Wednesday, 29 May 2024

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Housing, Minister for Water, Minister for Equality) (12:54): I rise today to advise the house that the Allan Labor government is protecting the nation’s food bowl and the future of our rural and regional communities while also meeting our obligations and commitments under the Murray–Darling Basin plan. We have got a really long and demonstrated history of improving waterway health, and we have been continuing with that work by protecting environments and rivers from climate change and degradation. We have invested hundreds of millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours in protecting our living wetlands, rivers and flood plains and improving the efficiency of our critical irrigation networks. The Victorian Murray Floodplain Restoration Project, a series of projects which people are aware of in this place and indeed out on the ground, will protect around 14,000 hectares of very, very precious Victorian environment by getting water onto flood plains using pumps and regulators in the absence of overbank flooding events.

In releasing our prospectus Planning our Basin Future Together: A Prospectus to Safeguard Victoria’s Environments and Communities in the Murray–Darling Basin, we are then building on the work with, by and for communities to ensure that further water recovery in Victoria can occur without the blunt open-tender water purchases being proposed by the Commonwealth. This is a process of engagement, of collaboration and indeed of negotiation. We will work with and I will work with basin communities to identify innovative new alternatives to open-tender water purchases. I am really determined to make sure that we build upon those many months of discussions, meetings, visits and work alongside communities to deliver healthy waterways and resilient communities now and into the future. Achieving a healthy basin will make everyone receive the benefits now and into the long term. I am looking forward to the next ministerial council and continuing that work.