On 26 October 2018, in the face of ongoing allegations of financial gouging of the public purse and mismanagement of water resources in the Murray Darling Basin, Prime Minister and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison unveiled his $5 billion Drought Future Fund at a summit attended by farmers, economists, industry bodies and state and federal ministers in Canberra....promising measures to drought-proof the nation's agriculture sector. The first $3.9 billion of the scheme, which would operate similarly to the Medical Future Fund, is to be paid for out of a pool of money originally intended for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.
What a brilliant idea.
Rob an already underfunded disability sector and the vulnerable people who depend on its services in order to beef up a proposed drought future fund,
What can possibly go wrong?
Well, on past history it will likely take National politicians and their mates about two years to empty this new fund - with little to no drought-proofing to show for the taxpayer dollars they manage to redirect towards their own businesses.
The
Age, 26
October 2018:
The Nationals' federal
treasurer Peter Schwarz is accused of gouging much of the $850,000 he was
paid by Australia’s largest drought-proofing project and calling
in favours when pressed to account for the taxpayer cash.
As Prime Minister Scott
Morrison launches his drought summit, leaked government files reveal that Mr
Schwarz banked the taxpayer subsidies in November 2011 and then spent years
resisting efforts from water officials to get him to or use it for its intended
purpose – saving water.
The frustration of the
Goulburn-Murray Water authority with the conduct of Mr Schwarz – who as well as
being the Nationals key federal fundraiser is also running in next month’s
Victorian election – is exposed in dozens of damning leaked authority files.
The files provide a case
study of issues which are front and centre at Mr Morrison’s drought summit and
which are being examined by drought envoy and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce: using
taxpayer funds to help farmers deal with drought, and, questions about whether
backroom favours or mismanagement are undermining drought-relief efforts.
Among the leaked files
is a July 15, 2016 memo from a water authority lawyer summing up his view of Mr
Schwarz’s conduct after he joined hundreds of other farmers given cash incentives
as part of Australia’s largest water saving initiative, the Connections
Project. The project aims to help restore the Murray Darling water system.
The lawyer stated that
after Mr Schwarz received $850,505 in 2011 – divided into $473,000 for on-farm
water-saving measures and $300,000 to buy a neighbouring property – he ‘‘failed
to perform any of the obligations despite having received the payment … in
full.’’
‘‘The Schwarzes have
spent much of the ensuing period attempting to make a case that, notwithstanding
they entered into the agreement and received payment, they should not be bound
to perform,’’ the July 2016 legal memo states.
The leaked files also
reveal that Mr Schwarz sought to call on his personal relationship with a
controversial high-ranking water official, Gavin Hanlon, and an unnamed
‘‘minister’’ to ‘‘support [his] cause’’.
Mr Hanlon was a senior
Victorian water official who was headhunted by the NSW government as its
irrigation chief. He quit his NSW post in 2017 after revelations of questionable
dealings with farm lobbyists, sparking an ongoing
investigation by the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption……..
In a statement to
Fairfax Media, the water authority said that seven years after it gave Mr
Schwarz the funds, the stand-off over with him has been "substantially
resolved." It is understood that Mr Schwarz and Goulburn-Murray Water have
finally agreed that he will use the funds for water savings, but no work has as
yet been done.
The files reveal intense
frustration inside Goulburn-Murray Water not only about Mr Schwarz’s conduct
but the authority’s inability to recoup taxpayer funds.
A note written by an employee
in April 2014 states that: ‘‘Peter told me on a number of occasions he would
prefer to deal with higher GMW management and would not be accepting the
agreement he had previously signed.’’.......
BACKGROUND
SBC
News, 1
December 2018:
The NSW public has a
right to know whether a senior government executive, fired over her alleged
involvement in the Murray-Darling water theft scandal, received a six-figure
payout, the opposition says.
A report into water
theft in the Murray-Darling Basin, released on Thursday, confirmed that along
with top bureaucrat Gavin Hanlon's public resignation, a second executive was
fired for her role in the alleged misconduct.
AAP understands the
senior executive is a former National Party staffer and irrigation lobbyist,
who was appointed to a senior job within the Department of Primary Industries
in 2015.
Opposition water
spokesman Chris Minns said the Berejiklian government should confess whether
the executive had received a golden handshake on her way out the door......
In September, NSW
Minister for Primary Industries Niall Blair said misconduct proceedings had
started against Mr Hanlon.
Mr Hanlon was forced to
resign as the Department of Industry director general in September following
allegations of misconduct, including promising to share internal government
documents with irrigation lobbyists in 2016.
Thursday's independent
investigation into NSW water management and compliance report, authored by Ken
Matthews, said the second senior executive is alleged to have also been
involved in the teleconference.
According to her
LinkedIn profile, the executive was a policy officer for lobby group Southern
River Irrigators between 2011 and 2013 before becoming an advisor to federal
senator Simon Birmingham for a year......
Thursday's report comes
less than a week after both NSW and Queensland were slammed by a Murray-Darling
Basin Authority (MDBA) review into water theft and regulation.
That inquiry found both
states regularly failed to make sure irrigators complied with the
Murray-Darling Basin Plan, and weren't transparent about their failures......
The
Guardian, 27
September 2018:
A former water industry
lobbyist preselected by the New South Wales National party to
lead its Senate ticket in the next federal election has suggested examining
Barnaby Joyce’s proposal to release more water for irrigators.
Once a lobbyist for
Murray Irrigation, Perin Davey won the No 1 spot on the NSW National party’s
Senate ticket earlier this month, after the longtime Nationals senator and bank
campaigner John “Wacka” Williams retired and the former Nationals deputy leader
Fiona Nash resigned over her dual citizenship.
Davey was part of the
teleconference with NSW government water official Gavin Hanlon, when he
allegedly offered documents stripped of the department logo to help irrigators
lobby against the Murray-Darling basin plan.
Hanlon resigned
following the revelations, which were referred to the NSW Independent
Commission Against Corruption. The former water minister Kevin Humphries was
also referred to the state watchdog. Icac makes it a practice not to
comment any current investigations. Davey said she had not been interviewed by
Icac and Guardian Australia does not allege any wrongdoing.
The meeting was exposed
in the 2017 Four
Corners episode that reported allegations
that water was being harvested by some irrigators in the
Barwon-Darling region of the Murray-Darling
basin to the detriment of the environment and downstream communities.
Joyce, the former
agriculture minister, had nominated
Davey to the board of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority but, as a
result of the fallout from the program, Davey
asked Joyce to withdraw her nomination.
Davey, who now runs her own government
relations company, said she was simply participating in a teleconference
and that it was not unusual......
North Coast Voices:
13 MARCH 2018
Only
a handful of NSW landowners to face court over Murray-Darling Basin water theft
allegations? The NSW Government will prosecute several people over alleged
water theft on the Barwon-Darling, eight months after Four Corners investigated
the issue. WaterNSW has named the people it is taking to the Land and
Environment Court over alleged breaches of water management rules.
13 APRIL 2018
Alleged
irrigator water theft heading for the courts? A
cousin by marriage of the current Australian Minister for Agriculture and
Water Resources David Littleproud, John Norman, finds his agricultural
business practices under scrutiny...
30 APRIL 2018
What
the Australian Government didn’t want the UN to publish During Nationals
MP for New England Barnaby Joyce’s disastrous sojourn as Australian Deputy
Prime Minister and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources the federal
government began a successfull campaign to have the United Nations delete
all criticism of Australia’s $13bn effort to restore the ailing Murray-Darling
river system from a published study.
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