

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

I asked, as Minister for Agriculture do you support my request for immediate release? I got a lot of fluff about Murray-Darling Basin and droughts and so on. Minister, I would have thought that as Minister for Agriculture it is your duty to make the urgent and immediate needs of desperate farmers paramount. Why did you not do so?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

Farmers who are going through drought right now are doing it incredibly tough. That is why our government has put $7 billion worth of measures into the communities and on the tables of farmers, and, obviously, there are a suite of loans available to our primary producers for restocking and replanting. We've got additional mental health support going into those affected communities. Right across the board, our government is taking the drought incredibly seriously. So for you to stand up and somehow say that we don't get it and we aren't standing by our farming communities is absolutely misrepresenting what the government is doing. It is why the Prime Minister made it his first order of business. It's why he stood with the premiers—Labor premiers and Liberal premiers—when he first became Prime Minister, and called the National Drought Summit: so that together we can underpin the productive capacity of our regional communities who are struggling with drought.

Scott Ryan (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Roberts, a final supplementary question?

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

Twice I've asked: do you support my request? So let me try a second question. Farmers and communities in northern Victoria and southern New South Wales are in dire straits yet cannot take water from the Murray, while Murray water is currently flooding the Perricoota State Forest. Would you as Minister for Agriculture prefer the water to flood the state forest or to go to farmers to produce a crop this year to save communities and farms from ruin?

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) | Link to this | Hansard source

Just to be crystal clear for the senator, the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder is an independent statutory body held under the Minister for the Environment's portfolio. I as Minister for Agriculture cannot direct an independent statutory body to do anything other than what it should do, which is to manage the water it holds according to the Water Act.

In terms of my support as Minister for Agriculture for regional communities to have access to water, obviously I want to see them have access to as much water as possible. I wish it would rain. I want to see dams full. I want to see water not just for environmental assets but for use in a productive capacity. That's what we all want to see. Eighty per cent of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been implemented, and I think that discussions at the conference on the weekend were very useful as to what other changes we can make around—

Scott Ryan (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator McKenzie. Senator Hughes.