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

I, and also on behalf of Senator McKenzie, move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that over 2.6 million Australians call the Murray-Darling Basin home, with $24 billion worth of food produced annually to feed the nation and the world;

(b) acknowledges the significant financial and emotional hardship faced by primary producers along the Murray-Darling Basin communities, arising from outdated, fragmented, and unfair regulations around water management;

(c) welcomes the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Interim Report into Murray­-Darling Basin Water Markets, that notes major reform is necessary to build integrity within the water market and ensure the water market operates in an open, fair and efficient way;

(d) further notes that the ACCC is now undertaking targeted consultation on the observations in its interim report before delivering a final report in November 2020; and

(e) calls on state governments to work with the Federal Government to explore solutions to the ACCC's interim observations, with a view to implementing key final report recommendations relating to:

  (i) increasing water data availability and pricing transparency,

  (ii) implementing a licence system to accredit and regulate water brokers, and

  (iii) immediately separating the Murray Darling Basin Authority enforcement and river management functions, in line with the Productivity Commission's 2019 review.

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

I seek leave to make a short statement.

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

Leave is granted for one minute.

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

One Nation will support this motion. Nationals Senators Davey and McKenzie refer to 'outdated, fragmented and unfair regulations around water management'. That is, in fact, federal law: the Water Act 2007 and the Murray-Darling Basin Plan water trading regulations. The Howard-Turnbull pair introduced both. Taken together, the act and regulations implemented a globalist strategy to replace family farming and family based communities with large corporate mono-agriculture and on-farm accommodation. They separated water allocations from land ownership. The ACCC report confirms that the plan has produced unfair outcomes and potentially illegal behaviour. The Nationals should know that these regulations are unfair, because the Nationals passed them. Now, 13 years later, with disastrous opinion polls, the Nationals are talking of family farms, yet coalition elites block their path. This motion has limited credibility.

Question agreed to.