The water minister, David Littleproud, says he would be open to working with the basin states to discuss breaking up the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) between an agency and a regulator, as recommended by the Productivity Commission.
The PC’s five-year review into the management of the Murray-Darling basin said the dual roles of the MDBA – as a manager of the basin plan and a regulator that enforces compliance – were often in conflict.
“Those conflicts would only worsen in the next five years,” the PC report said. “The MDBA should be split into two separate institutions – the Murray-Darling basin agency and the basin plan regulator”.
Littleproud said he didn’t “necessarily” agree that there was a conflict of interest in the basin authority but, if he had evidence put in front of him, he was prepared to look at it.
“We will sit down with the states and work through that, I’m agnostic,” he said. “If we think we can get better outcomes, then we will. We have taken steps in terms of compliance.”
Littleproud referenced his appointment of Mick Keelty as northern basin commissioner and the former AFP chief is already examining links between political donations and the issuing and buyback of water licences.
Labor has already promised to move the MDBA’s compliance division in to the newly created independent federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of a larger water policy that would lift the caps on water buybacks and review the plan to assess the impacts of climate change.
Water is a big issue for some Coalition seats, including Farrer, which is currently held by the Liberal minister Sussan Ley on a margin of 20%.
Ley is being challenged by the Albury mayor and independent candidate Kevin Mack, who has called for a pause on the MDB plan while a review and a royal commission is conducted. In response, Ley has called for a split in the MDBA between compliance/regulation roles and river operations.
The government has been caught flatfooted on water, even after a spate of summer fish kills and a drought in eastern Australia. Adding to pressure is an ongoing controversy over the water buyback decisions of the former water minister Barnaby Joyce from Eastern Australia Agriculture, a company with links to Angus Taylor prior to his entry to parliament.
Littleproud has called for the auditor general to review all federal water buybacks back to 2008, including those under the former Labor government, while Scott Morrison has urged the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) to review the water arrangements in the southern basin.
During the agriculture debate, Littleproud and Fitzgibbon sparred on water, climate change, the damning United Nations global environmental assessment as well as solutions to the ongoing decline in agricultural industries like dairy.
Asked why his colleagues were frustrating action on climate change in the face of damning evidence, Littleproud listed a $30m biodiversity pilot program for agriculture.
“That report scares me, we can’t generalise,” he said. “Farmers, as a rule, are so proud of the environment that they manage. But we have got to make sure that we reward them.”
Fitzgibbon named the $100m native species protection fund and the establishment of the independent EPA as part of Labor’s response to evidence.
“We don’t make promises in areas like the establishment of a federal Environmental Protection Agency without following them through,” he said.
Labor has promised $40m for carbon farming methodologies and will ask the ACCC to investigate a floor price for milk to lift the flagging dairy industry.
Labor has also promised tougher native vegetation laws, which has been contentious in northern NSW and Queensland, but Fitzgibbon said a federal Labor government would only move if there was a significant winding back of state laws.
“If conservative governments are doing the wrong thing and have reckless native vegetation laws not with our aspirations to tackle climate change both on mitigation and adaptation, and helping farmers build resilience, then we won’t hesitate to move against them,” Fitzgibbon said.
Littleproud said the Labor promise amounted to taking away farmers’ stewardship of the land and locking up the potential of the industry.
“What you are saying is that you’re going to bank that carbon abatement and that credit in the government’s pocket, not the farmer’s pocket,” Littleproud said.
