Royal commission required

[LEFTWINGER supreme]

Water experts say the Coalition government paid too high a price for water rights owned by a tax haven-linked Australian company, deepening a row that has ensnared former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce and Energy Minister Angus Taylor. Sad

As the Greens and Centre Alliance parties called for a royal commission into water trading in the Murray-Darling Basin, the left-leaning think tank The Australia Institute issued a detailed rebuttal of the government’s claims that it paid a fair market rate for water to deliver a significant environmental benefit.

Another water expert and former bureaucrat, Quentin Grafton of the Australian National University, said the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources’ purchase at a record-high price in southern Queensland “was not value for money”. Sad

The 2017 purchase of 28.7 gigalitres of flood water in Condamine Balonne catchment for $78.9 million has come under close scrutiny in part because the seller was a company co-founded by now Energy Minister Angus Taylor, though Mr Taylor has said categorically he has had nothing to do with the firm since entering Parliament and received no benefit from the sale.

Then agriculture and water minister Barnaby Joyce, who signed off on the purchase, has also defended his position, saying he had no involvement in the details of the deal or how the price was determined.


Under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, the Commonwealth buys water from irrigators and other water rights holders to inject it back into the river system to improve the environment.

As part of this scheme, the department bought the 28.7 gigalitres of water from the Kia Ora and Clyde properties, owned by Eastern Australia Agriculture, whose parent company is based in the Cayman Islands, a well-known tax haven.


Calls are growing for a royal commission into the Murray-Darling basin.

The deal was for “overland flow licences”, which are specifically for floodwater that enters a property when a river overflows.

Centre Alliance Senator Rex Patrick on Sunday joined calls for a Royal Commission, backing a demand by Greens water spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young.

Maryanne Slattery and Rod Campbell, researchers at The Australia Institute, said the department’s purchase price of $2745-per-megalitre was “a record” and in fact was higher than the company had asked for in a previous offer.

They described as “misleading” the department’s suggestion last week that the water it had bought could be used outside of the properties themselves.

The researchers, who wrote their first report questioning the deal last year, contend that the water is of lower environmental value than other types of buybacks because the Commonwealth has “no legal right over the water outside the property”.

“There is nothing in place to prevent that water from simply being extracted by other irrigators,” they wrote in the detailed statement on Sunday.


Government defends 'clear benefits' of $80 million water buyback, rejects claims of scandal

Mr Joyce said he had no role in setting the price and denied he had favoured buying flood waters over irrigation water because it would have a lower impact on irrigators. He said it didn’t matter where water came from.

“My policy was to buy as little water as possible to avoid damaging the social and economic fabric of basin towns,” he said.

ANU’s Professor Grafton, a former executive director of the Australian Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics, similarly said the average government buyback price in 2017 had been just over $2000-per-megalitre, making the EAA deal unusually expensive.

“Whatever way you slice and dice this, EAA have got a really good price, which means taxpayers paid more than they should have done,” he said.

Typically, the Commonwealth has purchased water rights from irrigators to put back into the river system. That allows water bureaucrats more control over how it is pumped back into the river system to improve its health, Professor Grafton said.

He said the purchase of flood water licences was of less environmental value because they couldn’t be controlled as well, and yet the government had paid much more than average.

[LEFTWINGER supreme]

How much political capital have Labor just gained

[LEFTWINGER supreme]

You can just about set ya clock to next Libtard scandal, deary deary me rtards

[Nicole]

No one cares Lefty.

[LEFTWINGER supreme]

Oh you will by about Wednesday , this has got some juicy fat on it

[cods]

I am all for a ROYAL into SUPER...not that I have any but I am sick to death of pollies thinking they can raid it at will..

it should be a hands off zone...

so many people die before they get their hands on their Super...so who benefits from that??..

is it like a bank account you dont use and if you dont they steal it from under you,,,

hands off other peoples money...

[Black Orchid]

I agree something needs to be done about the Murray Darling but I am not sure a RC is the answer. $75 plus million and how long will it take? When it is done will the government of the day take the recommendations on board?

Seems like just another delay without having to act to me. It's a disgrace!

[Neferti]

Royal Commissions seem to be a waste of time and taxpayers money. Why keep calling for one into this and that?

[Redneck]

I agree something needs to be done about the Murray Darling but I am not sure a RC is the answer. $75 plus million and how long will it take? When it is done will the government of the day take the recommendations on board?

Seems like just another delay without having to act to me. It's a disgrace!

I half tend to agree...RCs are becoming the flavour of the month!

But what is the alternative?

as I agree its a bloody disgrace!

A federal RC could demand all states cooperate I think, rather than what happened with the SA one.

[Black Orchid]

I agree something needs to be done about the Murray Darling but I am not sure a RC is the answer. $75 plus million and how long will it take? When it is done will the government of the day take the recommendations on board?

Seems like just another delay without having to act to me. It's a disgrace!

I half tend to agree...RCs are becoming the flavour of the month!

But what is the alternative?

as I agree its a bloody disgrace!

A federal RC could demand all states cooperate I think, rather than what happened with the SA one.

The government isn't bound by the recommendations ...

Our politicians are using royal commissions to handball big issues they can't solve

Here's a list of inquiries and reviews that have been conducted into aged care and what has changed? Nothing!

Here is a (long) list of the inquiries conducted, and this may not even be all of them. Some of these reviews are yet to conclude, let alone see final reports published:

A decent quality of life: Inquiry into the cost of living pressures on older Australians (Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs 2008)
Aged Care Amendment Bill 2008 (Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs)
Residential and Community Aged Care in Australia (Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration 2009)
A Healthier Future for All Australians (contained information about aged care, 2009)
Review of the Aged Care Complaints Investigation Scheme (2009)
Review of the residential aged care accreditation process for residential aged care homes (Department of Health and Ageing 2010)
Contribution of the Not-for-Profit Sector (Productivity Commission research paper 2010)
Productivity Commission Review into Aged Care (2011)
Legislated Review into Aged Care (2017)
Review of National Aged Care Quality Regulatory Processes (2018)
Senate inquiry into the effectiveness of the aged care quality assessment and accreditation framework for protecting residents from abuse and poor practices and ensuring proper clinical and medical care standards are maintained and practised (due November 2018)
Quality of Care in Residential Aged Care Facilities in Australia (Standing Committee on Health, Standing Committee on Health and Ageing, commissioned March 2018, no date yet for its final report)
The Aged Care Workforce Strategy (September 2018)
The latest aged care review may not be the last royal commission the Government announces. The Morrison Administration is keeping open the option of holding an inquiry into energy companies.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/ ... s/10262988

Someone needs to have the balls to put themselves out there and actually do something instead of wasting more money on inquiries/RCs that end up going nowhere and nothing changes.

The Murray Darling cannot survive this constant passing the buck from either side.