MURRAY Irrigation Corporate Affairs and Stakeholder Engagement Manager Perin Davey has been appointed to Barnaby Joyce’s Agricultural Industry Advisory Council (AIAC) to boost its water policy prowess.
The Agriculture and Water Resources Minister announced the appointment last week saying Ms Davey’s expertise in water management issues would make an important contribution to the Council’s work.
“Ms Davey has extensive experience in water management, water markets and the irrigation industry, with more than five years with Murray Irrigation,” he said.
“She has long contributed to public debate on water policy issues in Australia, including during the development of the Murray Darling Basin Plan and its implementation.
“Water is an essential input to agriculture and the lifeblood of our rural and regional communities so it makes sense that this important issue has greater representation through the council.”
During recent years, Murray Irrigation has ventilated consistent concerns about potentially devastating economic impacts on the region, due to the Basin Plan’s water recovery targets; especially agricultural production and flow-on effects for associated businesses and social structures.
Local Farrer MP and Health Minister Sussan Ley also welcomed Ms Davey’s inclusion on the Advisory Council saying it would “showcase” western NSW.
Ms Ley said the Council was an important conduit for ideas between government and the agriculture sector and played a vital role in informed and consultative decision-making.
“I have worked with Ms Davey and am confident she will make an invaluable contribution to the Council’s engagement on current and longer-term issues affecting Australian agriculture,” she said.
Mr Joyce said the AIAC was established in January 2014, delivering on an election commitment to enhance consultation with Australia’s agriculture sector and has since held six face-to-face meetings and four teleconferences.
The AIAC’s next meeting is scheduled for March 31 to April 1 in Armidale, NSW.
Former Northern Territory Cattleman’s Association Executive Director Luke Bowen from the Office of Northern Australia was also named as one of its 10 original members along with representatives from other sectors including; wine, grains, dairy, wool, horticulture, forestry and finance.
However, the ALP has used Senate estimates to attack Mr Joyce’s decision to axe the National Rural Advisory Council (NRAC) under the guise of cutting red tape but then appointed the AIAC.
WA Labor Senator Bullock said it seemed “odd” to establish a new body to provide advice similar to that provided by the old body and then justify its removal due to duplication.
He said the minister had instead “handpicked a group of mates to give him advice and he threw out the pre-existing advisory body”.
But Acting Department Deputy Secretary Paul Morris said Council members were not 'mates' but rather a group of people the minister believed had the expertise in his portfolio industries.
“Those people were people he felt he trusted to provide him advice in terms of helping to develop policy - they are purely advisory bodies - he can accept or not accept their advice,” he said.
Department Secretary Daryl Quinlivan said NRAC’s core function was related to providing drought advice under the Exceptional Circumstances model but when drought policy shifted that core function “ceased to exist”.
“I think that is a large part of the logic here,” he said.
NRAC also conducted work looking at multi-peril crop insurance and farm management deposits which provided advice to government.
Meanwhile, Mr Joyce also said the Coalition government was also undertaking the most significant investment in water infrastructure in Australian history to ensure it can be managed efficiently to maximise economic, social and environmental outcomes into the future.
Last week, the Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Ley and Tasmanian Liberal MP Eric Hutcheson announced new funding for water investment aimed at supporting farmers; with $31 million on water storage and piping infrastructure in Tasmania.
Another $12m was put towards irrigated agriculture projects in the Murray Darling Basin at Hay, Goodnight and Coleambally, in Ms Ley’s electorate.
Ms Ley said Labor “almost crippled” the communities she represented by launching “indiscriminate, across the board, untargeted and disastrous” water buyback outside the Basin Plan “and I will never forgive them for it”.
She said the opposition had also never spent and invested in on-farm projects.
“Their water ministers could not cope with the thought of the primary producer actually needing to adjust and modernise and need help from the government to do it,” she said.
