MATTERS OF URGENCY
Senator HODGINS-MAY (Victoria) (17:36): Victorian Labor's proposal to sell off Melbourne Water is a complete dud of an idea. It could lead to higher bills and put our clean water, public health and communities at further risk. We know exactly what happens when we privatise water.
Just look at the United Kingdom. The privatisation of water in England and Wales has been a complete disaster. Water bills are skyrocketing.
Sewage is literally being pumped into rivers and beaches. Infrastructure has been allowed to deteriorate while private companies have piled up debt and paid billions of dollars in dividends to shareholders. This is water we're talking about.
Water bills are expected to rise by an average of 36 per cent between 2025 and 2030. Thames Water alone has seen serious pollution incidences that have risen by 34 per cent in a single year. After decades of privatisation, customers are now being asked to pay for the massive infrastructure upgrades that should have happened years ago.
That's what happens when you put an essential public service in the hands of private companies. The priority becomes money making, not delivering a good service—surprise, surprise. Labor is treating our public assets like items at a garage sale, and now we know they've been looking to do the exact same thing with Melbourne Water.
Shame on them. Secret cabinet documents reveal that Victorian Labor has spent years examining the privatisation of Melbourne Water under a project codenamed Project Nerva. In 2024, the then premier, Jacinta Allan, and senior ministers approved a 12-month business case that looked at private investment in water infrastructure, which was worth $18 billion.
According to reporting, then deputy premier Ben Carroll supported continuing the proposal in cabinet. Now, of course, Premier Carroll is trying to distance himself from it, but Victorians deserve a straight answer. Is Labor going to sell off Melbourne Water or not?
We deserve to know. There's an election coming up in fewer than three months. This isn't just some abstract financial asset.
This is our water. This is life. It is one of the most basic things that people rely on every single day.
You cannot choose whether you need clean drinking water, you can't shop around when your taps run dry or pump out polluted water and you certainly shouldn't have to worry about a private company cutting corners on the infrastructure that keeps our water clean because it wants to maximise returns for shareholders. Flogging off publicly owned assets makes us poorer in the long run.
When is Labor going to learn this crucial lesson? If we lose control of essential services, we lose the public income those assets can generate and we hand them over to companies who are ultimately looking to make a profit. What could possibly go wrong?
Labor, of course, has form here. They've already sold off public assets across roads, rail, energy, telecommunications, banks and airports. Is it water next?
We've seen the same market-first approach creep into essential services like child care and aged care, where private companies and private equity have increasingly been allowed to make money from the services that should be about people and for people. They should be for Australians, not for shareholders. Billions of dollars of public money from providing care to our children is being siphoned off to shareholder pockets, including offshore—privatisation that is directly linked to lower standards of care.
Now they are coming for our water. Labor has become the party of privatisation. They don't stand for you.
They don't stand for me. They stand for their donors and profit holders. Too often they stand with big business and private investors who see our public assets as something that can be bought, sold and profited from.
This is why the Commonwealth government needs to urgently step in. The Albanese government should make it clear that it will not stand by while Victorian Labor considers selling off Melbourne Water's system. Clean water should not be a political football or a corporate investment opportunity, and I cannot believe I even need to say that.
It should remain in public hands. Labor, the Liberals and One Nation might all be comfortable with privatisation—although I note that Senator Roberts is opposing this—but the Greens are against privatisation of our public and essential services. We are against profit in care.
When it comes to keeping public goods in public hands, the Greens will fight every attempt to sell off Victoria's water and every other attempt to privatise our essential services. Victoria's water belongs to Victorians, not to private investors.