Ms SHEED (Shepparton) (12:06): I rise to make a contribution on the Water and Catchment Legislation Amendment Bill 2021. The purposes of this bill of course are set out quite clearly and they are to amend the Water Act 1989 to record certain additional information under the principal act; provide for the regulation of places, rates and times of taking water; provide ministerial powers to deal with taking unauthorised amounts of water from approved places; and rename City West Water Corporation and related minor matters. So there is quite a significant bit of the bill that does deal with metropolitan water authorities and the like, but from the point of view of this contribution that I seek to make, obviously it will relate more to our northern Victorian irrigation districts. I do note that as part of the bill it is proposed to abolish the Victorian Catchment Management Council, and there are a number of other consequential amendments in regard to the Catchment and Land Protection Act 1994.
Of course catchment management authorities are really important parts of our regional communities and have done a great deal of work over many years in environmental work, on-farm works and off-farm works to improve the health of our rivers, our streams and our landholdings around northern Victoria and no doubt across the whole state. But certainly our Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority located in Shepparton has been very involved in a number of projects. Just recently it was the 30th anniversary of the irrigation on-farm works that dealt with salinity when that was a problem, back at a time that we do not see so much now, because I suppose climate change to a large degree has resulted in the problems of salinity within our irrigation districts abating so much. The works that were done have created a situation whereby there is a lot more opportunity to rest easy on the salinity problem and look to much greater problems around the water industry.
The bill allows for a framework for the publication of more information about water holders, and it will strengthen Victoria’s framework for river delivery rights, with clearer and more certain rights especially during a shortfall. It will clarify and improve powers for declaring shortfalls and managing water rationing during periods of water shortages and delivery challenges and provide stronger and more consistent compliance provisions. Some of these changes have taken place as a result of community advocacy from groups across northern Victoria, including the Goulburn-Murray irrigation district leadership forum, which is a group that I co-chair with David McKenzie, and we have worked very hard on many of these issues and been part of years of consultation by the current government to try and achieve an outcome that will reflect much better what the amendments were that were required to try and put some more clarity and better understanding around the issues.
The consultations showed that the community wanted more information about water ownership to be made public and felt really strongly about wanting more transparency. Transparency was regarded as a high priority. Corporations are now all listed, in terms of their water ownership, on the Victorian water register, and this will continue to allow for more transparency in relation to individuals. The changes proposed to enable water market reporting to include the names of individuals, including those who are large water owners with more than 2 per cent of water shares in the Goulburn-Murray system, will be welcome; they were part of the advocacy that our group proposed. There will be reporting of those frequently trading in water. The holdings of corporations have been known for some time, so this additional capacity to report individuals’ ownership and the extent of trading is welcome.
There have been delivery risks emerging in the lower Murray below the Barmah Choke for some time. To meet the increased demand, largely caused by huge foreign-owned horticultural almond enterprises, our Goulburn River, the river that runs through the heart of Shepparton, has been required to meet that growing demand for water below the choke because we have got the capacity to do that, but it has resulted in significant damage to the Goulburn River, and this has been highlighted over recent years. It was part of the reasoning behind the series of consultations that have gone on, and the Victorian Minister for Water just several years ago indicated that any further applications for horticultural developments of this nature below the choke would be called in by her office and would have to be approved by her office. Now, I understand that no additional developments have been approved since that time, and this has sent a very clear message to developers below the Barmah Choke that there are significant delivery risk factors that they must take into account. Part of the reason for that is the narrowing of the Barmah Choke that has become evident over recent years, climate change and the need to protect the environments of upstream rivers.
The bill provides the mechanisms for strengthening shortfall rationing and delivery rights by regulating future extractions and specifying how they will operate. It will allow for rules to be made for new extraction shares to protect existing entitlement holders, and it is important that those who have been there and have existing entitlements have some level of protection when it comes to periods of shortfall in the delivery of water. It will increase the understanding of what water can be taken, where from and what approvals are required and create clarity around appropriate behaviour during periods of shortfall.
It is the provision around transparency and water ownership that particularly interests many people, especially small irrigators across the region. Who owns the water in northern Victoria? There has been speculation about this for years, and now finally much of that information is becoming available. The commonwealth of Australia is of course the largest water owner, with 690.5 gigalitres of water ownership across the Goulburn and Murray systems. The Victorian water register has now moved to make this information available, and it is really welcome. Yet when we look to see who the second-largest owner of water shares is we see that it is Fresh Country Farms of Australia, a Sydney-based investment company owned by Canada’s PSP Investments. This company is one of the largest pension managers in Canada, reportedly having $168 billion in assets, comprising the pensions of firefighters, public servants, Canadian armed forces, federal police and public sector workers. The extent of its water ownership across northern Victoria is 78.1 gigalitres, and, according to the Weekly Times, all of it is located below the Barmah Choke. That goes back to the point I made about those huge almond growing developments that now exist there. Other huge owners of water are the Victorian Environmental Water Holder, Australian Executor Trustees Limited and Akuna Holdings. Many of these are organisations that are growing and using the water for irrigation purposes.
But we also know that out there in the market there are many people who do not own land, who do not apply that water to their own land; they scheme and market in water depending on the rises and falls and the profitability that is there for them time after time. This has been objected to by many farmers because there is a strong sense that ever since water was separated from land the water market has not served everyone well. There are those who have made a great deal of money out of it and those who have suffered enormously. We have seen the dairy industry in northern Victoria contract hugely—300 farmers just in the last three or four years—because of water shortages, drought and the like. These people have been lost to us and lost to the dairy industry, and over a much longer period there has been a massive contraction in that industry.
I could go on at great length, but I do want to say—and it is not often we say bright things about farming communities—that we are having a fantastic year in the Goulburn Valley and across northern Victoria. The rains that have come have led to magnificent crops and good times in the dairy industry, and these are things that just make life so much easier for a short period of time. But we need to be cognisant of the fact that droughts will come again and water sharing will be so important.
