UPDATE: Labor has backflipped on their support for a public, transparent water register by voting down this amendment in the House of Representatives where it went after initially passing in the Senate with Labor’s support. As a result, a transparent public water trading register will not be established. Senator Roberts made a further speech here: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/labor-backflips-on-water-trading-register-in-dodgy-deal/
Senator Roberts has succeeded in passing a water trading register in the Senate tonight where others have failed over successive years.
Senator Roberts has campaigned tirelessly to protect farmers in the Murray Darling Basin, which extends from Queensland all the way to South Australia.
The MDB Plan has allowed corporate agriculture to outbid family farmers and dominate water trading.
Senator Roberts said, “The lack of a transparent water trading register has allowed aggressive traders to inflate prices and starve productive land of much needed water.
“This is forcing family farms off the land with a catastrophic cost to locals jobs and the ruination of rural communities,” he said.
The water trading register was expected to be put in place in 2009. The Government has spent $30 million between 2009 and 2012, has failed repeatedly and then gave up. Farmers have suffered because of this ineptness over the past decade.
“This water trading register will give the Inspector General of Water Compliance the information he needs to clean up water trading and restore confidence in Basin management,” Senator Roberts added.
Following the success in the Senate this amendment will move to the lower house where the government will struggle to find the numbers to oppose it.
“We are left bewildered as to why the Liberals and the Nationals would oppose a water trading register,” stated Senator Roberts.
