ADJOURNMENT

Mr BIRRELL (Nicholls) (16:48): Earlier today, the coalition announced a water taskforce, chaired by the member for Riverina, of which I am part. That taskforce is going to look at water for agriculture with a focus on ensuring that there is more water for agriculture around Australia, but particularly in the Murray-Darling Basin. Part of that will be introducing a bill, that I hope will be supported, called the Water Amendment (Ending Further Murray-Darling Basin Water Buybacks) Bill 2026.

The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has had a vexed history in this place. It was signed into law in 2011 and, at the time, people in the Murray-Darling Basin were very concerned about what was going to happen to their communities if governments started ripping out their very economic fabric, which is irrigation water. A very passionate speech was given by Bernie Roebuck, the then principal of Finley High School.

Finley is in the Riverina in southern New South Wales. He talked about the real concerns that community would have if governments didn't care. The then water minister, Minister Burke, the member for Watson, said that Bernie Roebuck had a profound effect on him.

Just recently, as a result of the water policies and Murray-Darling Basin policies enacted by the Labor government in that part of the world—Bernie Roebuck's patch—Sun Rice have let go 78 people workers. How hollow are those words from the member for Watson! How hollow they must ring for the people in the Riverina, in the Goulburn Valley and right across the Murray-Darling Basin who've been seriously let down by this Labor government when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and water buybacks.

The approach to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan since 2022, when the Albanese government was elected, has been an absolute disgrace. There had been an agreement with the federal coalition government and many states, some of them Labor states, on a socioeconomic neutrality test. To me, that means that the effect of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, particularly the 450 gigalitres of extra water buybacks, needs to be neutral in terms of its effect on communities from a societal and economic perspective—socioeconomics refers to society and the economy—and they have been anything but neutral.

They have been overwhelmingly negative—negative for our society, negative for Finley, Deniliquin, Shepparton, Echuca, Griffith and many parts of the member for Riverina's patch, and negative for our economy. The government ripped up that socioeconomic neutrality test and said, 'We don't really care if the effects of our policies are damaging to these communities.' How do you think that feels if you live in one of these places?

There was a 15,000-gigalitre water buyback cap. They got rid of that too, so it's open slather, and the Australian people don't even know what the government's paying for this water. So, yes, it affects us in the Murray-Darling Basin, but all this taxpayer money is going, with very little transparency, to recover this water, and the tragedy of it is that it's not needed.

It's a political solution, not an environmental solution. One of the organisations that uses environmental water is the Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority. They have said, 'We can't use the environmental water we've already got,' and that is the case across the basin, yet the government wants to get more.

So they're getting extra environmental water that can't be used. It just sits and takes up airspace in the storages. Meanwhile, because the consumptive pool of water is reduced, the price of temporary water is going up.

The price of temporary water is a cost on farmers. If they have to pay more for it, their businesses are threatened, whether they grow apples, dairy pastures, pears, rice, cotton—you name it. Australia has had a great irrigated agricultural industry, but it's being threatened by this government.

We're going to make sure we get more water for farmers.