Press conference, Leeton, NSW
JOHN BRADFORD, CHAIR, SUNRICE GROUP: I'm John Bradford, the Chair of the SunRice Group, and I welcome everyone here today. I'd like to welcome Murray and George Weston, who’s the Mayor of the Leeton Council. I've got to say a big thank you to Murray for coming.
Since he was the Ag Minister, and the Environmental Minister, we've had great relationships with him. He comes and listens to what we do at SunRice, and I'd like to thank him for that. I'd like to thank David Farley, our Local Member, for the work he's done in the background.
Today we announce a great initiative by the Albanese Government recognising the impact of the Basin Plan and the adjustment that we can do. You know, this is a Sustainable Communities project and we're co-investing with the Federal Government with a $29 million project here on rice cakes. We're going to build a whole new, brand new rice cakes here in Leeton.
This gives great comfort and confidence to our growers, to our workers, and to the community, and I thank him for turning up here. I like to look forward to the iteration of the new Basin Plan - they're doing a review at the moment. I've got some great ideas, I’ve been talking to Murray this morning about, putting a bit of balance, making sure that we have healthy communities, healthy rivers, and healthy industries in this region.
So I might hand over to Murray and, once again, thank you, Murray, for coming. MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Thanks John. Well thanks very much, John, and thanks to everyone here at SunRice for joining us for today's special occasion.
Thanks also to George Weston, the Mayor of Leeton Shire. We've had a really good roundtable this morning already with local mayors, local industry representatives, local union representatives, about the future of the Riverina and the role that the Murray–Darling Basin Plan plays in that moving forward. So again, can I thank George and all the other participants in that roundtable for their ideas which we can now take into account.
I think everyone in the Riverina knows, and right across Australia people know, that the Murray–Darling Basin is Australia's most important water system. It's home to thriving communities, it's home to the agricultural powerhouse that is the Murray-–Darling, very strong and important First Nations cultural links. And of course, the Murray–Darling Basin is also home to some unique plants and animals that are not seen anywhere in Australia.
And as John has said, the challenge that all governments have when dealing with the Murray–Darling Basin is how we achieve balance between all of those different interests; between the health of the local environment, the health of local communities and industries, First Nations connections as well. And that's what we'll be seeking to achieve when we bring down the new Murray–Darling Basin Plan next year.
In the meantime though of course, we are undertaking, as a federal government, significant action to restore the health of the Murray–Darling Basin system. And in doing, so to make sure that we have vibrant communities, important jobs, and important industries here in Leeton and many other Riverina towns as well. And today's announcement is an investment in the future of Leeton, it's an investment in the future of the Riverina, and it's an important investment in value-adding jobs that are based in this regional part of New South Wales.
I think we have to acknowledge that, without a sustainable environment in the Murray–Darling Basin we won't have sustainable communities and industries moving forwards. And that's why, as a government, we have had to take action in recent years to ensure that we do have a more sustainable Murray–Darling Basin system for the long term. We have to recognise that this river system remains under significant environmental pressure.
In fact earlier this year, I listed the lower Murray region - which essentially runs from south west New South Wales all the way through South Australia - it was listed as critically endangered in recognition that the environmental pressure on that river system is still very great. And that's why, as a government, we’ve invested over $870 million in water efficiency and infrastructure projects.
And it is why we've had to undertake voluntary water buybacks as well to restore that environmental health of the river system. But in doing that, we recognise - and I will say as a Labor Government - we recognise that we need to invest in jobs. We care about the jobs of these communities, and that's what's led to today's announcement.
Can I thank SunRice for bringing the proposal to us, that has allowed us to make a co-investment of about $14.5 million in federal funding which will be matched dollar for dollar by SunRice - which will see a brand new rice cake processing plant built here at Leeton. And what that will do is support around 200 direct and indirect jobs both in Leeton and in this region as a whole.
So as a government, we're committed to getting the balance right between all of those different interests in the Murray–Darling Basin, but always making sure that we put the interests of these communities and the jobs in those communities at the forefront of this discussion. So again, can I congratulate SunRice on this proposal. We're very pleased to partner with you, and we look forward to working with the local council and all the workers here to make sure that there's a bright future here in Leeton for generations to come.
I might leave it at that at the moment, but happy to take some questions after we hear from the Mayor. GEORGE WESTON, MAYOR OF LEETON: Okay, thank you, Murray, and thank you for your time and your investment into our town. And also thank you, John, for your investment in town.
It gives us certainty in the future. These people who work in our town, live, work and play here, and they take on these skills, we're going to keep our skills here. It gives us certainty in our town, and we thank you, you recognise the innovative farmers who are second-to-none with the water they use.
We understand about water. We understand about the environment. But this is a good balance of your investment.
With our farmers, who think about the environment as it is. So thank you very much for your time, you two fellows, and thank you on behalf of the community. Thank you.
MURRAY WATT: Thanks George. Any questions for any of us? JOURNALIST: Happy to kick off, yeah?
Thanks, Minister. Now this will no doubt help jobs here in Leeton in the future. But what about Deniliquin where nearly 70 jobs were recently lost?
MURRAY WATT: Yeah, as a government, we don't want to see the loss of any job in any region or any industry. And again, that's why we've made this commitment in Leeton to invest and protect some of the jobs that are here moving forwards. In Deniliquin, you may be aware that our Government is funding, all up, a $300 million Sustainable Communities program which is all about supporting those communities that are being impacted by those voluntary water buybacks.
I have asked the asked the New South Wales Government to take into account Deniliquin's needs as they allocate the next round of that funding. The way that program works is that the federal government puts up the money, but state governments make the decisions about where the- which projects are invested in. And as I say, I have asked the New South Wales Government to take Deniliquin's needs into account as they're allocating more of that federal funding.
JOURNALIST: Absolutely. And in the meantime though, you know, of course this announcement mentions it'll support 200 direct and indirect jobs. But just considering those jobs that were lost in Deniliquin, what is the Government currently doing to support them?
Is there anything beyond JobSeeker assistance that will be provided? MURRAY WATT: Yeah so we're working closely with the New South Wales Government on this. Traditionally, it is more of the role of a state government around employment support when industries do close operations, and we are working with the New South Wales Government on that.
I'm aware that they have been working with the local community and the council there around the future there. But as I say, the reason we've put up that $300 million in the Sustainable Communities program is in recognition that these voluntary water buybacks, which are necessary to keep this area sustainable for the long term, can have some impacts on some businesses in some towns.
And we want to make sure that state governments are using that sort of funding to invest in new job-creating projects in places like Deniliquin, and I'd certainly be hopeful that they make that decision. JOURNALIST: And SunRice is also asking for water to be available for rice production this summer - there's a motion that was put forward by David Farley. Will the Government consider making the environmental waterholder sell any water in the Southern Basin?
MURRAY WATT: Yeah so I've had conversations with David Farley about this, as I have with SunRice as well. The decisions that are made around allocating water are, again, made by state governments, but I have spoken directly with the New South Wales Water Minister about this. I am aware that recent decisions from the New South Wales Government have lifted water allocations in this region.
I know there are ongoing discussions happening between SunRice and the New South Wales Government, and we'll do everything we can to support those discussions. JOURNALIST: Right. And the rice industry has said it needs stable production [inaudible].
Can the Government do anything to ensure that? And will this investment in value-adding be useless without the local rice to feed it? MURRAY WATT: Well, it certainly won't be useless.
This investment is all about making sure that this plant not only continues operating, but is operating bigger and better with new technology, with new machinery and, of course, these fantastic workers who are standing behind us here today. Again, we recognise that the ongoing viability of every agricultural industry here in the Murray–Darling Basin does depend, at least part, on water supply.
Now, we also need to acknowledge that climate change means that all the predictions are we're going to be facing a drier climate and less rainfall here in the Murray–Darling Basin, and that was raised in the roundtable that we had this morning. So what we need to be doing as a federal government is working with states, with local governments, with local communities, to plan for that kind of future.
And that's what the Murray–Darling Basin plan, the next version of that, would all be about. JOURNALIST: And will the Federal Government embark on more water buybacks to meet environmental water targets? MURRAY WATT: So where we're at on those targets is that the 450 gigalitres of water to be recovered for environmental purposes, we're tracking well on that.
We expect to reach the 400 gigalitre mark by the end of this calendar year, which puts us very well on track to meet the legislated requirement of 450 gigalitres by the end of next year. Aside from that, one of the things you might be referring to is that the Murray–Darling Basin Authority recently released its predictions around what's known as the SDLAM, the Sustainable Diversion Limit Adjustment Mechanism - I think I've got that right, there's lots of acronyms in this field.
And what that showed for a different target needing 605 gigalitres recovered where we're looking at falling short by about 265 gigalitres. Sorry, I know that's lots of different figures for lots of different targets. The point about that is that that particular measure was established back in 2017 as an alternative to more water buybacks.
And the idea there was that we would fund state governments to deliver other projects that would recover water without the need for water buybacks. Unfortunately despite us providing more time to deliver those projects, that amount of 605 gigalitres has not been met, and we're likely to fall short by about 265 gigalitres. What that means is that we now need to consider how we deal with that shortfall.
And certainly, there are different views being expressed, including at today's roundtable, about how we should deal with that. We haven't made any decisions about that at the moment, but that's something we'll keep working on over the next few months. JOURNALIST: Right.
And do you accept the criticism that water buybacks are having a negative impact on smaller towns? MURRAY WATT: Well, I think what the evidence shows us - and when I talk about the evidence, the Murray–Darling Basin Authority recently did an evaluation of the Murray–Darling Basin Plan - and what that plan showed was that the combination of measures we're taking - including in investing in infrastructure, constraints measures, water buybacks, other measures as well - is having a positive impact on the environmental flows and the natural environment here in the Murray–Darling Basin.
Now, of course that matters for the environment, but also we need to remember that there's a really vibrant tourism industry here in the Riverina and across the whole Murray–Darling Basin. It needs a functioning, healthy Murray–Darling Basin system for people to keep traveling here into the future. So absolutely, we recognise the needs of the agriculture sector, the manufacturing sector like what we're seeing here at SunRice.
But we've also got to think about some of those other industries that depend on a strong environment as well. As I say, we recognise that voluntary water buybacks have had some economic impact in some towns, in some industries. Not everywhere.
The figures show us that agricultural production has actually grown in the Murray–Darling Basin Plan over the time that we've been undertaking those buybacks. But we recognise there can be economic impacts. That's why we're making investments, like the kind that we're making today, to make sure that these towns still have vibrant industries and lots of jobs into the future.
JOURNALIST: And as you've kind of just acknowledged, local communities are calling for local socioeconomic impacts to be front and centre in the Basin Plan Review. So how's your Government committing to that? MURRAY WATT: Yeah, every time we make decisions to undertake voluntary water buybacks, we do take into account the socioeconomic impacts of that.
We also take into account the environmental impacts. We take into account the value for money for taxpayers who are paying for those buybacks. So there's a range of factors we take into account, including the socioeconomic impacts.
But again, that's one of the reasons why we're making investments like this today, to recognise those socioeconomic impacts and to cushion the impacts in these kind of communities. JOURNALIST: Right. And New South Wales put forward a number of infrastructure water efficiency programs under the Resilient Rivers Program, which would have improved infrastructure and returned water savings to the environment.
But why isn't this a priority rather than buying entitlements? MURRAY WATT: Well, it is a priority. And as I mentioned at the outset, we've invested, as a federal government, over $870 million of taxpayers money in infrastructure projects exactly like that.
In fact, I think just in the Leeton region we've invested in the order of $130 million to $140 million of water infrastructure projects, and I'll be going to visit one of them today. So this is the point I'm making is that I understand there's always a lot of attention on water buybacks, and I understand why people are concerned about that. That is not the only thing our Government is doing.
We're investing really heavily in water infrastructure projects. We're investing in structural adjustment to make sure there are jobs in the existing industries and new industries. So there's much more to this plan than just water buybacks.
JOURNALIST: I promise, just a few more questions just for our parliamentary colleagues. MURRAY WATT: All good. Sure, sure.
JOURNALIST: Just on the conference in the Pacific, the PM hasn't held a press conference while at Pre-COP. Is it appropriate for the country's leader to travel to Fiji, meet with international leaders and representatives, and not answer questions from press while there? MURRAY WATT: Well you've acknowledged that the Prime Minister has a really busy schedule at the Pre-COP meeting, meeting with international leaders about important issues to the Pacific.
But my understanding is that every session that he's participated in has been open to the media. So it's not as if he's been away from that. The media have been present at all the sessions that he's been present at as well.
JOURNALIST: And on the Coalition's migration plan, what do you make of it? MURRAY WATT: Well, I think the balance we've got to strike when it comes to migration is recognising the desire from many Australians to see a reduction in our migration numbers, while also making sure that we don't completely tank the economy, including in regions like this. As a government, we've actually halved net overseas migration since we came to office four years ago.
The reality is that, post-COVID, we saw a lot of Australians moving back to Australia. We saw a lot of people coming to Australia, having not been able to come here for years. And our migration level when we came to office was well over 500,000 every year.
It is now nearly half that, because of the effort that we've taken. But what we've done as a government is try to do that in a considered way that doesn't destroy industries, that doesn't destroy communities, and that's the risk that we face with the Coalition's policy. At the roundtable we had this morning with local governments, industries right here in Leeton, concerns were raised about the need for reasonable migration numbers to support communities like this.
I spoke to people this morning, industry groups this morning who rely on migrant workers as well as locally-based workers, their businesses won't be able to operate if we cut migration levels too far. And my concern is that the numbers we're seeing both from the Liberal Party and One Nation would really tank regional economies like the one I'm standing in today.
JOURNALIST: And Angus Taylor says the impact on the budget has been looked at, but it seems unclear whether there's broader economic modelling. Does this need to be fully modelled? MURRAY WATT: Absolutely.
If the Coalition are talking about making drastic migration cuts, which have been criticised by every business group as risking the economy, they have an obligation to present their modelling to the Australian people. And I don't know why they're not prepared to do that. It's as if they've got something to hide.
I mean, the other thing I might just say, particularly when it comes to regional communities, I challenge Angus Taylor to walk into any medical facility in Leeton or the Riverina, any aged care facility, in fact almost any business, and what he will see is that those businesses rely on migrants. So if you cut those numbers too far, you will have aged care facilities that will not be able to operate because they don't have the staff.
And I noticed that both Angus Taylor and Jane Hume, in the last 24 hours, have been asked about the impact on aged care - they don't have any answers for that. Because they know in their hearts that their cuts to migration numbers will have empty aged care facilities, and that is not serving communities like this very well at all. JOURNALIST: And just a couple of quick ones from the paper.
Minister, for you, is this investment a non-repayable grant? MURRAY WATT: Yes, this is a grant that we're making to SunRice, and as I say, there's a co-contribution of 50 percent from SunRice. JOURNALIST: A couple for John.
JOHN BRADFORD: JOURNALIST: What will this do for your production capacity across the Riverina, this announcement today? JOHN BRADFORD: This underpins jobs, over 200 jobs, directly and indirectly here in Leeton. It gives confidence for the community, our employees, and our rice growers.
We're selling the product, we're value adding, and that means that we're paying more- we're getting more money for it and we can pay more commercially for the rice. So it gives confidence for our growers to grow it. JOURNALIST: And what direct effect will it have on the stability and longevity of the Leeton and Deniliquin mills?
JOHN BRADFORD: More so at Leeton. It just shows you that we need rice. We need Australian rice.
We want water. That's the one thing that we’ll make sure, that we do grow rice, and it just underpins the production. And that value adding allows us to bring it into the water market, paying a lot of money for rice to keep this facility full.
JOURNALIST: JOURNALIST: And just a question for you as well. I mean, how much rice is expected to be grown this year? JOHN BRADFORD: It's early days.
We're at a better allocation than we were last year. So, I'm currently getting ground-ready, and I'm doubling my production area. So we'll know probably in a month and a half exactly.
But we want more- we want as much rice as we can get. JOURNALIST: Yeah. As you acknowledged as well, you’re obviously happy with this assistance, but does it still come down to water for you guys?
JOHN BRADFORD: Water, yeah, yeah. The first thing I want is water. The second thing I want is water.
The third thing I want is structural adjustment. If we can get good allocations, if the Minister's got the ability to trade some true water, strategically, for very important food security companies and diversity of food security in this region, I support that. He's limited by what he can do, but we're having discussions about how we make sure that we have industry into the future.
JOURNALIST: Yeah, absolutely. And would there be capacity to just pay more to encourage growers to plant? I mean, that's what happened in previous droughts.
JOHN BRADFORD: We have to- there's a commercial price, and there's the reality we are trading in a world market. So we can't buy the dearest rice in the world and not sell it. So we can't expect our growers not to grow it for nothing, and the same time as we can't buy it and go broke too.
So there's a fine line there. JOURNALIST: Anything else you want to add? JOHN BRADFORD: No.
I just like to thank Murray for this investment. It's ticking all the boxes of the Sustainable Communities grants. We are getting employees, giving them certainty about their jobs in this region.
It's fantastic. MURRAY WATT: Thanks, everyone. Thanks, John.
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