Member for Shepparton Suzanna Sheed has criticised the Federal Government for cancelling the scheduled meeting of water ministers in Adelaide this week.

MINco, where state water ministers meet to discuss the vital issues regarding the Murray-Darling basin and which usually meets twice a year, will not have its planned November meeting.

“I am deeply concerned that the Federal Water Minister Keith Pitt sees no need for a MINco meeting this year considering the serious water issues the states are facing.

“There has only been one MINco meeting in the past year, yet we are at the pointy end of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan with major water recovery issues yet to be resolved before the stocktake in 2024,” Ms Sheed said.

“Our major concern in the Goulburn Valley is that the Southern Basin will not have met its water recovery target by 2024, and we do not want any further water take from our districts if this issue is not resolved when a full assessment of water recovery is undertaken in 2024.

“In the Goulburn-Murray irrigation district, we have given up so much water already, with disastrous impact on our dairy industry. We still have our smaller core of dairy farmers, our horticulture and mixed farming to protect, all of which are under threat from future water buybacks.

“We are the most obvious target for buybacks because of our abundance of secure high-reliability water.

“Time is running out for the Basin Plan, but we still have an opportunity to act now before we reach a crisis point and we are held to ransom to part with our water at the eleventh hour by way of buybacks.

“We need to talk through the introduction of a more flexible rollout of the projects, giving the plan a better chance of ultimate success.

“There are projects being reworked at the moment between the Federal Government and the New South Wales Government in relation to Menindee and we need to know what this means for Victoria.

“In the last few years, the flow down the Darling River were insufficient to make a contribution to the share of water required to be delivered to South Australia, leaving the Murray River system to make up the difference.

“We need to hold New South Wales and Queensland accountable for not making any efforts to enforce the 1995 Murray Darling Basin Cap, which limited water allocation in each basin and provided there would be no further development of water storages that would increase water use.

“Victoria introduced Farm Dams legislation in 1998, which was incorporated into the Victorian Water Act. This allowed for the licensing of current dams but prevented further development unless it was transferred from an existing licence.

“New South Wales not only failed to introduce similar laws, but it defiantly ignored this cap agreement and we have seen irrigators continue to build enormous dams to harvest water. This issue needs to be discussed at MINco before the 2024 deadline of the Basin Plan.

“We also want our Victorian MINco representative, Water Minister Lisa Neville, to be able to ask questions and request detailed plans on the future of the struggling Barmah Choke.

“With a Federal election looming in the coming months, we should be aware that this government had plenty of time to make positive decisions on behalf of irrigators in the Southern Basin but failed to do so.

“One has to question whether the Federal Government is trying to push its disastrous management of the Murray-Darling Basin under the carpet to save face ahead of the election.

“The Coalition’s neglect of the Southern Basin is in stark contrast to the attention paid to the Northern Basin. Irrigators in the Northern Basin seem to be operating outside of the rules of any agreement and benefitting handsomely in the process.

ENDS

Media contact
Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466│elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au

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In parliament today, Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna Sheed aired concerns that the pandemic has had a devastating impact on the job security of women in the district.

Ms Sheed highlighted that the number of people employed in Greater Shepparton fell 18 per cent from February last year to September this year. “The pandemic has shone the spotlight on the unstable nature of employment in our region, and the most affected have been women,” she said.

“It has unveiled the entrenched gender inequalities that were hidden below the surface.” Ms Sheed told the parliament that more than 10,000 local women were out of work in this period, compared to only 2,282 men – a ratio mirrored across Victoria with female job losses being five times more than men.

Monthly labour force data shows that this is the highest ever rate of female unemployment.
“I am especially concerned about our Shepparton girls and women in the 15 to 24 age bracket, where a loss of 5,329 jobs occurred,” Ms Sheed said.

“We know that women are often in more casualised labour environments such as the care industry and retail, which has been impacted greatly by COVID-19 restrictions. Recent labour force statistics showed retail had 3,800 job losses and health care dropped 2,000 of its workforce in Shepparton, between February 2020 and August 2021.”

Ms Sheed said she was concerned that some of these female job losses could continue for months or years and result in long-term disadvantage and economic insecurity.

“Women are already on the back foot when it comes to the 14.2 per cent gender pay gap and lower superannuation balances due to taking time off for child rearing, we do not need to see the gap widened by a disproportionate number of women in unstable work,” Ms Sheed said.

“As a community, employers need to look at the type of work contracts they offer women and make them full-time and permanent if that’s the type of work the employee is seeking.

“I will be looking into these figures and speaking with women who have been affected by unemployment in the past 18 months to see how they can be better supported.”

ENDS

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Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466│elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au

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Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna Sheed will today vote against the passage of the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment (Pandemic Management) Bill 2021 in parliament.

Ms Sheed said the bill was only made publicly available yesterday and a last-minute briefing by the government was given late Monday evening, with a view to the bill being introduced the following morning.

“I would have liked the opportunity to take this back to my electorate,” Ms Sheed said.

“Everything we do in this chamber is premised on the notion that we know what we are doing. When we come to vote on this bill, we should ask ourselves: do we know what we are voting on?”

Ms Sheed agreed that there should be fit-for-purpose pandemic legislation, but she needed the time to consult with the community and experts on the details of the bill.

“There may be aspects of this bill that we could improve on, such as parliamentary oversight and transparency,” Ms Sheed said.

Ms Sheed compared the debate of this legislation to the Assisted Dying Bill, which was released to the public, the opposition, and crossbenchers early and there was the opportunity for wider discussion.

“We spent day and night in this place debating a piece of legislation, which really goes to the importance of life and death issues…here we have a piece of legislation that also affects people’s health. It can be a matter of life and death,” she said.

“We need more time to consider this legislation.”

ENDS

Media contact
Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466│elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au

In Parliament this week, Independent Member for Shepparton District Suzanna welcomed the Children, Youth and Families Amendment (Child Protection) Bill 2021.

Ms Sheed said the bill includes further Aboriginal child placement principles, more advice and assistance when there is concern for the wellbeing of an unborn child, prevention of witnesses in family violence being personally cross-examined by parties of the alleged violence, the provision to support young people making the transition to adulthood, and other important changes.

“During my time as a family lawyer and as an independent children’s lawyer, I saw many tragic instances of family breakdown and child displacement, which can cause long-term trauma for children,” Ms Sheed said.

“In First Nations families we often see grandmothers providing long-term care for their grandchildren and this form of kinship care is seen as culturally important as well as maintaining the familial links.

“The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported 1 in 18 Aboriginal children were in out-of-home care from 30 June 2020 – that’s 11 times the rate for non-Indigenous children. Shepparton has the second highest First Nations population outside of metropolitan Melbourne, and it is a great concern to my community to see an over representation of Aboriginal children in out-of-home care. This bill seeks to help close this gap of over-representation of Aboriginal children in care by 45 per cent by 2031.”

Ms Sheed said there was strong evidence when children in out-of-home settings reached adulthood, without any financial or social support they were at a higher risk of turning to drug and alcohol abuse and crime – and were often left homeless.

“In a Deloitte research report called Guiding young Victorians in care into adulthood, it was reported that extending state care from 18 to 21 would halve their homelessness rate, multiply their higher education participation by 2.5, and reduce their alcohol and drug dependence from 15.8 per cent to 2.5 per cent,” Ms Sheed said.

“This bill is seeking to do exactly that. By offering a safety net to these vulnerable members of our community and giving them choices once they reach adulthood, it will give them the chance to succeed in whatever path they take.

“In January, Victoria became the first jurisdiction to extend Home Stretch to all young people leaving foster, kinship, and residential care up to the age of 21 rather than leaving them to have to find their own way in life when they reach the age of 18 years.

“The bill ensures that those who do leave their care situation will be given practical help to find and set up a home as well as the financial assistance they need to take that first step to living as an independent adult. On top of this, they will be supported with assistance to get into education, training, or the workplace as well as the relevant health and community services they require at this crucial period of their lives.

“These provisions will help steer our young people on a positive path of securing a safe place to live, gaining an education or trade, and continuing to feel a part of the community.”

ENDS

Media contact

Elaine Cooney 0447 820 466│elaine.cooney@parliament.vic.gov.au