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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2019-04-30 Daily Xml
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Grievance Debate

Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (15:09): Last week, all Australia found out that there are serious probity questions about the water buybacks that Barnaby Joyce signed off when he was federal water minister. This was news to Australia, but it did not need to be news.

We could have known about those questions. We could have had many of those questions settled had the Marshall government agreed to extend the deadline for the Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission, as requested very respectfully by the royal commissioner. He knew that he could not get commonwealth officials to testify without an extension to allow the High Court to make a judgement about his powers and then have time to summon them. He made this clear to the Attorney-General. She not only declined his request but, in the process, she so offended him by misrepresenting his position that he asked for an apology. He is still waiting for that apology.

If we had a government that cared more about the Murray than about partisan politics, we could have had witnesses from the commonwealth answering the serious questions already raised in evidence about those buybacks because what the royal commission had heard, and the Marshall government would have known if it was paying attention, was that, in the case of at least one of the buybacks, the purchase of the water was never going to come off the property, let alone down to South Australia.

The water entitlement was legally tied to the land. It had no legal status or ownership off the land, so legally it could not move off the property. Even more so, physically it could not move off the property because there were levee banks in place and there was no legal requirement to remove the levee. On the face of it, this sounds like a disgraceful deal and it is one that commonwealth officials should have been asked about.

They should have been asked to explain in full in front of the royal commission, but this government decided that that was not a priority for them. They did not want to hear that evidence. Having had questions raised, they did not want it to go any further. Was it because they did not know that those questions had been raised? Were they not paying attention?

It is impossible to know from the answers we heard from the minister today because all he talked about was vaguely having lots and lots of conversations, which is somewhat reminiscent of the corrections minister having lots and lots of conversations, but not actually saying what was discussed, what was briefed to cabinet, what the Attorney-General was in possession of and what knowledge she had before she declined to allow the royal commissioner to have commonwealth officials come in front of the royal commissioner and ask serious questions.

This Premier, this Attorney-General and this so-called water and environment minister chose to shut down a royal commission, rather than give an extension that had been respectfully asked for. This is entirely consistent with the approach that this minister already demonstrated last year in December at the ministerial council meeting, to give in to other interests, to make a decision that, in the words of the royal commissioner:

…should not merely be described as ill-advised. It is nothing short of a capitulation to the interests of the current Commonwealth Government, and those of Victoria and New South Wales.

Our state government capitulated to this current commonwealth government that said they would cooperate with the royal commission but ended up refusing to allow officials to be asked questions. It is a commonwealth government that had Barnaby Joyce, as a water minister and then a drought envoy, going around the country, undermining the plan by saying it was more important to give water to farmers than to keep the River Murray healthy in South Australia.

It is this commonwealth government that has not put out any public tenders for water efficiency projects to get environment water down to our state. It is this commonwealth government that first cancelled public tenders for voluntary buybacks and instead just bought from favoured sellers, which we should be asking many questions about, and then put a cap on more voluntary buybacks.

It is this government that bought water that legally and physically cannot leave the Queensland property it is on. That is the government that the Marshall Liberal government decided was worth doing a deal with in December, was worth offending a royal commissioner for and was worth fettering a royal commission's inquiry for. So we now know all about the quality of the character of this government.

They will stand by political mates and they will sell out our state. Shame on them. Shame on behalf of the Murray Mouth, on behalf of the Coorong, on behalf of the Lower Lakes and the communities that depend on them, and on behalf of irrigators now facing to 14 per cent allocation this year. Shame on this government. We will never forget.

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