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Menindee Lakes, SDL water acquisitions and Lock Zero – MDBA Part 1

February 2022, Murray Darling Basin, Senate Estimates, Water

The Murray Darling Basin plan has been a disaster for regional communities. Overwhelming complexity, water being flushed out to sea and bureaucrats thinking they know better than everyone else have caused enormous damage.

Despite the evidence, the government and MDBA refuse to take responsibility for the mess they’ve made.

MDBA questioning part 2: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/why-did-the-government-vote-against-a-water-trading-register-mdba-part-2/

MDBA questioning part 3: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/farmers-always-left-high-and-dry-by-water-allocations-mdba-part-3/

Transcript

CHAIR: Alright; thank you. Senator Roberts, over to you.

Senator Roberts: Mr Taylor, I’d like to reference an exchange we had at a previous estimates regarding Menindee Lakes. I’ll quote from Hansard. I said:

So, Menindee Lakes is a vital component of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan?

You said:

It’s a vital component of our environmental management of the system.

Then I said:

And it’ll stay there.

You said:

And we’re actually getting those golden perch out of that system, connected through the Great Darling Anabranch, down into the Murray and distributing those fish. They become callop, as they’re called in South Australia, and they travel thousands of kilometres over their life. So, this is a critical part of what we’re doing.

That was not an answer to my question. You dodged my question, so let me try again. Will the Murray-Darling Basin Authority keep the Menindee Lakes as an environmentally important wetland having the same area as it currently has, including water storage with the current capacity, with the level, of course, decided by basin inflows? This is Queensland water, and we’d like to see it used properly.

Mr Taylor : Not sure I’m in a position to answer on behalf of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority in terms of feature plans and management. I think the other thing is that the Menindee system is a jointly managed lake and water resource, jointly managed between New South Wales, the Commonwealth, South Australia and Victoria. So I’m not in a position to talk about—

Senator Roberts: Is anyone from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority who could answer that question here?

Ms Connell : Mr Reynolds.

Senator Roberts: Will Menindee stay as it is, a vital part of the environment?

Mr Reynolds : As discussed earlier, New South Wales is scoping, or rescoping, the Menindee project, now called the Better Baaka project. That anticipates changes to the Menindee infrastructure and the operating rules for it. As departmental colleagues explained earlier, we’re yet to have a scope of that project brought forward by the New South Wales government. I can’t give you the assurance that you’ve asked for because that rescope project will inevitably change arrangements at Menindee Lakes. I think the proposal for the project is to look at how things can be done differently. If the project proceeds, then I think the circumstance at Menindee will be different to what they’ve been in the past.

Senator Roberts: So you can’t give me—

Ms Connell : It will continue to be subject to water resource plans and water sharing plans which will contain requirements in relation to environmental measures and environmental outcomes.

Mr Reynolds : Absolutely. The project in terms of its development will have to consider environmental impacts and benefits that can be achieved ultimately, but, until we see the scope of the works, I can’t advise on what the changes on the Menindee arrangements would be.

Senator Roberts: Setting aside the sustainable diversion limit acquisitions currently underway, how much water is still required to complete the sustainable diversion limit acquisitions? I’d like a figure. Secondly, how much is required to complete water acquisition, the baseline diversion limits?

Ms Connell : We addressed some of those questions this morning. The 605 sustainable diversion limit adjustment measure program is made up of about 36 projects for which a gigalitre component was identified when those projects were conceived. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority will go through a process we refer to as reconciliation in the lead-up to 1 July 2024, and I’ll let Mr Reynolds talk you through that.

Senator Roberts: Okay.

Ms Connell : Earlier this morning we provided an update on progress towards the 450 in terms of current entitlement holdings that are with the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, projects that are contracted and projects we are in discussions with states over.

Mr Reynolds : In terms of the sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism reconciliation process, the authority is required to take a decision in December 2023 as to whether or not a reconciliation is required. That decision can’t be taken earlier than that, because states are able to advise notifications to modifications of projects up until that point in time. So we won’t have clarity about what the package of works looks like until that point in time. If, on the basis of our understanding of the projects, their progress and the condition they’re likely to be in in June 2024, the authority determines that the adjustment amount is likely to be different than what was determined in the original decision, we will undertake a reconciliation. We will assess the projects as they are notified at the end of December 2023 and make an assessment of the volume of water, or the offset that they will achieve at that point in time.

Senator Roberts: You have a document on the website of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority entitled ‘Progress on Water Recovery’. Under the heading ‘Summary of surface water recovery progress’ it states:

Following the amendments to the Basin Plan, the overall target for water recovery is 2,075 GL/y plus 450 GL/y of efficiency measures by 2024.

That’s 2,525 in total. And then, on the third page, under the heading ‘Total water recovery still required’ it is just 46 gigalitres.

Ms Connell : We addressed those figures earlier this morning as well. The gap bridging target under the Basin Plan is 2,075 gigalitres—2,100, and I think five gigalitres have been recovered and are held by way of entitlements with the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. So 98 per cent of the target has been reached, but there remain about 46 gigalitres across the basin that need to be recovered from different water resource plan areas.

Senator Roberts: The other comment Mr Reynolds has already covered, so thank you for that. Before I move on, how much water is required to complete the baseline diversion limits, the up-water?

Ms Connell : I guess there are three overall programs. There’s the water recovery target of 2,075 gigalitres, so there’s 46 gigalitres still to go there. Then there is the 450 up-water program, as it is known, which I referred to earlier in terms of what’s being delivered, what’s contracted and discussions we’re having with states. Then the third program is the 605 sustainable diversion limit adjustment mechanism program, which Mr Reynolds was discussing in terms of the reconciliation process that happens in 2024. There are 36 projects which go to make up that program of work that South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales have to deliver, and the authority will look at that program of works at the end of next year to determine whether reconciliation needs to happen to identify whether the 605 will be met or what component of it will be met.

Senator Roberts: As I’ve discussed before with Mr Glyde and Mr Reynolds and also the previous water commissioner, it’s a very complex issue, isn’t it? The whole thing is very complex, with many variables and a lot of variation.

Ms Connell : There are some key, major complex areas of work. The Basin Plan is a significant water reform, and there are some complex components, as you would expect in a system, I think, where there are 20 surface water areas and about 13 groundwater systems.

Senator Roberts: Then we have a naturally variable climate. The north varies considerably, in a different way from the south. So I would raise that for the future. Turning to the south-east drains SDL acquisition, Mr Reynolds, a reminder of your answer at the last estimates:

The water from the south-east drains has been put forward by the South Australian government as an SDL adjustment mechanism project. So the water that comes from the south-east drains into the southern lagoon will be accounted for through that process.

That means it will be counted as SDL. How much water is the Murray-Darling Basin Authority counting against the remaining SDL target for the south-east drains restoration flow?

Mr Reynolds : As we’ve explained previously, the assignment of individual volumes to projects in terms of the adjustment mechanism can only be an estimate, because the whole package of projects is modelled as a whole, and they interact with one another. We have made a range of estimates against individual projects. I will see if I can get the number for that particular project. I don’t think I have it in my papers here. I will have to get someone to provide that to me, but I will provide it this morning.

Senator Roberts: I would be very interested to see that number. I’m wondering if we’ve just found some more water.

Mr Reynolds : Well, the south-east drains project is part of the adjustment mechanism, so it’s been accounted for.

Senator Roberts: It is my view that this is a significant unaccountable flow—it hasn’t been to date—and may provide a substantial part of the remaining SDL acquisition that can both take the pressure off farmers elsewhere in the basin while restoring the amazing Coorong wetland and moderating extreme salination in Lake Albert by flushing from the south-east, not from the north-west; from the north-west is not really flushing. Have you the south-east inflows? I think the answer was ‘no’ in the last Senate estimates in October. Have you modelled the south-east inflows, both aquifer and surface flow? How much water is available? How much can be redirected—and this is really important—without interfering with agricultural production?

Mr Reynolds : We haven’t modelled that directly. The South Australian government manages that part of the system. We have consulted with them about the volumes. There’s not a direct estimate available of the total flow from the south-east drains, including through the groundwater systems into the Coorong. The operation of the south-east drains does provide water back to the southern lagoon in the Coorong, and that scheme has been developed and the operating rules have been developed to achieve that. There are requirements to manage the flows through the south-east drains. It is drainage from agricultural land. It does carry a nutrient load. There are particular management challenges with that water. So part of the south-east drainage scheme passes water through wetlands and the like to remove nutrient loads from that water before it enters the Coorong. If that’s not done, there are undesirable ecological impacts in the Coorong itself. That limits somewhat the volume of water that comes from the south-east drains. The South Australian government is continuing to work through those issues.

Senator Roberts: As I understand it, the drains are made by humans? They’re not natural and they take up a significant quantity of water, straight to the ocean.

Mr Reynolds : The area that’s been drained naturally was a low-lying marshy area, and water tended to lie in that area. Some of it would have seeped through groundwater systems to the sea. Some of it would have made its way to the Coorong. The drains are man-made structures that have taken water from that area and dried it out and made it more productive as an agricultural area.

Senator Roberts: I’ve been there and seen those drains. They’re definitely man-made. There is a belief that there’s a significant amount of water to be recaptured and sent to the Coorong.

Mr Reynolds : And water is being captured through that system and does flow to the Coorong. I think from memory it’s in the order of 26 gigalitres, on average. Obviously it would change with seasonal conditions. In wet years it will be more; in drier years it would be less. But it’s of that order.

Senator Roberts: My understanding is there’s a lot more water to be captured than that.

Mr Reynolds : I think the South Australian government clearly has an interest in trying to improve the health of the Coorong. They’ve undertaken an enormous amount of work in that region to do that. I’m sure they’re examining whether or not it would be beneficial to take more water from that region if it’s possible to do so, for that purpose.

Senator Roberts: So the Coorong problem has been man-made, not by the rest of the basin, but by diversion of water that used to go through the Coorong straight to the ocean? I’m not being critical, because in those days they were trying to look after their narrow scope. That’s something that, to return the environment to its natural state, would require a lot of water to go back to the Coorong and keep it clean.

Mr Reynolds : There are obviously significant volumes of water diverted from the basin, which has reduced the volume of water that reaches the end of the system, particularly coming down the Murray. Part of the challenge is to address some of those issues. To get back to the natural balance of what happened in the Coorong before river regulation would require all of the water that’s subsequently been diverted to be returned to the environment. No-one is proposing to do that. We’re looking for alternative solutions and alternative balances.

Senator Roberts: Shouldn’t that south-east portion be counted as part of the basin? You just said water is diverted from the basin, but it’s not included in the basin yet?

Mr Reynolds : I’m sorry; when I said that I meant water is diverted from upstream right across the basin. Very significant volumes are diverted.

Senator Roberts: This water’s going straight to the ocean, and doing damage by not going through the Coorong.

Mr Reynolds : I think the benefits that can be provided to the Coorong, by diverting some water from the south-east drains, are being realised through the project that’s been implemented. I’m sure the South Australian government and others will continue to examine where additional benefits might be able to be accrued. Significant money from the Commonwealth government has gone to the Goyder Institute. I think $8 million has been committed to examine options and other interventions that might be possible around the Coorong, Lower Lakes and the Murray Mouth. That could include activities within the south-east drain system, although that has been explored fairly extensively already.

Senator Roberts: It’s very complex, and it’s made even more complicated by the politics involved at the state and federal levels. We will end it there for now.

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but could you make this your last question? Sorry, Senator Roberts! We knew what was going on.

Senator Ruston :They don’t look anything alike.

CHAIR: They don’t.

Senator Roberts: I don’t know who you’re insulting the most. That was my last question.

CHAIR: Make this your last question, Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: Concerning Lock Zero, in the last estimates, you spoke about engineering challenges and other issues, and you said, ‘Lock Zero was examined in some detail.’ If salt water is used in the Lower Lakes to protect against sulphur emissions—and that would be a one-in-100-year type drought; it’s an absolute last resort—then suddenly we will be wishing we’d built Lock Zero, won’t we? Doesn’t the Murray-Darling Basin Authority or the department have documentation on Lock Zero? Your comment ‘examined in some detail’ suggests such documentation exists. It seems like too significant a project not to have some formal process underway.

Mr Reynolds : During the millennium drought, Lock Zero was considered as to whether or not it would be an arrangement that would help protect the Lower Lakes. Part of that was looking at what flow would be required past Lock Zero to ensure that the Lower Lakes retained their ecological character. There is significant concern that if the flow of fresh water to the Lower Lakes was terminated, and if just sea water was allowed in, that would progressively concentrate through evaporation and become hypersaline, and so the Lower Lakes would not be a natural estuary.

Senator Roberts: It’s not natural at the moment, with the barrage, is it?

Mr Reynolds : No, but the Lower Lakes naturally would have had a much larger volume of fresh water flowing to the Lower Lakes, to the end of the system. We take a lot of water out upstream for irrigation and other productive purposes, and so the natural balance of mixing of fresh and salt water at the Lower Lakes cannot be reinstated unless there’s a lot more water coming down the river system. Building Lock Zero does not alleviate that issue.

Senator Roberts: We’ll leave it there for now.

March 4, 2022/by Harriet Black

Why did the Government vote against a water trading register? MDBA Part 2

February 2022, Murray Darling Basin, Senate Estimates, Water

Speculative water trading is a blight on our country. Even still, the Water Act 2007 specified that a transparent, public register of water trades should be established. 15 years later, we still have no public register.

The most recent attempt to establish a public register, my amendment to the Water Act, was voted down by the Liberals, Nationals and Labor. The question is, what have they got to hide?

MDBA questioning part 1: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/menindee-lakes-sdl-water-acquisitions-and-lock-zero-mdba-part-1/

MDBA questioning part 3: https://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/farmers-always-left-high-and-dry-by-water-allocations-mdba-part-3/

Transcript

[CHAIR] Senator Roberts.

[Senator Roberts] Mr Reynolds, as a senator for Queensland, I have to cover many issues and, although I’ve travelled the entire Murray-Darling Basin, have overflown it and crisscrossed it many times, in listening to people I just can’t keep all the acronyms and numbers at hand. I just can’t keep them in my head. Fortunately, we have many farmers who watch these Senate estimates sessions in particular and they let me know when I’ve missed the details, and they’re excellent auditors. They know, from being on the ground, when I’m getting nonanswers. They tell me, and they’re blunt auditors. It seems to me that the Murray-Darling Basin Authority is now avoiding the numbers for both acquisition and total targets. The Murray-Darling Basin—and Senator Patrick knows this—is all about numbers. The plan has reduced farmers’ businesses, rural communities and Australia’s agricultural capacity to a set of water numbers, supposedly, for the environment. Getting those numbers is like pulling teeth, and I welcome Senator Patrick’s partial success on the 605 earlier. For the rural community watching this at home to get a hint for the future, I’d like to ask again. I’m asking for three simple numbers. How much water has the government acquired so far under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan? How much is under acquisition? How much will the shortfall be against the plan in the absence of further projects, and where do you intend to get that water from? The third question was two combined.

[Senator Davey] Senator Roberts, do you mind if I throw one in as well to complement yours? From the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, how much actual wet stuff allocation do you have this year? There’s the difference between the entitlements you have, but this year the allocations may be over the 2,750 gigalitre rule. Who knows?

[Senator Patrick] And the costs associated with each of those [inaudible] too.

[Senator Davey] We want to know everything!

[Senator Roberts] We do.

[Ms Connell] I’ve lost track of the question! I’ll just provide the headline numbers, and then I’ll ask Mr Taylor to come to the table and talk to what he has available in this water year. In terms of surface water recovery, as I said before the break, 2,106 gigalitres of surface water has been recovered and is now held in entitlements by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. In relation to groundwater, 35.3 gigalitres has been recovered. In relation to the 450, two gigalitres in entitlements have been returned to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder. We have another 16.4 under contract, and we are discussing arrangements in relation to about another 10 to 15 gigalitres with the states. In relation to the 605 gigalitres, the concept of that program of works is to—in lieu of 605 gigalitres being recovered from the consumptive irrigation pool, there are a suite of 36 projects which deliver environmental benefits in lieu of that. The framework under the Basin Plan requires the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to have a look at the end of next year at the progress of those environmental projects and the extent to which they will contribute, from an environmental measure, towards the 605. It is quite a complex concept.

[Senator Roberts] It’s very complex.

[Ms Connell] Yes. I do appreciate that. In terms of the current holdings that the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has to utilise this year, I’ll pass to Mr Taylor.

[Mr Taylor] This year, we have new allocations, up to 31 December, of 2,054 gigalitres. Up to the end of that same six-month period we have used 1,038. So we’ve used about half our water for this year at halfway through the year.

[Senator Davey] How much did you carry over from the previous year?

[Mr Taylor] The previous year’s carryover was 738 gigalitres.

[Senator Davey] That would have made available this year 2,7—

[Mr Taylor] 85.

[Senator Davey] Thank you.

[Ms Connell] I will just note that the department does have a webpage that sets out these water recovery targets, so we’d be happy to provide you with that information.

[Senator Roberts] We will come asking if we need more. Minister, the South Australian water storage is outside of South Australia—

[Senator Ruston] Yes, for geological reasons.

[Senator Roberts] We’re not complaining about that. South Australia’s a valid part of the plan. This is a national plan that includes—

[Senator Ruston] Thank you very much, Senator Roberts. We’re very delighted that you would think that.

[Senator Roberts] While we’re concerned about wasting our water, we’re not concerned about supplying South Australia and Adelaide, in particular, with water—

[Senator Patrick] It’s not Queensland’s water [inaudible].

[Senator Roberts] Well, we can argue that—

[Senator Patrick] It’s national water.

[CHAIR] Let’s not get into that.

[Senator Roberts] I’m not interested in getting into that. I’m just saying that South Australia has a right to that water. It’s longstanding.

[Senator Ruston] Everybody in the Murray-Darling Basin has a right. We can go into a discussion about ‘riparian right’ and the like but the plan outlines that this is a shared resource that has to be maximised to the benefit of all people in Australia.

[Senator Roberts] We want to protect the South Australians but we also want to protect the environment and we want to protect all the other stakeholders. It gets messy. It’s had a long history; some argue it is ingrained in our federation. South Australian water storage is outside South Australia, at Dartmouth, which South Australia partly funded, Lake Victoria and Menindee Lakes. Menindee Lakes has held water eight years out of 10. Even though government raised the natural banks a little to create a larger storage, Menindee has been a natural wetland since before Western settlement. Menindee stored South Australian water and local—

[Senator Ruston] They’re ephemeral, aren’t they?

[Senator Roberts] You could argue that, but they have stored water eight years out of 10. Menindee stores South Australian water and local irrigation water. While that water is there it sustains the amazing wetland around Menindee. And that has developed to counter natural climate variability. In Australia, the climate is more variable than in probably any other continent. But we wonder why a frog near a coalmine is an environmental matter of national significance yet 47,000 hectares of wetland is not. With 220,000 bird movements a year, it is a national treasure. And now the testimony in this place is that the state and federal governments are going to murder Menindee. The Murray-Darling Basin is murdering an environmental treasure to come up with water to meet environmental targets. That just doesn’t make sense to me.

[Senator Ruston] I don’t think there would be anybody else in the room who would agree with your term ‘murder Menindee’. That is a highly emotive way of describing how, collectively, everybody is trying to work together to engineer a solution to ensure the long-term sustainability of the river system whilst dealing with the social and economic implications of water recovery and the like that minimises any detrimental impacts. The sole purpose of the plan was to protect the amazing riverine environment, so I cannot accept your terminology around what’s happening at Menindee. At the moment, we do not have the submission back from the New South Wales government in relation to the proposal for activities at Menindee. Until we can actually see that, I don’t know that anyone could be making the kind of assessment you’re making. I acknowledge that you accept that the plan is for all Australians, particularly all those who live in the basin, but you are picking on one particular component of it and suggesting that it is environmental vandalism when at this stage we don’t really have any clarity around what is going on there. We need to be really careful that we don’t compare what happened prior to the development of the river system and what is happening now. There has been so much intervention along the river—through dams, locks, weirs and all sorts of infrastructure, including the urban build-up in towns—that it’s almost impossible for us to do anything apart from assess what’s before us at the moment. I would counsel against talking about what Menindee Lakes used to be like and what the Lower Lakes used to be like because so much has changed in the years since irrigation has occurred along the river. So we need to manage what is before us now.

[Senator Roberts] I accept that. At the same time, a fundamental target for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been to restore the Coorong, and that cannot be restored while we’re avoiding the science. But let’s move on to something else—

[Senator Ruston] It’s really about the words that you use. We seek for the Coorong to be healthy. Does that restore it under the true definition of the word ‘restore?’ I would suggest that that is very difficult. I mean, the barrages are there. They weren’t there.

[Senator Roberts] The barrages are there. The drains are there.

[Senator Ruston] Yes. When we talk about ‘restoring’, what we want to see is a healthy Coorong, a healthy Murray-Darling Basin system. We want to see environmental assets protected. But we also want to protect the river communities because they are such an important part of the economy of Australia and all the people who are supported by it. I think we need to be careful of the words we use because we don’t want to give the impression that somehow we’re going to turn the river system back to exactly what it looked like before there was any intervention. What we’re seeking to do is make sure the environmental outcomes are good.

[Senator Roberts] One thing that is very frustrating in the parliament is that so few decisions are made on data and science. They’re made on emotions, whims and looking after vested interests. You said everyone wants to protect the environment. I’ll get onto more of that in other questions. Minister, I have trust for you, so I’m not having a go at you. I’m having a go at several governments in the past and possibly this government. I don’t have much faith in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan because it’s not based on data. We don’t measure much of the river system, yet we’re allocating water. An ABC report was entitled ‘Basin states agree to support ACCC Murray-Darling Basin water market reforms to regulate brokers and market behaviour’. Last year when I moved an amendment to force the water trading register into life, which is a requirement of the Water Act 2007—the one that the Murray-Darling Basin has been required to produce since then—the Liberals, Nationals and Labor voted against it. I was told there was no need for a water trading register. It’s just speculation. There is no profiteering and no need for a register of water trading. What changed so that the states are now taking action?

[Senator Ruston] I’m not sure that I agree with the fact that the Liberal Party, the National Party and the Labor Party last year thought there was no need for—

[Senator Roberts] They voted against the amendment to bring in the water register.

[Senator Ruston] Yes, but there were a number of other complex technicalities around what was being proposed at the time, so I don’t think you can naturally jump to the conclusion that the government or the opposition didn’t believe that water regulation could potentially improve the operation of the river systems and improve the operation of how water traded. I think possibly it was that the mechanism by which you were proposing to do it was not something that we were necessarily agreeing to. But I’m happy to take that on notice and get you some more information because I have to say I can’t remember exactly.

[Senator O’Neill] Senator Ruston, just before you continue. Is there any chance that the document Senator Roberts was referring to could be tabled?

[Senator Ruston] That’s just a media story, isn’t it, Senator?

[Senator Roberts] Yes, this is a media story from the ABC. They’re talking about a mandatory code of conduct.

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, would you like to have that tabled so others can refer to it?

[Senator Roberts] Yes.

CHAIR: Thank you.

[Senator Roberts] It just seems like this code of conduct is a way to smokescreen their reluctance to have a water trading register. It’s a way of avoiding the issue.

[Senator Ruston] I might speak with the secretary. In terms of the ACCC review and implementation I wonder if you could give Senator Roberts a bit of an update about where that’s at. We could see if in any way you can alleviate some of the concerns he appears to have.

[Ms Connell] Water trade and water markets are principally the responsibility of state jurisdictions at the moment, so states and the ACT are responsible for having and maintaining water registers. Each of them does have a register in place. In terms of the media release you’re referring to, it was to indicate that the water market reform process had been set up. Minister Pitt announced last year that he would appoint a principal adviser. Mr Daryl Quinlivan has been appointed to work with states to take what is a very significant report by the ACCC—I think it goes to about 700 pages and makes a broad range of recommendations—

[Senator Roberts] It has some serious concerns.

[Ms Connell] That’s right. Mr Quinlivan has been working with Basin states, supported by an advisory group, and consulting stakeholders more broadly to determine what should be the initial recommendations that are progressed. We can table a copy of Mr Quinlivan’s December advice. The advice sets out the five principal initial reforms that he recommends be progressed, and the basin states support recommendations in principle. Critically, at the moment there’s no code of practice to govern the behaviour of water market intermediaries, water brokers, so one thing the states agreed to is the development of a code that can put a compliance framework around the way that part of the market operates.

He also recommended that the Commonwealth introduce legislation to prohibit insider trading and market manipulation, so that’s something the department is looking very closely at. He made recommendations around collection and publication of trade data and a number of other recommendations. He is now working with basin states and stakeholders to develop a final draft which is due to the minister in June this year. So, the terms of reference for the work that he’s doing are on our website and we can provide you with a copy of that as well.

[Senator Roberts] Ms Connell and Senator Ruston, can you see the public and farmers, in particular, are very concerned? I haven’t discussed this with you, but apparently you had a successful business with flowers. Water is key to that, and you’ve developed remarkable efficiencies in the use of that water, as I understand it. I’m not a farmer, but I know listening to farmers that water is like gold. It dramatically increases the productivity of farmland, so it’s worth a lot of money. But it’s also worth a lot of money to traders and speculators, and we’ve removed the connection between water allocations and farmers’ property ownership.

[Senator Ruston] You’re talking about the unbundling of water from land?

[Senator Roberts] Correct; I am. What I’m saying is that, in the absence of significant measuring of water flows right across the basin, in the absence of science, the contradiction of science and the highly variable climate, which is natural—and we’ve got the north being different from the south, and people not understanding each other—there’s a lot of suspicion that the government, and governments in the past, have simply protected water traders because we still don’t have a water trading register. Whether that’s a state and territory issue, it needs to be done. And now we’ve got the ACCC saying there are significant concerns even though they didn’t identify any particular fraud. This does not build confidence in the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, nor the plan.

[Ms Connell] I think there are three components to the question. So, under the constitution, states are principally responsible for water resource management, so the obligation is on them to establish and maintain water registers. Each of the Murray-Darling Basin jurisdictions has in place a water register at this point in time.

[Senator Roberts] I’m not interested in why we can’t do it; I’m interested in what we should do.

Ms Connell : It’s being done—

[Senator Roberts] It’s a major impediment to you.

Ms Connel l : and you can get access to those registers online. I think the Bureau of Meteorology now aggregates information from each of those state registers in their water information portal, so we can provide you with the link to that quite easy to use website.

[Senator Roberts] Thank you.

[Ms Connell] I would just like to get on the record that the ACCC didn’t find any evidence of speculative activity.

[Senator Roberts] I just said that, but they had significant concerns.

[Ms Connell] One of their key recommendations was to get in place a code backed by enforcement and compliance powers to improve the integrity and transparency of the market, and that’s what the basin states have agreed to and the principal adviser has reported on. We’re now working with basin states to look at how we can develop that.

[Senator O’Neill] But it hasn’t happened. What’s the date for that to commence? Senator Roberts, I’ve got a whole lot of questions that I want to follow up on. When you get out there and talk to people, as Senator Roberts has said, they just tell you straight up about—

[Senator Roberts] The corruption.

[Senator O’Neill] The corruption that’s happening. Their computers aren’t fast enough to compete with people who are in the space. You would’ve heard it as much as I’ve heard it. What’s the timing on the response to this?

[Ms Connell] We’re currently working with basin states to look at the development of a draft code. One of the key things will be to consult with stakeholders on what that draft code will look like. When making changes that will impact on a regulated community it’s important to undertake a process whereby we publish a proposed draft code, provide an opportunity for comment and also provide a period of time for that regulated community to come into compliance. We’re actively working with states on progressing that proposal.

[Senator O’Neill] But do you have a time line?

[Ms Connell] I can take that on notice; I don’t have it in front of me.

[Senator Roberts] I brought eight copies of an article from News Weekly, ‘Murray-Darling Basin Plan ruining the Edward River’. Once again, we’re talking about environmental damage of a type never before seen along the Murray system, caused in all probability by the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. The first paragraph of this article says:

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan (MDBP), which has the goal of protecting the environment—

As Senator Ruston said—

is instead destroying it.

And there are so many examples; it’s the same type of damage that we’re seeing elsewhere. We’ve raised this about the Murray itself. When is the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, or the department, going to convene a proper public inquiry into environmental destruction along the Murray River system? Landholders along the Edward are just flabbergasted at how much damage is being done in the name of the environment.

[Mr Reynolds] The Edward system, in effect, runs parallel to the Murray. Part of the work we’re looking at around the choke is how we manage water through that part of the system, and that includes water through the Edward River as well. Clearly, there are a lot of demands on the system to manage it for consumptive use as well as for the environment. One of the key things we’re looking at as part of the Barmah Choke Feasibility Study is how to manage the system holistically, not just moving a problem from one part of the system to another. So there’s a lot of activity to examine the Edward system as well.

Erosion is a natural feature within our river systems. We have a heavily regulated—

[Senator Roberts] Excuse me; some people would disagree with you. They’re saying the amount of water and the duration of high river flows are quite unnatural. Farmers along the Murray and people along the Edward are saying the same thing. That’s what’s doing the damage, according to them.

[Senator O’Neill] Exactly, that’s what they’re saying to me too, Senator Roberts.

[Mr Reynolds] There’s no doubt that we’ve regulated the river system to achieve a whole lot of benefits which that provides, but that has substantially changed the natural flow patterns in the river. We have higher river flows through summer because we’re delivering water to meet irrigation demands which are critical to the prosperity of many communities throughout the basin. That’s one of the aspects of the Basin Plan: we work through that balance between environmental outcomes and the social and economic prosperity of communities throughout the basin as well.

There are going to be impacts on a regulated system—there’s no doubt about that. We’re looking, through the Barmah Choke Feasibility Study work, at options we might have to alleviate some of those pressures on that part of the river system—the Edward, the Murray and, indeed, the Goulburn system as well. I can’t say that there are no impacts on a regulated river system, but I guess those impacts are balanced against the other benefits that they provide to communities in a wide range of—

[Senator Roberts] I’m not accusing you—and I mean this sincerely—or anyone here of anything. Government in this country—and I’m not talking about the Morrison Joyce government, I’m talking about federal governance—is quite often about wealth transfer. The more regulation we have then the more that can be hidden. It’s built into this, the whole thing. There are just so many avenues for it to be loose and sloppy and the people who pay, time and time again, are the everyday Australians who pay for the mess in government.

I’m not having a go at you; I’m not looking at you in particular. I’m just saying that this is a mess. How can we sort it out so that the people and the environment stop paying the price for mistakes?

[Senator Davey] I think that finishing that choke study might be a good first step.

[Mr Reynolds] In that part of the river system, in particular, there is significant work, investigation and analysis on how we can manage some of these detrimental impacts while still achieving the good impacts that people are looking for.

Some of the impacts we’ve seen in terms of high river flows and the river flowing at higher flow rates, or at least at levels higher than it has in the past, are the result of lost capacity in the river system and the deposition of sand within the Choke. That means to get the same volume of water through the Choke and downstream that we had in the past, the river needs to run at a higher level for a longer period of time. That’s absolutely the challenge that we’re dealing with. The work that we’re doing to understand that, and to understand the options we have to take the pressure off the river system, is a critical part of that intervention.

[Senator Roberts] I’m saying the core problem may be something even deeper. Thank you.

March 4, 2022/by Harriet Black

Just add water – Farming saves Australia

Murray Darling Basin, Property Rights, Speeches, Water

The figures don’t lie, Australian farmers have saved the economy from a recession. While the government will always try to take credit for a good news story, I made this speech back in September celebrating the true heroes of Australia, the farmers on the ground.

Transcript

I recently spoke on mining exports keeping the Australian economy out of depression. Today I’m addressing the other good news story: agriculture. In the last 12 months, wheat prices are up 33 per cent, corn up 57 per cent, canola up 72 per cent, sugar up 65 per cent and—the one the Greens hate the most—cotton up 45 per cent. It’s not politicians keeping Australia out of a depression; it’s farmers’ hard work and resilience. Drought and cold from the current solar minimum are reducing crop yields worldwide.

At the same time, the drought in many places in Australia has ended. Prime Minister Morrison and Treasurer Frydenberg are taking credit for a strong economy that’s none of their doing. For years this parliament has been making life as hard as possible for farmers and irrigators. In 2019, One Nation asked this parliament to provide a measly 200 gigalitres of water from the Hume Dam to keep our farmers going through the drought. Labor, the Greens and the Liberals and their sell-out sidekicks the Nationals, teamed up to vote down our motion. As a result, the basin winter crop in 2019 failed.

Here we are in 2021 and the Murray-Darling Basin from Queensland to South Australia is at a high 80 per cent of water storage capacity. Hume and Dartmouth hold 5,700 gigalitres. The water the politicians said wouldn’t be there because of climate change is there. This parliament fails again. For weeks now up to 20 gigalitres a day of water that should have gone to farmers has been sent out to sea at the Murray mouth. With Lake Victoria’s storage full and Menindee filling quickly, flooding in the lower basin is a real possibility—and still farmers along the Murray and Murrumbidgee are receiving only 30 per cent water allocation.

At these crop prices, is this parliament mad? Give farmers their water and let them grow food and fibre to feed and clothe the world. We have one flag. We are one community. We are one nation. It’s time now to allow every Australian to lift themselves up through our own initiative

November 23, 2021/1 Comment/by Senator Malcolm Roberts

MEDIA RELEASE: Senate passes Senator Roberts’ water trading register

Media Release, Murray Darling Basin, Water

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.

June 23, 2021/by Senator Malcolm Roberts

Farmers and Regional Towns are struggling

Climate Change, Energy, Property Rights, Water

With water availability, labour prices and government all against the farmer, it is too hard for smaller farms to survive and even the large farms are struggling.

If our farms fallover, regional towns will quickly follow and then the rest of the country will be in big trouble. Governments at every level need to help our regions be building cheap, reliable electricity and secure supplies of water.

Decades of government dropping the ball on these issues has left us in a scary position. I talk about this in my new segment, Our Nation Today, with farmer Trevor Cross and Mike Ryan.

Let me know what you think.

Transcript

[Malcolm Roberts] Regional Queensland literally feeds and clothes us, Yet so many short-sighted government policy decisions will hit these regions first and hit the regions hardest. Travelling around Queensland, I’m constantly reminded that the one-size-fits-all policies just don’t meet the needs of rural and regional centres. We’re talking about the fundamentals that urban areas take for granted. Affordable, secure, and reliable water, energy, and food. Reasonable insurance premiums and freight rates, roads, and rail fit for purpose. Access to health and education that gives people the confidence to settle in the regions. There’s nothing more fundamental than food.

A prosperous agricultural sector is essential for supplying Australia’s food needs and the needs of the rest of the world. In the financial year 2021, the gross value of agricultural production is estimated at $66 billion, a staggering figure. And it’s easy to forget that being a farmer is a tough gig because even in good years it’s 24/7 and the balancing acts of risks within a farmer’s control, and those beyond never stops. There’s been a lot of talk about an agriculture-led recovery after the COVID restrictions that smashed our economy and the need for confidence to pick up the pieces and to keep going. Many in our farming community have sustained shattering losses with ready to pick food being ploughed back in and a major reduction in the planting of next year’s crop, simply due to worker shortages.

I see a role for government in creating the right environment for businesses to flourish. Part of that is to help mitigate unnecessary risks, such as having strategically placed dams and a well-connected water infrastructure grid which should have happened years ago. So instead of the Queensland government spending $10 million to cart water for Stanthorpe when the town ran out, it would have been better spent on a longer term solution such as more town weirs to hold more water. We know that our water reserves and existing dams are not keeping up with population growth. Government should aim to minimise its unnecessary intrusions and yet any farmer will tell you that excessive regulations such as the reef regulations and vegetation management laws create an impossible business environment for farmers.

Layer upon layer upon layer of stupid and destructive rules and regulation leaves the farmer with ever-decreasing profits. And yet we expect farmers to just saddle up and continue to make it work. Today Mike Ryan talks with Trevor Cross, a successful Queensland horticultural grower based in Bundaberg. I first met Trevor in 2017 at his farm and was impressed with his passion for farming, his business savvy and the hard work that he and his team do everyday to put many veggies such as tomatoes, capsicums and zucchinis into our supermarkets.

[Mike Ryan] Trevor, thanks for joining us.

[Trevor Cross] Thanks Mike, good to meet you.

[Mike Ryan] Now, tell us about your farming business, the size of your holdings, where you’re located, what you grow and what you export.

[Trevor Cross] We’re in Bundaberg in Queensland, we farm about two and a half thousand acres of small crops. So we grow tomatoes, gourmet roma’s and cherry tomato. And then zucchinis, capsicums, chilies, melon, pumpkin, a few cucumber, snow peas, and sugar snaps, and just a few beans, so we spread that over about a nine-month period in the Bundaberg region. So most of our stuff actually goes Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne a little bit to Adelaide. And this year in New Zealand, it’ll open its exports again, it’s been out for 12 months with this virus. So it’s supposed to open up again this year, so hopefully that’ll be good for the industry.

[Mike Ryan] I can really empathise with what you do. I mean, my dad will probably kill me for this being from the land. I recall he actually decided to go into rockies and do rock melons and large acreage. Anyway, the bottom fell out of the market. And I recall he got a cheque from the bank for, I think it would have been something like sixpence in those days. And I’m thinking, why would you ever want to do this? And then he decided to go into avocados and citrus and stuff. And that’s just as terrifying. It’s a really hard business, isn’t it?

[Trevor Cross] Yeah. The biggest problem with farming it’s actually almost like an addiction. You go out and start growing something, it’s very, very hard to stop it. It’s not so much about money, I don’t think, when you’re a farmer. It’s about just seeing a crop planted, seeing the crop grow and getting it picked. But the biggest problem is there needs to be some rewards on the way through.

[Mike Ryan] What’s the greatest challenge, say, to business such as yours on the land?

[Trevor Cross] In our industry it’s, because it’s a high-labor industry, it’s probably, at the moment, getting enough people to actually harvest crops. Because when we’re in peak-season we have about 350 people here, so… And there is going to be a shortage. I’m not quite sure how far we’ll be down, whether it’s going to be 10- or 20-percent down. So that’s probably one of the hardest parts. Water supply’s another major component to our operation, and just general costing. The costs keep going up and up and up and the end prices doesn’t really reflect what it’s costing to do business, anymore.

[Mike Ryan] So you have two and a half thousand acres, which is a very large, large piece of land. Do you think the days of the smaller farmer, for example, 20 or 30 acres are gone, and that you need to have, just to accommodate your cost and make sure you get a decent return, that you’ve got to have a large business instead of those, not micro, but the smaller businesses used to be.

[Trevor Cross] It’s volume now, whereas before it was just a family, a family could actually survive on a hundred acres and live fairly comfortable, now a hundred acres unless you’re doing really niche market product, you would never, ever survive. So everything’s been turned into bigger farms. We’d be one of the largest, freehold personal farms in town now, there’s probably a couple other families about our size that are just doing it, and the rest is a lot of consolidated money from investment companies, and they’re now are doing nut trees, mainly.

[Mike Ryan] What’s greatest impact on your business when it comes to costs? Which ones are the ones that stand out? Is it labour?

[Trevor Cross] Yeah, Labour used to run about 33- to 35-percent we’d work on for labour, and the way it’s going, last year I think hit early forties, about 42-, 44-percent, and this year, unless there’s a big market change I think it’ll go 50%.

[Mike Ryan] Wow. That’s incredible, isn’t it? How do you survive?

[Trevor Cross] Well, I just hope that there’s actually money paid at the other end. At the point of sale, at the first point of sale at the marketplace, most stuff is fairly cheap. At the last point of sale, it could be three… between two and four times what it’s paid for. So, that’s what the average customer doesn’t think, They think if it’s dearer in the shop, the farmer’s making the money.

[Mike Ryan] I was talking to Senator Malcolm Roberts, and he was saying, just talking about how the consumer in the major metropolitan areas, they all think that the produce that they see almost is manufactured in the supermarket, but, you know, prior to that, you’ve got so many factors. I mean, from the farmer to the chain. Farmer, to the, what do you call it?

The grower. Not grower, the buyer who buys up for the land and then they on-sell it to someone else. And then it’s sold to the supermarket. You think from the farmer to the actual supermarket, ’cause my dad used to always say, he would love to be able to take out a shotgun with some pellets and get rid of those middlemen. Is it still the same headache and pain in the backside?

[Trevor Cross] The biggest problem is with the whole system, if you actually get out of the place what’s supposed to set the right price how do we know what the right price is? And I think the days when people were actually stealing at the first point of sale, I don’t think it’s there anymore because everyone’s fighting for a dollar. So they’re getting screwed down more and more. All the grower actually needs is probably about 20- 30-cents a kilo more and they become very sustainable. And that’s not a lot.

It’s only 2 to 3 dollars a box on average, and everyone’s paying bills, because the Ag industry, and this is not just what we do, It’s every Ag industry, there’s a lot of people get employed before it even gets to the farm. And then after it leaves the farm there’s a lot of people employed from transport, through to your retailers, your wholesalers, and then the processors… there’s many, many people relying on the farming industry.

[Mike Ryan]What are your thoughts of the future of farming, say, in Australia?

[Trevor Cross] Well, I know if we keep going down this track we can’t last much longer. Even our business now we’ve actually got 400 acres of nut trees, and we’ll probably continue to change over just because of the labour price and for our small profits we’re making out of employing all the people, we may as well not have them. We may as well just go to where it’s all mechanical.

So, I don’t know if my boys will actually take over and do what I do, ’cause it’s a seven-day-a-week job. You’ve got to be in amongst the people and see what’s happening. I actually think, even in this area around Bundaberg, there won’t be too much of this industry left within probably four or five years. I think the majors will be all gone.

[Mike Ryan] That’s just terrible, too, because once you have less growers like yourself then you’ve got this monopoly and the monopolies are not what we want. I mean, look at the US and you’ve got these multi-billion-dollar corporations that control the price of produce, although you go to a supermarket and they do the same thing there too, they screw down the grower, although the grower being a lot bigger than what they’ve dealt with, they’ve got their sort of, at least it’s coming up to almost 50-50 between the grower and the actual supermarket chain.

It’s a really, really tough life. What do you think is the most important thing in keeping our farming sector successful and growing? What do we actually need to do besides revise wages, for example, on the land. You can’t keep paying out 50%. You’re going to make no money.

[Trevor Cross] Yeah. Everyone’s entitled to money, Mike. The wage earner is entitled to money, and they all want to lead a good life, but we’ve just got to get a share of that sale price at the end. Basically, I think all growers need just a little bit more money, and it’s not a lot, a couple dollars a box, as I say, it’s not a lot of money. And then everyone’s happy because I don’t think any man who’s been on the land for all his life deserves to actually have the bank come and sell him up, because of the poor market prices. I think everyone can work together.

If capsicums or zucchinis or whatever, ’cause we’re only seasonal, we do about eight months a year in Bundaberg, and then the South is just finishing up now, they would have had the most horrible year in their life. And people have been on the land all their life and next minute they gotta sell their farms because of poor prices. It’s only a couple of dollars a box, they wouldn’t have needed much more and they’d be still viable.

[Mike Ryan] So what do you do, though? If you weren’t on the land, what would you do?

[Trevor Cross] I don’t really know what I would actually do cause I’m not much into fishing, I don’t like doing anything else. And so that’s what I call it, a hobby.

[Mike Ryan] An expensive hobby though, isn’t it?

[Trevor Cross] Yeah but most… a lot of farmers grow because they’re addicted to growing. That’s what they’ve been bred to do. They grow. And they show up nearly every day. So it’s a challenge because you’re challenged against the weather, challenged against people and you become a plumber an accountant, you know, almost doctor, sometimes. So there’s nothing you can’t actually do. A good farmer can do just about anything there is to do.

[Mike Ryan] If somebody was wanting to find out more about what you do, do you actually have a website we could go to and have a look, just to get an idea and appreciation what it’s all about.

[Trevor Cross] No, I would say I keep pretty well under cover but we could actually have a bit of a look at doing something if there’s people interested and actually do something.

[Mike Ryan] Yeah. We must do that. I’m sure you’ll handle the technology as well as my dad.

[Trevor Cross] I have to get someone to help me, yeah.

[Mike Ryan] Trevor, great chatting with you. All the best. Thanks for giving us your time today, and also say thank you to your wife in the background, she’s done a wonderful job.

[Trevor Cross] No worries. Thanks, Michael.

[Malcolm Roberts] The harsh reality is that we, as a nation, will either flourish or decline with our regional centres and with Australian farmers. Our farmers must make a profit to make their livelihoods sustainable. And that, after all, is where we get our food. Our rural and regional communities have unique challenges and need a different set of solutions to ensure fair and equitable access to basic services and to grow viable communities. Thank you for joining me Senator Malcolm Roberts on Our Nation Today.

April 22, 2021/by Senator Malcolm Roberts

How to restore Australia’s productive capacity

Energy, Speeches

Australia used to have one of the highest household incomes in the world. What has happened since then?

Decades of weak leadership under Liberal and Labor governments, and it doesn’t look like it will get better anytime soon.

Transcript

The government at the moment is proposing industrial relations reform. It is tinkering. That’s all it is. What I want to do is discuss the bigger picture that we need to consider. First, let’s look at the decline of our country. Look at the decline since 1944, with the stealing of property rights from 1996 onwards and with the destruction of the electricity sector, the guts of our manufacturing sector and our agriculture sector. And yet, at a time when other countries have been reducing their electricity prices, Australian electricity prices have doubled or even tripled. We’ve got a taxation system that’s counterproductive, and there’s the neglect of our water infrastructure. Overregulation is decimating our manufacturing sector and, in fact, all sectors, especially small business—our biggest employers. Now let’s look at the recent devastation from the COVID restrictions, or rather government restrictions imposed as a result of COVID. They’re capricious, unsafe and devastating on small business and employees. If you look at Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia, COVID is managing us. Pretty soon JobKeeper ends—in fact, it ends at the end of next month—and then what will happen?

Let’s come back to what we need. We will work with the government to fix a bad bill—that is, its latest proposal. We will work with them in an attempt to do that. The three aims guiding us are: protecting honest workers, protecting small business and restoring Australia’s productive capacity. But not just to recover back to where we were last February before the COVID restrictions from government but to recover back to where we were when we were at the top of the world. We were literally number one for per capita gross domestic product. If I had a wish list, these are the things that would be on it—at least some of them.

I would want an inquiry into local government corruption in Queensland. Right across the state the waste of federal funding runs into the billions, with the fraud, the extortion, the corruption, the threats and the intimidation. We want to end that.

I would wish for a Commonwealth integrity commission, especially now that, during the last week, we’ve learnt what happened in this building. We need a proper corruption-ending system in this parliament and in this building. We need to restore integrity. We also need proper industrial relations reform—not the tinkering, the increased complexity nor the abandonment of small business. We need proper reform that looks after all employers and employees. We need proper reform that enables, first of all, employers and employees to restore their primary relationship without the IR club dipping into their pockets and putting handcuffs on them. We need to restore primary workplace relationships. We need to make it easier for people to work. We need to remove the complexity and remove the lawyers and the vultures.

We need to reform taxation. We need proper taxation reform—not tinkering and not adding more complexity to tax. We need to make it simpler for companies and small businesses to employ people. We need to make it easier for employees, honest workers, to keep more of their pay for their families.

We need reform of the family law system. We need reform of water. We need to do much, much better with our water. We need to return environmental water management to the states. We need to introduce a water register—it’s 14 years overdue. We need to introduce a weirs-for-life program and turn around drains in the south-east. We have a comprehensive plan we’re going to release soon about what we would do with the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and water right across the country.

We need to restore farmers’ property rights that were stolen in 1996 by the John Howard-John Anderson government. We need to make sure we have lower energy prices. We need to restore coal-fired power stations in this country—build a new one at Collinsville and build a new one in the Hunter Valley. We need to address the PFAS problems that are gutting so many areas. We need to look at infrastructure—the national rail circuit, Inland Rail, the Bradfield Scheme—and do it properly. Above all, we need a government with vision that provides real leadership, not tinkering. Get back to basics.

February 27, 2021/by Senator Malcolm Roberts

The governance of our country is appalling

Energy, Foreign Ownership, Murray Darling Basin, Property Rights, Speeches

The governance of our country is appalling. My adjournment speech.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I draw attention to the Australian parliament’s failure to protect the interests of the Australian people. In the Senate yesterday, the Liberals, the Nationals and the Labor Party united in standing beside big banks against the interests of everyday Australians. Together they voted down my bill to prevent bank deposits being bailed in—meaning that when banks get into trouble they can steal depositors’ money.

Their madness is simple: Australia has the world’s safest banks; the only thing that could bring our banks down is a loss of confidence; that’s the very thing my bill was designed to stop. Not once has the Treasurer, the Prime Minister or APRA, the banking regulator, come out and said, ‘We will not bail in your deposits.’ It’s time the Australian people heard those words.

The right to use a banking service without losing our money is just one of many rights that everyday Australians have lost—another is the loss of property rights. Prime Minister John Howard’s government’s response to the UN’s Kyoto Protocol in 1996 was to use the deceitful trick of protecting junk vegetation from destruction. The carbon dioxide that this saved counted to our UN Kyoto targets and it still does.

It enabled his government to bypass its constitutional duty to compensate farmers for stealing their property rights. This is a perfect example of mad climate policies that are about bowing to unelected, unrepresentative foreign UN bureaucrats, rather than showing actual environmental outcomes. The land that John Howard’s capricious actions supposedly protected was not something worthwhile like an old-growth forest or repairing vegetation, no, it was agricultural land that was stolen.

John Howard’s government stole our farmers’ rights to clear junk vegetation that grows on a field not used for a few years. It prevents farmers making productive use of their land. To this day the general public think this ban on land clearing relates to actual forests. This conjures up images of evil farmers chopping down virgin forests and sending koalas of to their deaths.

The reality is this ban stops farmers clearing salt bush and junk vegetation that’s stopping productive agriculture on land that has been farmed many times. The old parties never let the truth stand in the way of virtue signalling. The Liberal-National government with John Howard as Treasurer is largely to blame for banking misconduct. It was John Howard who deregulated banking.

This exposed bank customers to the atrocious behaviour that was found during the Senate inquiry into rural and regional lending that I chaired. Our inquiry led to the banking royal commission finding even more wrongdoing. The Morrison government recently demonstrated another failure in looking after small business. Aussie company CuDeco operated the Rocklands copper mine near Cloncurry in Queensland.

It was driven into insolvency from the actions of the minority Chinese owners. The mine was sold to a local Chinese company who promptly onsold it to a Chinese government entity. China now owns an important Australian copper mine thanks to the ineffective Morrison government. The mine’s workers will never get their missing wages and local contractors are out of pocket $60 million.

The only way we will see CuDeco’s copper again is if we buy that copper inside Chinese manufactured electronics. Chinese corporations continue to cherrypick their way through our resources sector. China is buying mines, real estate, farms and even our water. I do compliment Treasurer Frydenberg though on his recent decision to block the sale of PURA milk to the Chinese, resulting in the Australian company Bega buying PURA.

It’s a welcome break after the Liberal-National and Labor parties selling Australia out for a generation. Since my return to the Senate last year the Liberal, Labor and National parties have been acting together and have voted down One Nation’s motions—many motions—to restore farmers’ water rights.

The 2007 Water Act takes their water rights and forces Aussie farmers, family farmers, off the land. Even now with all the rain this year farmers are on as little as 39 per cent allocation. Who passed the 2007 Water Act? Prime Minister John Howard. Who introduced the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 2012? Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

The whole point of the Water Act was to remove family farms from the land, then to remove their water rights to new irrigation areas on cheap land belonging to corporate agriculture. Windfall profits all round. Australian farmers and local communities being gutted. The Australian parliament must decide whether it represents the interests of big business or the interests of everyday Australians.

December 1, 2020/by Senator Malcolm Roberts

Nationals lied about changes to Murray Darling Basin plan

Murray Darling Basin, National, Water

Last week the Nationals claimed to have significantly changed the Murray Darling Basin plan for farmers. I want to be blunt. THEY LIED.They are wilting under the pressure One Nation has put them under through our use of facts and in response instead of doing good are trying to look good.

Take a listen to what the Nationals claimed the report said and what the report ACTUALLY says.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Senator Malcolm Roberts and I’m on the road from Rocky to Mackay in Central Queensland. I wanna make a statement about the and ask some questions about the Murray-Darling Basin Plan notice that came out of the government last week.

And I wanna ask a few basic questions after Friday’s media headlines. And I’m gonna read these questions, because I wanna make sure it’s accurate. Sky News called this the biggest change to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in 10 years, oh really? The Australian announced buybacks axed in Murray overhaul.

So I asked Minister Pitt for a copy of this supposed landmark report. And this is it, 10 pages, that’s all. The recommendations are two pages and a bit, that’s it. Does it really represent any change in the current policy? No, it does not. It doesn’t say any such thing and yet the Nationals Party and the government has been saying that.

One major issue and this is the first topic. One major issue with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is the last 450 gigalitres of water acquisitions called SDLs. Which is to be taken off farmers and given to the environment in South Australia. Since the plan started 2100 gigalitres of water has been taken from farmers.

That’s forced many farmers off the land and reduced our agricultural output by more than $10 billion. This is money that our economy needs especially when we try to recover from COVID. This is food that has been taken from the world’s hungry.

Now Senator Bridget McKenzie, who is leader of the National’s Party in the senate made this statement just a week ago. Quote, “You cannot take any more water from our communities. The 450 gigalitres will not be coming from our farmers. Enough is enough, you have taken enough.”

Well, that was clear, wasn’t it? But what does the reports really say? Let me read the recommendations. Quote, this is what the report says. “Work with the states to accelerate planning and delivery of the 450 gigalitre SDL acquisitions. Not stop the acquisition accelerate the acquisition.”

What of the promise to not take water off farmers? Perhaps Senator McKenzie is talking about this line. Quote, from the report, “Shift the focus away from on-farm acquisition to off-farm infrastructure.” What sort of a promise is shift the focus? These are with weasel words Minister Pitt.

450 gigalitres through fixing leaky pipes and burying irrigation channels, not possible. And for the record irrigation channels are lifelines for native Australian birds, animals and reptiles in a drought. Those canals are an entire ecosystem full of fish, turtles and crustaceans that die when you bury them underground.

This idea is literally killing our environment to save it. Secondly, as for splitting the Murray-Darling Basin authority into two, not so much. This is recommendation six, which establishes an Inspector General of Water Compliance. Now is this a new post?

No, they are simply renaming the Inspector General of Murray-Darling Basin Water Resources. When he was appointed, the existing Inspector Mick Keelty was called the tough cop on the block. What happened to that? This is nothing more than a re-branding exercise.

And the media has slapped it up the media has fallen for it. Does the media check anything anymore? Or do they just parrot what this government tells them? Thirdly, as for punitive powers, the Inspector General does not have any. Those powers vest with the State’s New South Wales in particular.

Where the most water rorting is going on. Has not even given the Murray-Darling Basin any punitive powers at all. If big Corporate Agriculture builds a new floodplain harvesting dam in the Northern Basin, the Inspector General has no powers to order that demolished nor even issue a fine.

The New South Wales State Agriculture Minister, Nationals Leader New South Wales, Nationals MP John Barilaro, has to make those orders and the government damn well knows it. Minister Pitt I have three questions. Who wrote this misleading press release?

Secondly, show me where in this report it actually says there will be no more buybacks from farmers? Thirdly, how does re-branding one position without any extra powers suddenly become splitting the Murray-Darling Basin authority into two? It doesn’t, does it?

I’ve heard the Nationals talk a lot of rubbish lately. But this takes the cake. These are lies they speak to distract. Under the Nationals, farmers will lose their water and rural communities will be destroyed. The only winner will be the Nationals Corporate Agriculture Mates.

When will the Nationals for a change? Join us in one Nation in putting Australia first.

September 9, 2020/by Senator Malcolm Roberts

Murray Darling Basin investigation a whitewash

Media Release, Murray Darling Basin, Water

One Nation Senator Roberts expressed sheer disbelief and disappointment with the Keelty report into the Murray Darling Basin’s water allocations to farmers who need water to grow food.

Senator Roberts said, “As the nation reels from COVID-19 and faces food shortages this report is woefully inadequate and a tragic waste of taxpayers’ money. “

“An investigation should demonstrate rigour and analysis and instead Mr Keelty’s report is full of inadequacies.”

The report fails to include in its datasets this year’s substantial rainfall event and does not acknowledge rainfall within the MDB has increased over the past 100 years. Instead the Keelty analysis deceitfully uses ‘declining inflows’ as a way of arguing why farmers should be denied a fair allocation of water.

When 4000 disenchanted farmers descended on Canberra to protest the unfair allocation of water between the environment and farmers, they were promised that their zero allocations would be the subject of this review.

“It is deeply disappointing, particularly now when our agricultural productive capacity is under-utilised, that this issue was not rigorously examined by Mr Keelty. Astonishingly the report fails to even mention those zero allocations,” added Senator Roberts.

As predicted by many farmers, the former Water Minister David Littleproud used the promise of an investigation into the MDB to quieten the crowd of protestors and conveniently shift blame to the States and irrigators.

Irrigators are suspicious of MDBA figures that show declining inflows when the Murray River has been running so high that environmental damage has resulted along the upper Murray and Barmah/Millewa forest from excessive water.

Disturbingly the report claims that environmental water is not being wasted, ignoring the unnecessary flooding of forests, excess water flushed out to sea in South Australia and keeping the lower lakes filled above their natural levels with Murray River water.

“The report may as well have been written by the MDBA itself, as it addresses none of the concerns from farmers, some of which have gone without a water allocation for 3 years.”

COVID-19 has highlighted the critical importance of Australia restoring our productive capacity across many strategic industries, including our agricultural sector.

“The Keelty report’s lack of due diligence in this investigation is akin to the last nail in the coffin of one of Australia’s most substantial food bowls. No water, no food,” Senator Roberts added.

Unsurprisingly, the report found that a lack of trust and leadership worsened the problems. One Nation calls for a Royal Commission into misconduct in the implementation of the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

“Trust cannot be restored until rorting has been exposed and fixed. Australia needs management of the MDB Plan that reflects a genuine triple benefit – for irrigators, communities and the environment,” Senator Roberts stated.

200421-Murray-Darling-Basin-investigation-a-whitewash_

April 21, 2020/by Senator Malcolm Roberts

One Nation Murray Darling Basin Update

Murray Darling Basin, Water

The recent bushfires, some rains and now the CoronaVirus has taken attention away from farmers still struggling with drought or the Murray Darling Basin plan which is still failing to deliver water to farmers.

One Nation has not forgotten about our farmers and is still fighting for a fair and equitable allocation of water.

In this video I give a quick summary of my investigation so far and then an update on what we are continuing to do behind the scenes to restore the productive capacity of regional Australia.

TRANSCRIPT

Some people recently have asked us for an update on what we’re doing in the Murray-Darling Basin. It’s still a very very important issue. Just because some rains have come does not mean it’s over yet. There’s a long way to go. So I’ll just first of all, remind people of what we’ve done. Back in 2017 in February, I listened to people in the Ballone Shire Council, in their chambers in St. George and they told us about the devastation due to the Murray-Darling Basin Authority and the plan in Southern Queensland around the border and Northern New South Wales.

We listened to those people and we saw that they were right. Then we went as a result of that. Pauline and I went down the whole Murray River, right down to the barrages and the river mouth and we learned quite a bit from irrigators and farmers in northern Victoria, Southern New South Wales and South Australia. Then I got knocked out of the Senate and we were about to continue doing a lot more. When I came back in, the first thing we did, was start to understand the Murray-Darling Basin again.

So, we first of all did an overflight. We took off from Albury went right down the Murray River, down around the lower lakes, the Coorong and then up to Mildura, then up the entire Darling and then flew to the north of the basin above Charleville and then came back to Goondiwindi and then over the Clarence River catchment area, and then down the centre of the basin and actually back to Mungundi and then down the centre and then to Albury. We got a good overview of the whole lot. Wasn’t much water anyway, because it was so dry.

Then we went on the ground and we went to Southern Queensland, Northern New South Wales listening to people; irrigators, communities, businesses. We then went down, flew down to Adelaide and went down the lower lakes, the Coorong, then back up through the irrigated areas and non irrigated areas of South Australia, then along the Murray listening to people in southern New South Wales, Northern Victoria. And then we went along the Murrumbidgee.

And we went down the Murrumbidgee and partly under the Murray again, then up the Darling and ended up at Broken Hill. We’ve got a little bit more travelling to do, a little bit more listening with people on the ground in Central and New South Wales. And we’ve also got a few issues that we want resolved. But most importantly, we want to listen now to some experts. These are not technical experts as such, not because they’ve got, they’re not experts because they’ve got initials after their name or they’ve got a title.

These are experts, like former people in the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. Highly regarded. People who’ve done a lot of research, a lot of experience in the area. We want to listen to them, and then we pull it all together. But just now I just want to bring you up to date with a few things. First of all, the need for trust. There’s very little trust. Why? Because there’s so little data, there’s so little openness, there’s so little listening from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority.

And as a result, people are blaming each other between the regions. The flood harvesters in Northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland are blaming South Australia. South Australians are blaming everyone. Southerners in New South Wales and Victoria are blaming the Northerners and South Australia. And we’ve been told that we will get a water registry. Well, the federal government has had eight years to do that and still hasn’t got a water registry.

So what we’re doing is, we’re calling on the federal government to put in place a water registry in 12 months over the next 12 months. You should should be able to do that in a year. The data is largely there. But it needs to be part of a larger watering reporting system comprising the whole basin so we know where the water is coming in, we know where the water is being stored and we know where it’s flowing out. That’s essential. So that people have an understanding, a transparent understanding of the water flows.

The second thing. We want irrigation water to be treated somewhat as environmental water. The losses in irrigation water flow into the environment. Some of the irrigation water itself flows into the environment. So what we’re calling for, is carriage losses in irrigation water to be treated as environmental water because it ends up in the environment. Third thing as part of that by the way, we want farmers to be recognised that they are protecting the environment.

Their experience, their own livelihoods and the future value of their land depends upon them taking care of it. These people are the guardians of the land. Instead of being seen, treated as villains, they need to be treated as guardians of the land. The fourth thing we want is integrity. We want to restore integrity to the Basin. There is corruption.

We know that! Some of the irrigation authorities have a lot at stake and some of the people are telling us around the Basin that some irrigation authorities are corrupt. And with the amount of money involved, it’s easy to see how that could happen. And we know that some people have become very very wealthy as a result. So what we’re calling for is a Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission. Now what we’ve got to do, I just told you, we’ve still got a little bit more to do.

And then what we’ll do is we’ll put a plan out to the whole community. We’ve already released based upon our early understandings at the water convoy. Last year we released our basic plan. It was just a discussion paper, to get people’s feedback. That will become the basis of a policy. It is not our policy yet, but we will, we’ve got a little bit more work to do and then we will restore water to the farmers through a policy that we’ll be releasing to everyone. The plan ultimately is to restore water to the farmers and have a solid sustainable Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

March 20, 2020/by Senator Malcolm Roberts

Posts

Menindee Lakes, SDL water acquisitions and Lock Zero – MDBA Part 1

Transcript

Why did the Government vote against a water trading register? MDBA Part 2

Transcript

Just add water – Farming saves Australia

Transcript

MEDIA RELEASE: Senate passes Senator Roberts’ water trading register

Farmers and Regional Towns are struggling

Transcript

How to restore Australia’s productive capacity

Transcript

The governance of our country is appalling

Transcript

Nationals lied about changes to Murray Darling Basin plan

Transcript

Murray Darling Basin investigation a whitewash

One Nation Murray Darling Basin Update

TRANSCRIPT

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