Nationals build a rort too far over the Murray-Darling

Always remember that the Nationals are, foundationally, not a political party, but a conspiracy to rort taxpayers. And that will always come through in whatever they do.

This week the Murray-Darling Basin Plan erupted as the first battlefront of Barnaby Joyce’s return to the leadership, with the Nationals moving amendments in the Senate to the Water Legislation Amendment (Inspector-General of Water Compliance and Other Measures) Bill 2021. That’s the bill belatedly providing some teeth so that the hitherto feeble sinecure of the Inspector-General of Water Compliance got some powers to address rampant water theft by irrigators, especially in NSW.

The Nationals’ amendments in the Senate were defeated when the government itself voted them down, but because the bill got amended elsewhere by the government, and by One Nation, it returned to the House for consideration yesterday. So the Nats decided to move the amendments again in the lower house, knowing full well they’d go down.

That prompted the bizarre sight of leader of the House Peter Dutton trying to shut down Nationals colleague Damian Drum, who was moving the amendments, on a technicality that Drum couldn’t move amendments unrelated to the amendments to the bill made by the Senate.

But what were the amendments? Here’s where the Nationals’ obsession with pork-barreling shines through. One amendment would have removed altogether from the Murray-Darling Basin legislative framework a requirement to return 450 gigalitres of water for environmental purposes via efficiency measures. Another would have prevented future water buybacks, and a third would have ensured that when the Plan is reviewed in 2024, it could only be reviewed downward, with no increase in environmental flows.

But the fourth related to what are called “605 projects”. See, the Nationals have been undermining the Plan for years by stopping water buybacks and diverting money into often spurious “irrigation efficiency” projects that hand free infrastructure upgrades to irrigators. But there is also a cheat mechanism whereby 605 gigalitres of water can be double-counted against the total return to the environment across the basin while remaining “available for industry and communities, while still achieving the same or better environmental outcomes.”

The government is throwing over $100 million at these “605 projects”. But the Nationals think the definition of the projects is too narrow because they’re supposed to achieve “water savings”. Instead the Nats want such money to be able to go to anything that “is a measure that operates to improve environmental outcomes in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin”.

Which could, of course, be anything. That’s the point. “The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has them so wrapped tight in a quite legalistic interpretation of the plan that there is none of the flexibility required now that we have more science and more data,” incompetent rorter Bridget McKenzie — allegedly angling for the water portfolio herself — told the Senate about the amendment.

Imagine Bridget McKenzie being given charge of a $120 million program with a remit like “improve environmental outcomes in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin”.

It was a rort too far even for the most corrupt government in Commonwealth history. And that’s saying something.