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| IMAGE: Murray Darling Wetlands Working Group Ltd. |
Former Accountant and banker, Nationals MP for New England (NSW) Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce was deputy Prime Minister of Australia from 18.2.2016 to 27.10.2017 and again from 6.12.2017 to 26.2.2018. He was also Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources from 21.9.2015 to 27.10.2017 and returned as minister once more from 21.9.2015 to 27.10.2017.
This particular politician is likely
to go down in history as one of the worst leaders that the National Party of
Australia ever had.
The
Northern Daily Leader,
9 February 2019:
BARNABY Joyce’s actions
as water minister have been singled out and savaged in the royal
commission into the Murray Darling Basin Authority, the report
suggesting he ignored the law.
The report pointed
to an “ill-informed letter” from Mr Joyce to the South Australian
water minister, as testament to the government’s lack of “any genuine
commitment” to the goal of recovering 450 gigalitres of water for the
environment.
The Leader has
contacted Mr Joyce for an interview and is awaiting a response.
In the letter, Mr Joyce
said he couldn’t see the water being recovered without “causing negative social
and economic impacts to South Australian communities”.
“I cannot foresee [the
other state governments] agreeing that the additional 450GL of water can be delivered
without significant social and economic detriment,” he wrote.
The report said there
was “no reliable evidence” to support Mr Joyce’s claim.
This is what the
South Australian Murray-Darling Basin Royal
Commission Report’s Final
Report (released on 29 January 2019) stated in part:
For
a number of years neither the Commonwealth Government, nor New South Wales or
Victoria, have had any genuine commitment to recovering the so-called 450 GL of
upwater for enhanced environmental outcomes. The ill-informed letter from Mr
Barnaby Joyce when he was Water Minister to his South Australian counterpart
dated 17 November 2016 — written as though the actual definition of
socio-economic impact in the Basin Plan did not exist — is testament to this…..
On
commercial radio on 29 August 2018, Mr Joyce, the Commonwealth Government’s
Special Drought Envoy — not a member of the Executive Council or a Minister of the
State under either secs 62 or 64 of the Constitution respectively — suggested
that environmental water held by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder
(CEWH) should be used to ‘grow the fodder to keep the cattle alive’ during the
course of the drought. He suggested that if this was not lawful, then the
relevant legislation should be changed. This suggestion is not in the interests
of the people who live and work in the Basin, nor in the interests of the
broader Australian public, or that of the environment. It is contrary to the
objects and purposes of the Water Act and Basin Plan. It is against the
national interest. It has been rightly rejected by, amongst others, the MDBA
and the CEWH. Adaptation to the challenges of a warmer and drier climate will
require a vastly more sophisticated approach. That approach must be based on
proper scientific research and analysis, as well as a basic level of common
sense.
For
example, in a letter dated 17 November 2016 from the then Commonwealth Minister
for Agriculture and Water, Mr Barnaby Joyce, to the then South Australian
Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Mr Ian Hunter,
Minister Joyce said:
If it was
genuinely possible to put an additional 450 GL down the river without hurting
people, then none of us would have a problem with it. The reality is that it
will. South Australia’s default share of the 450 GL target is 36 GL. Does the
South Australian Government have a plan for where this water would come from
without causing negative social and economic impacts to South Australian
communities? I believe that we are heading into an unprotracted (sic) and
unsolvable stalemate, where the funding will stay on the books for a recovery
that will be impossible to make in accordance with the legislative requirements
— that the recovery must has (sic) positive or neutral social and economic
outcomes
… My main concern is this — just as you have an
understandable desire for one outcome, your colleagues in other states have an
equally understandable desire for another regardless of what side of the
political fence they are on. I cannot foresee them agreeing that the additional
450 GL of water can be delivered without significant social and economic
detriment. The hard conversation has to happen about how we resolve this
stalemate. I look forward to discussing it with you more at the Ministerial
Council.
There
is no reliable evidence before the Commission that would support the assertion
in that letter that recovery of an additional 450 GL of water would have
negative social and economic impacts, or that its consequence would be ‘hurting
people’ either economically, socially, or otherwise. Minister Joyce offered no
such evidence. Leaving that aside, Minister Joyce’s letter ignores the test of
social and economic neutrality in sec 7.17(2)(b) of the Basin Plan. That is no
trifling thing, as that section was (and still currently is) the law. The test
is satisfied by participation, not the concept of ‘hurting people’. Leaving
this also aside, the gist of the letter was such that the Commonwealth’s then
position seemed to be that the recovery of 450 GL of upwater for South
Australia’s environmental assets was unlikely….
Mr
Hooper spoke of a shift in attitude, upon the appointment of the former
Minister, Mr Barnaby Joyce, to the water portfolio, away from a holistic, whole
of Basin approach to a focus on specific sites, namely Dirranbandi, St George,
and Warren, and the economics of irrigated agriculture in those towns.
Mr
Hooper recalled asking the MDBA for a socio-economic assessment of Aboriginal
people in the Northern Basin to which the MDBA responded by offering to provide
a more limited socio-cultural survey.182 Despite meeting with the MDBA, NBAN
was unaware of the intention to reduce water recovery in the Northern Basin,
which was only revealed once the proposed amendments were publicly released.183
Mr Hooper could not recall any explanation of how the toolkit measures could
substitute for water so as to justify the 70 GL reduction in water to be
recovered…..
In
an interview with 2GB radio, the Commonwealth Government’s Special Drought
Envoy and former Water Resources Minister, Mr Barnaby Joyce, said:
a national emergency requires emergency power. We have
a large water resource owned by the government. It’s called the Commonwealth
Environmental Water holder and it’s used to water environmental assets. In a
national emergency, which is this drought, surely that water should be used to grow
the fodder to keep the cattle alive to keep the cash flow in the town. When
people say, ‘Oh well, the legislation won’t allow you to do that’. Well, change
the legislation, that’s what we have a parliament for.
National
Party once again proving that it is the party representing mining interests
Climate change denialism is alive and well in the National Party.....
The
Sydney Morning Herald,
9 February 2019:
A Nationals MP's claim
that the Land and Environment Court's decision to block a coal mine in his
electorate reflected an "ideological position" and "smacked of
judicial activism" has prompted a rival MP to accuse him of contempt of
court.
After the court on
Friday rejected Gloucester Resources' bid to open the
Rocky Hill mine on the Mid North Coast because of "climate change
impacts", Nationals MP for the Upper Hunter Michael Johnsen hopped on
2GB to vent his fury.
The show's host Chris
Kenny said: "Here you have a judge in a NSW land and environment court
saying that he's protecting the planet from global warming, from climate
change".
Mr Johnsen replied:
"They are taking an ideological position, again it smacks of judicial
activism, and it has nothing to do with the merits of the proposal itself and
I’m very, very disappointed."
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