Topics: Murray Darling Basin Plan and asylum seekers
Lyndal Curtis: Hello and welcome to Capital Hill, I’m Lyndal Curtis. It’s a rare day for politics when a solution to a century-old problem is signed into law. While all the water hasn’t quite gone under the bridge yet, the Environment Minister Tony Burke signed the Murray Darling Basin Plan into law today. There is still some work to be done with the states to deliver their component of the deal and, as the minister acknowledged, it doesn’t give the multitude of stakeholders everything they wanted.
Inside the Labor Party, there is some concern about the latest iteration of the policy on asylum seekers announced by the minister yesterday.
Joining me to discuss the day are Labor senator Matt Thistlethwaite and Liberal senator Scott Ryan, welcome to you both.
First to the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
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Matt, is it fair to say, or is it the case that the best solution to a difficult problem is the one that doesn’t make anyone entirely happy?
Senator Matt Thistlethwaite: Well I think we’ve got the balance right on this one. There are competing interests and we’ve probably landed somewhere in the middle. I note that both sides don’t seem to be happy so that tends to suggest that we probably did get the balance right. But as you said in your introduction, this is a century-old problem for state and federal governments. I think Minister Burke’s made a very significant achievement today in coming up with a plan that will deliver certainty for irrigators, for farmers and for the environment over the longer term. It is a significant achievement for this Government.
Curtis: There are still some significant questions about NSW, but the states themselves do seem to have come a long way on this, haven’t they?
Senator Thistlethwaite: Certainly. We wanted to do this cooperatively with the states. Some of them have come on board, others have reserved their decision. I know Minister Burke will be out there consulting and working with those in a cooperative manner to ultimately get their agreement and to deliver this plan.
Curtis: Scott do you agree the plan the minister has signed into law today is the best possible solution to deliver a balance between what are competing environmental and socio-economic interests?
Senator Scott Ryan: One of the things we’ve learned with this Government, Lyndal, is that the devil really is in the detail. But to give them the benefit of the doubt, we do need to digest this, look at the impact on various communities – because as you said, there are different interests, there are different experiences. As Senator Birmingham said earlier today, the Greens are searching for a headline, crying for relevance. To have the Labor Party finally standing up to the Greens, that is a good start.
Curtis: While the states have come a long way, both environment groups and irrigators have come a way too, haven’t they? All sides have been at least willing to take part in discussing processes. That was very heated at the start.
Senator Ryan: It was. Some of the early drafts, or plans for drafts as they were called, did propose fairly radical cuts, which would have had a really negative impact on some basin communities. There were serious concerns whether that was fair. But while I don’t always agree with ‘if everyone’s annoyed that means I’ve done the right thing – it can mean you’ve done the wrong thing – but this is an area that’s been so difficult for so long, and it really is a culmination of the water plan John Howard announced back in 2007.
Curtis: Matt, do you think this plan will hold even if there is a disallowance motion moved in the Parliament – because I think there are 15 parliamentary sitting days in which it can be disallowed?
Senator Thistlethwaite: Well we’re hoping there won’t be a disallowance motion and that there is the support in the Parliament. The important thing about this plan is that it delivers certainty. The 2750 gigalitres returned in terms of environmental flows, and scope for a further 450. $1.7 billion over 10 years to deliver infrastructure and remove some of the constraints. We think it is a good plan and importantly, it provides certainty and that hasn’t been there in the past. The states have to take that on board and cooperate with the Federal Government and I think all parliamentarians need to be conscious of that as well when we come back next week.
Senator Ryan: One thing we would say is that the money for the infrastructure upgrades and the savings is important, but the certainty comes from the Government actually delivering it. They haven’t lived up to the commitments they’ve previously made about spending money on infrastructure upgrades, as opposed to simply doing buy-backs. We look forward to looking at that part of the plan.
Curtis: But you did vote this week with the Government in the Senate on at least one element of the plan. Is that an indicator that if a disallowance motion was moved, you would not be likely to support it?
Senator Ryan: In all honesty Lyndal, I haven’t had time to digest it myself and it is not my portfolio so the Coalition will go through its processes. But I think we heard from Senator Birmingham earlier that we are looking at a solution to this as well.
Curtis: Matt, can this give people hope that potentially intractable problems that have been running for a very long time can be solved in the future? The nature of the federation doesn’t’ always make it easy, does it?
Senator Thistlethwaite: I think with this plan we are going to get certainty and Minister Burke’s said today that we’ve taken a cautionary approach to it. We’re not going to see those dramatic buy-backs that have occurred in the past, the infrastructure spend is over 10 years and we’re going to do it in a consultative and proper manner. I think given that caution that we’ve taken, that irrigators, environmentalists can have some confidence that the plan will be delivered.
Curtis: Scott, the Murray-Darling is an example of different states looking at a problem from very different perspectives. The perspective of people in NSW is very different to the perspective of people in South Australia, who are at the end of the river system. Does this show that it’s possible that states, representing disparate interests, can actually be part of a solution that is, for the eastern seaboard, a half of Australia solution?
Senator Ryan: I think so. This is an example, when John Howard announced it we had a once-in-a-century drought, that did focus national attention on the need to do something about the Murray-Darling and make it economically and environmentally sustainable. There are also differences among people within the states as well. It is not like people of South Australia or Victoria all have a homogenous view. So I actually view this as a positive. It is a sign that sometimes these things take time. When John Howard announced the water plan in 2007, he was a bit derided, he said it couldn’t be done. So when we have a chance to look at it and digest this plan, we hope too that it can actually solve those problems and bring a national solution to a long-term problem
Curtis: The National Farmers Federation said today, Matt, that while the plan was a better plan than the original one, there still were going to be some problems, particularly in irrigation communities who will be upset. Do you think the Government is capable of managing that and making changes along the way if they need to be made?
Senator Thistlethwaite: I’m confident that we can, given what Minister Burke said today about taking a cautionary approach, that there won’t be those dramatic buy-backs that we’ve seen in the past. They’ll be slow, gradual, I think that can provide a bit of confidence for farmers and irrigators.
Curtis: We might move on now to asylum seekers and the on-shore/off-shore processing plan announced by the minister yesterday. Because of the stresses in the system created by continued boat arrivals, Chris Bowen said asylum seekers will go into on-shore detention or into the community on bridging visas: ones that deliver limited welfare payments but no right to work. There’ve been some on Labor’s left worried about the prospect of creating an under-class. Matt, are you now very close to what was the Coalition’s policy of temporary protection visas?
Senator Thistlethwaite: Well look there are some similarities. There is no doubt about that. But what this is about is translating into policy, and practical policy, the pronouncement of the expert panel by Angus Houston regarding the no-disadvantage principle. That, of course, ensures that people who come here by boat as illegal entrants don’t gain an advantage over people who are waiting through proper UNHCR channels. It is important that people who are attempting to come here understand that if they get to Indonesia or Malaysia, there is an alternative to getting on a boat and that is, to go and see the UNHCR.
Curtis: The Government’s come a long way from the position you had when you were elected in 2007 given there has been a number of changes to this policy, given that this is getting closer to a temporary protection visa, why not just accept what the Coalition says is the solution?
Senator Thistlethwaite: I think it’s been an evolving process. Certainly the numbers that have been seeking to come here via boat have been increasing because the push factors are different. When Howard was in government, he probably only had Afghanistan and Iraq as countries as people were coming from. Now you’ve got Syria, Iran, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. So the push factors are different and that’s meant that the process has had to evolve. We’ve accepted the recommendations of the expert panel and this process is about translating that into policy.
Curtis: Scott, your side of politics has said, the Opposition Leader has said, it is the Government’s attitude, that the Government isn’t really serious about this. But can you really say that and say that’s the only reason why it doesn’t seem that off-shore processing isn’t stopping the flow of asylum seekers to Australia?
Senator Ryan: One of the problems here is that this problem didn’t exist before Labor changed the laws. This problem did not exist. We had less than 10 people in detention, there were no women or children in detention, the boats had stopped. That’s the first point.
Curtis: But you can’t say, can you, that would have stopped for all time, that the changing nature of international conflicts wouldn’t have restarted the boats coming to Australia?
Senator Ryan: We wouldn’t be having 2000 people a month. We wouldn’t have 33 boats in a month. We wouldn’t have 30,000 people since Labor came to office. We’ve now got a border protection crisis. What Labor’s done today, with what they’ve called a bridging visa, there is one very important difference between those and a temporary protection visa: they’ve basically abolished mandatory detention. They’ve basically said that once you get to shore in Australia, ‘we are going to very quickly process you and then while we determine your application you are going to get a bridging visa and go into the community’. Minister Bowen mentioned that in response to an interview with Fran Kelly this morning when he said, ‘well what’s the alternative to detention?’ So we’ve lost today yet another of the deterrent factors. We can talk about expert panels and no-advantage principles, but none of this matters to the people smugglers and the people jumping on boats. They know this Government’s not serious. They know that what Matt calls ‘evolution’ is backflips and a desperate search for a political solution not a policy solution.
Curtis: But isn’t the bridging visa, in some sense, harsher than the temporary protection visa because the TPV had work rights attached? Under the bridging visa, those asylum seekers on the bridging visa won’t have any right to work.
Senator Ryan: That’s because most of the people on TPVs had been processed and had been granted protection, but they’d been given TPVs because they came to our shore unlawfully, without papers, or they came by boat. What Matt’s proposing and what Chris Bowen’s proposing is that when people come here they get out into community on these bridging visas while they’re processed. We’ve lost detention as part of our immigration policy.
Senator Thistlethwaite: It’s only for people who come after August 13 and detention facilities weren’t up and running. Now anyone who comes now is obviously transferred to those facilities.
Curtis: But those facilities, even under the Coalition, wouldn’t be able to hold the number of people who’ve come since the 13th of August.
Senator Ryan: That’s a month.
Senator Thistlethwaite: We’re building a lot of those facilities at the moment and yeah, there’s been extra demand for people coming here, but the process we’ve put in place to ensure that no-disadvantage principle is enshrined and importantly, when people get to Indonesia and Malaysia, that they understand there is an alternative to getting on the boat. We don’t want to see people making these dangerous boat journeys, particularly young children who we’ve seen four per cent of them drown when they come. We don’t want to see that anymore and that’s what this policy is aimed at stopping.
Curtis: And that’s all we have time for.