The Murray Darling Basin river system has driven prosperity in our beautiful country and it can continue to do so if we can save it from the city bureaucrats and Labor’s ideologically driven policies.
I put forward a motion on the Water Amendment Restoring Our Rivers Bill 2023 because it should not have any further consideration until the Albanese Government properly consults with the States. There was no Murray Darling Basin consultation and that’s the problem with this bill.
The Council of Water Ministers met in August, yet as of this November sitting we have still not seen the communication from that meeting. It seems clear that the states have not collectively signed off on the bill. I urged the Senate to support my motion to send the bill back to the Minister with a clear message to remove the sections the States do not support. Let’s complete the plan, and let’s do it properly for a change.
Transcript
I rise to take note as a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community. It’s no surprise to One Nation that the Senate is once again debating the lack of government transparency—transparency in this case being defined as: what’s the government hiding this time? Consultation from the Labor Party always stops at 39 votes. Everyone else is on a need-to-know basis.
In the case of Senator Davey’s document discovery, the government has decided the Senate does not need to know the basis for government policy in a basin that accounts for $22 billion in food and fibre needed to feed and clothe the world, a basin that’s home to 2.3 million Australians, including those in my home state of Queensland. Apparently, we Queenslanders do not need to know what informed Minister Plibersek’s Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill—a bill on which this document discovery would have cast light. The fundamental failure of the Albanese government when it talks about consultation is its failure to understand that consultation requires disclosure. Already the government has been forced to make three pages of amendments to the bill to make it legally workable. How does anyone get a bill that wrong? Refusing to disclose—that’s how. Refusing to consult—’consult’ does not mean a quick whip around the staff room at the CFMEU or asking the luvvies at the ABC and the Guardian how to run the country. The Albanese voice referendum showed the stupidity of asking the Canberra bubble and inner city socialists what the rest of the country thinks is a fair thing. In real Australia, consulting means listening, sharing and learning.
Senator Pauline Hanson and I have consulted with industry stakeholders and toured the basin, starting in Charleville, in Queensland, all the way to Goolwa, in South Australia. I’ve spoken to independent researchers and even shared a plane for three days with Topher Field as we flew over the basin to understand it and film it. I’ve driven the length of the Murray-Darling Basin three times and my staff another two times, most recently last Christmas. Along the way, I’ve listened to amazing farmers displaying a level of resilience that at times is superhuman. I’ve consulted with Aboriginal people, for whom the water in the river is their life, the centre of their culture and the centre of health and happiness. I’ve spoken with business owners fearful for their future in an agricultural industry this government is determined to replace with fake food made in urban intensive-production facilities. This is an amazing connected river system that has driven prosperity in our beautiful country and can continue to do if only we can save it from Labor’s inner-city ignorance and ideologically driven policy.
Today the Senate will vote on my motion to prevent the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023 from being given further consideration until the Albanese government properly consults with the states. The Water Act 2007, upon which the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is based, is very clear. The plan is a consensus document of the four states. The federal government does not get a vote, because it’s a servant to the states, not the master of the states. The ACT does not get a vote as it’s a territory, not a state, and that’s fine since the ACT clearly runs the federal government anyway. Giving the ACT a vote would be, in fact, two votes.
The bill digest contains all the information needed to support my motion. It admits Victoria has refused to sign the new agreement, because Victorian farmers have given up enough water already. Good on the Victorian parliament for standing up for its constituents. Good on New South Wales Premier Chris Minns for being brutally honest in saying the New South Wales government is only signing up to the $700 million in federal buybacks federally for water projects and he is not signing up for water buybacks until after those projects are completed in 2027. The government has no consensus on water buybacks, which are, at best, two all. The rest of the bill contains a lot of good reforms to add accountability, improve measurement and reporting, align spending guidelines and budgets with what is needed and extend the deadline for completion.
The council of water ministers met in August, yet we still have not seen the communication from that meeting. It’s now November. It seems clear that the states have not signed off on the bill in toto. I urge the Senate to support my motion to send the bill back to the minister with a clear message: take out the bits the states do not support, and let’s get the rest of this bill, which is almost all of it, through the Senate this sitting. Let’s complete the plan and let’s do it properly for a change.
