Mr ANDREN (5:57 PM) —In rising to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2002-03 I wish to make a few comments about the remarks of my colleague the member for Kennedy. They serve only to underline the fact that we have massive competing interests in our farming environment. We should move away as much as possible from concentrating solely on economic sustainability. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, who is at the table, is suggesting, ecological sustainability is our aim in this century, having given the economic part of the equation a pretty free rein over the last 150 years or so.

The parliamentary secretary and I were members of the regional affairs committee of the 38th Parliament, and our very first inquiry was into the fishing industry. From memory, the report was called Managing Commonwealth fisheries: the last frontier. We realised that there are many unknowns about our seas and our coastal waters. One of those unknowns was tragically found out with the orange roughy incident: we have very little handle on the mass of fishing stocks. But we found out that there is a hell of a lot of water between the fish around Australia, that one of the big problems is that it is heavily fished and that we need to bring the process under control. While that is occurring, we also have to act urgently to bring under control factors that are exacerbating that problem and causing massive problems to our coastal lakes. We saw a report released in the last couple days on the New South Wales lakes system. I, as a property owner on the South Coast, put in a submission about a local lake, and the reading of that report is quite frightening.

We have but one lake on the east coast of New South Wales that could be vaguely described as anywhere near pristine condition, and that is right down at Nadgee in the national park on the Victorian border. The others vary from the possibly reclaimable to those where it is a matter of making do with the degradation that has been caused and trying to find a way to sustain some sort of balance between residential development, recreational use and the environmental qualities that we would want to maintain in those particular watercourses. While it is important to protect the agricultural production and income of our nation, it is incumbent upon us to be as unblinkered as possible about the consequences of the wash of soil and so on into our water—including the Great Barrier Reef and coastal waters—that so degrades the environment of the future. And that is our kids' future.

The government's environmental commitment to date has been premised to a large degree on the sale of our greatest asset, Telstra. While I welcome initiatives in this budget such as the grants incentive for farm management plans, farmers realise that such programs are delivered at a cost, and that cost is a gradual loss of control of their remaining publicly owned telco with all of the concerns that they have about the situation 30, 40 or 50 years down the track. They are concerned not only about the environmental consequences but also about the communication consequences of not having a strong regime of control in a country which is so diverse and so widely spread as inland Australia.

We are unique in this country—as I will mention in our debate on the communications portfolio—because we do not have the spread of population and we cannot create the critical mass in the market that will bring competition into our telecommunications market. It is an absolute nonsense. The Optuses of this world said, `We will deliver mobile services to 90 per cent of the market if you switch off analog'. They did, but that 90 per cent is some 15 to 20 per cent of the geography of the country. That is the essential issue at stake in this whole telecommunications debate and the rush to sell it off and create the Natural Heritage Trust. (Extension of time granted)

I would have hoped to have almost completed by now, but the member for Kennedy inspired me in his delivery to preface my remarks somewhat. There was much fanfare with and political capital was made of the setting up of the first $1 billion Natural Heritage Trust. I said in my 1997 budget reply speech that there are simply not enough funds in the trust to tackle the enormous task of the Murray-Darling Basin salinity and degradation, let alone the other environmental challenges around this nation. This year, as in several years recently, the word `environment' sadly did not appear in the Treasurer's budget speech, which is a disappointing indication of at least Treasury's priorities. While a $1 billion extension to the trust has been announced, the actual allocation to the trust for the next year appears to be down by 10 per cent on last year. It is true that the National Action Plan on Salinity and Water Quality commences with a $100 million allocation, but the Renewable Energy Commercialisation Program, the renewable energy showcase program and other programs have been cut.

Regarding the salinity program, it is good to see the states sign up to this initiative, but the extent of this enormous environmental challenge is not being reflected in hard dollars at the moment. The projected spending on the problem for 2001-02 was $65 million, and $30 million was spent. Earlier the parliamentary secretary explained the drought and other factors that prevent these programs, but I really wonder about that, when we are $35 million short, according to the figures, in one year. For 2003 it was projected to be $150 million and I believe we are now saying we are going to spend only $100.7 million. Is that because of the impending drought? Also, the actual proposed spending for 2003-04 and 2004-05 reduces by $50 million and $13 million. That is almost $150 million less than projected a year ago.

The member for Wills detailed the substantial underspending, as he called it, and I wonder if we are transposing the salinity program into that. That means that we are committing only $500 million to our salinity program, when we have announced a $700 million program. I would like some explanation around those figures. Let us hope that this $100 million a year for the salinity program is real money and not virtual money, and not the shifting of expenditure from one program to another and the less than promised spending from the trust that we have seen in past years.

The head of the Cooperative Research Centre for Plant Based Management of Dryland Salinity, Phil Cocks, says that we should be working at changing farming practices. That is basic to the sort of argument that I think the member for Kennedy was putting up. The income from the sugar industry is immense, but we have to look at the bottom line of the cost of producing all of our farm produce. Existing plans and moneys, including the river catchment initiatives, are largely targeted at rehabilitating effective land. Cocks suggests that we need to look at a more carefully based program on farming practices. For starters, surely that means a halt to indiscriminate clearing and studies into better use of the irrigation water that we have, rather than seeking ways to harness more water and turn rivers inland. The salt is lurking just below the surface. It was there untouched when we first came here—it was just below the surface. Unless we find a means of reducing the water required to produce crops, no amount of salinity spending is going to reverse the inevitable result that we are going to have vast areas in an unfarmable and irrecoverable condition.

I would like the minister's comment on the environmental levy suggestion. If we are talking about a Medicare levy for our health then we should be talking about one for the health of our country. It is something that was suggested by a committee of the last parliament, chaired by the honourable member for Page, if I recall correctly. We are going to have to look at compensating landowners for loss of productivity due to locking up salt-affected land or reducing water rights. The member for New England has comprehensively covered that issue. It is a problem to be shared by all Australians and all should contribute. (Extension of time granted)

A farmer in my electorate told me that it is hard to be green when you are in the red. As much as the farmers are committed to recovering those salt-affected areas, we must help them through compensation for land they have to lock up and we must also protect their rights where irrigation water is concerned. We must not only look at sustainable agriculture but also ensure that it is absolutely ecologically sustainable. That would mean not only land use repair but also land use reforms. The majority of farmers realise the problem. They want to manage the reform process. They need far more help than current policies and funding provide, notwithstanding the salinity action plan.

I would be interested in the parliamentary secretary's comments on just how these issues—salinity action, compensation, land restoration, bushcare and alternative energy—are going to be funded over the long term when the perhaps questionable sum of $60 billion over 30 years has been put on that job by the NFF and the Conservation Council. Even if we had five Telstras we could not do the job by selling them.