ABC Adelaide Breakfast interview with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

SUBJECTS: Prime Minister's engagement; water purchasing for the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

​JULES SCHILLER: Tanya Plibersek is the Minister for Environment and Water. Now, we haven’t asked her on to talk about the history of love in The Lodge –

DAVID BEVAN: Which is a great reality show waiting to be made, isn’t it?

SCHILLER: Good morning, Tanya Plibersek.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Good morning. Good morning.

SCHILLER: Would this be the first marriage in The Lodge?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I haven’t done a sort of scan of history, but certainly it’s the first that I can think of, and good luck to them. You know, Jodie Haydon is a really wonderful person, and he’s a very lucky man.

SCHILLER: Yeah, yeah. It’s nice. I think everybody of all political shades can say, “Oh, good on you. And may you have many, many happy years.”

SONYA FELDHOFF: We were discussing guest list. Will you be on it, Tanya Plibersek, do you think?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, who knows? I mean, it could be an all-in. I’m up for a party. I’m always up for that sort of party. I love celebrating love.

BEVAN: The guest list could be the subject of the next Nemesis on the ABC – who’s on, who’s off. Yes. No, no, I’m not going to say anything more.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I’m trying to work out what you buy a Prime Minister as a wedding gift.

BEVAN: A few votes. [laughter]

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We wouldn’t ever buy votes.

BEVAN: No, no.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: That’s a shocking suggestion.

FELDHOFF: What about water?

SCHILLER: Yes, now thinking –

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We would buy water. We’ve bought rather a lot of water.

SCHILLER: Yeah, now, talking of water, now, I’m not – seriously, I’m not critical of The Australian on this one because journalists should approach decimal points with a great deal of humility. The story this morning is that it’s $129 a litre. Is that right?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, it’s way off. It’s less than a dollar a litre. And, I mean, look it’s not an easy calculation anyway because you pay different amounts for water in different catchments and for different levels of security of that water. So it’s a very complicated tender process. But they’ve done just a very simple calculation. They got that simple calculation way off.

SCHILLER: So what is it, then?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And I think it’s really important to remember, this isn’t you’re buying one litre of water once; this is returning this water to the river system forever so that it can be used forever. So it’s less than a cent – it’s about 78-hundredths of one cent.

SCHILLER: What? Per litre.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah. But that, again, like I have to caveat, caveat, caveat – different amounts in different catchments because the level – security levels of the water, how reliable it is, how scarce it is, all of that has influenced us. And I was listening to you as we were kind of talking as you were talking earlier during the introduction, you were talking about how we were offered more water than I thought. Yeah, we were offered twice as much as we needed in some catchments. I didn’t buy it because it wasn’t good value for money. We’ve got to balance environmental considerations with value for taxpayers’ dollars. And I obviously as the minister don’t pick and choose between different offers. It’s something that’s done at arm’s length, but my instruction to the people running the tender is you’ve got to look for environmental utility – will it make a difference to the environment – and you’ve got to look at value for taxpayers’ money, and that’s what they’ve done.

BEVAN: All right, but, did you spend $205 million –

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We did.

BEVAN: Yeah, okay. So you did spend $205 million and for that –

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Sorry, I should also say they’re agreements that we’ve got with willing purchasers. We now go into the contracting phase. So that’s what we’ve agreed to pay. Some might drop out during that period. So that’s the maximum we will spend. And that is a really serious contribution to the bridging the gap to the sustainable diversion limits. For people who follow this very closely this is not part of the 450 gigalitres of environmental water. That’s something that we’ll go into the market for later.

BEVAN: Right, okay. But to be – to break this down so that our listeners know what they’re getting for their money, we the taxpayers have spent $205 million buying water. Now, for that $205 million we got 26.35 gigalitres, yeah?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: So you got ten and a half thousand Olympic-size swimming pools of water being returned to the river system each year. That’s probably the easiest way of thinking of it.

SCHILLER: Or can we break this down to a litre? If you –

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, I mean –

BEVAN: If you bought 26 gigalitres –

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: – you can. But –

BEVAN: That’s 26,350 million litres, yeah?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Can I say, this is – it’s a – you can do all that maths –

SCHILLER: Well –

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And you end up with less than a cent a litre. But the thing that I’m worried about, I don’t want your listeners to think that this is a simple calculation, because there’s so many variables. It depends which catchment the water is in, it depends how reliable the water is, it depends on the environmental utility of the water. All these things were taken into account when we did it.

BEVAN: Tanya, Tanya Plibersek, when I was a young cadet reporter and I went off to the West Torrens council meeting to find out about a very controversial rates increase and I was told by some local councillors, “No, no, no, no. You can’t do this. It’s very complicated. It depends on who’s buying what and yada yada.” Very similar to a federal water minister 40 years later telling me no, it’s too complicated to work out.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No, I’ve told you what it is. It’s less than a cent a litre. It’s not –

BEVAN: When I went back to my chief of staff the next morning he said, “David, there’s always an answer.” What is the cost per litre?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It’s 0.78 cents.

SCHILLER: So less than a cent?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Like, I’ve said it four times now. But I have to keep caveating and telling you that some of this water will turn up more reliably depending on where it is in the country, depending on the weather cycles. So I don’t want people to think that this is a simple calculation. And we have said no to some water offers simply because they’re not good value for money or they don’t have the reliability or the environmental utility that we need.

SCHILLER: You’re listening to Tanya Plibersek. She’s Minister for Environment and Water.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And also, I just want to say, you South Australians know better than most of the country just how important it is to return this water to the river system. It’s ten and a half thousand Olympic-size swimming pools of extra water going into the river system. We’ve had South Australian MPs from the conservative side saying, you know, “We’re going to deliver the Murray Darling Basin Plan in full and on time.” Senator Birmingham, Senator Ruston, “We will not give up because we’re committed to the delivery of the plan.” And then on the other hand you’ve got the Leader of the National Party saying if they get into government there’ll be no part of the Murray Darling Basin Plan that the Nationals won’t unwind. The member for Sturt and Senator for South Australia McLachlan saying they support buybacks. Like, they’re all over the shop on this. We are getting on with delivering the Murray Darling Basin Plan in full. And the South Australians will be top of the list of beneficiaries of that.

SCHILLER: Can I ask, Tanya Plibersek, because you said some water is just too expensive for you to buy and you’re not going to waste taxpayers’ money.

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yes.

SCHILLER: You’ve had to keep the budget that you’ve allocated to water buybacks, you’ve had to keep that secret. Does that mean you’re worried that people are going to speculate on these buybacks and are going to be profiteering?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, well, just on the secrecy, we are – all of these tenders, all of these contracts will be public on the AusTender website once they’re signed and we’ve made clear the total amount that we’ve spent. And, yeah, I am a little bit worried about people trying to game the system. We need to make sure at every step that we are getting good value for taxpayers’ money. It is absolutely vital that we return this water to the river system. As I say, South Australians are more aware of that than many other parts of the country because you see the results of those long dry years in your environment and in your communities as well. And although we are committed to delivering on the Murray Darling Basin Plan, I’m not going to be an idiot about it and just splash money around in a way that doesn’t give taxpayers value for their dollar.

FELDHOFF: Minister, you’ve said how vital this water is to the system, and I think we all appreciate that. You’ve been able to secure this water. Is there anything within that deal that prevents future governments from reselling it?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I think any future government that did that would face the wrath of the community. And I really can’t imagine – I mean, despite what the Liberals – sorry, the Nationals have said about this, that they want to unwind the Murray Darling Basin Plan, I honestly can’t imagine a scenario where they would do that.

SCHILLER: How much of the water is foreign owned. This is a question that comes through most often on the text line. Because we know that when it comes to these buybacks you are dealing with hedge funds and overseas speculators. Is that a worry to you?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, it absolutely is. And I think – I mean, we do have a register of foreign ownership of water entitlements that, you know, people can look up. The Australian Tax Office puts that out, and if people are interested in it they can find it. But some of the biggest water holders in Australia are not Australian companies or farmers; they’re international – like, the Canadian Public Service Pension Fund, for example, is one of the largest water holders in Australia.

And it is one of the really illogical things about the National Party, you know, banging on about how they’re opposed to water buybacks. They are fine for one farmer to sell water to another farmer. They’re fine for that water from one catchment entitlements to be sold for water in another catchment. They’re fine for foreign companies to buy the water, including foreign companies that are backed by foreign governments, so they’ve got deep pockets. They’re fine for all of that to happen. The only people that they don’t want to be able to buy water are the commonwealth government to put back into our river systems for the health of our rivers, the health of our communities and the health of our natural environment. That’s the only people that they don’t want to be allowed to buy water. It’s not very logical.

BEVAN: If at this price of $205 million for 26.35 gigalitres, what would it cost you to –

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Not going to speculate.

BEVAN: Well, at that price –

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I know where – well, you’ve got a calculator. You can do that yourself. I’m not going to speculate because we will continue to insist on value for taxpayers’ dollars and environmental utility.

BEVAN: I’m just wondering whether you’re going to blow your budget, that’s all. At that rate –

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: No –

BEVAN: – do you have enough money to make – to meet your commitments?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, well, we are going to meet our commitments. And I’ve been really clear as well that on the 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water that is the next phase of the Murray Darling Basin Plan that we need to deliver – where incidentally I delivered more water in my first nine months of the job than the previous government did in nine years, but let’s just set that aside – that 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water, we’re not going to buy it all. We’re – right now we’ve got our Resilient Rivers Program we’re working with states and territories to find ways of reducing demand for water, like, water efficiency, water saving projects. We’ve – you know, we’re talking to the states and territories about how we return water to the river system without buying it, by using water more efficiently.

So, like I say, it is a kind of monstrously complex area, and I don’t want to, you know, pretend to people that you can do these calculations very easily – you can’t. Because we need to get those submissions in from state and territory governments about how we can do more water saving. That’s just one example.

BEVAN: Tanya Plibersek, thank you very much for your time. Minister for Environment and Water. And on the guest list for the wedding. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.