JOYCE: This is a test for the Labor Government and most specifically a test for Mr Burke. We know the Murray-Darling Basin plan has been a debacle, bringing sections of Australia almost to virtual riots. There has been the burning of plans, incredible social dislocation because of the arbitrary nature of a Labor Government and their lack of capacity to understand the detail of what they are about to do.

Minister Burke has to make sure that, as he goes forward with this plan, he conducts a thorough consultation process with the areas for which he intends to buy back water. We have local government authorities and they have purpose. They understand their people. So, I hope that Mr Burke is talking to the local mayors in the area where he decides to buy water. I hope he talks to the chambers of commerce so that they can have their input as to whether their towns will be unduly affected. He must talk to the irrigation groups to make sure they feel comfortable with what is to happen and we don't force areas to economic tipping points.

The purpose of the act is to return water to the environment but in a triple bottom line approach. That means we do not look after the environment, then count the bodies later. We actually make sure we look after the economic base and the social base. There are so many people who have buy in to this but they don’t get the benefit of the money if it all comes unstuck.

The person in a town who has who has paid off their mortgage has a right to believe the value of their house is maintained. The person who has bought the tyre business or the motel or office has a right to believe that their economy will stay intact. We expect Minister Burke to do the right job, not just any job. It has been a very precarious position that so many people have been led to. We look at the Collarenebri catastrophe where the Labor government bought the water that basically left the town high and dry and stranded the assets of the town. They took away the economic capacity of the town to be maintained in the long-term.

 We have seen what happened even in Bourke where they spent $ 23.75 million purchasing water, driving a huge hole in the economic base of Bourke. When it is all over they didn't actually deliver water into the Darling River. We saw what happened at Menindee lakes, they just failed, failed to engage in the proper manner. They failed to engage in an outcome that would deliver more water into the river. We waited so long that even God couldn’t wait any longer and it rained and it filled back up with water. Let's see how Mr Burke goes down this process.

What we will be doing is making sure we don't lead to actions that shut down regional towns that put a threat to the capacity for the nation to feed itself, that take away the economic basis of a section of Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin, which supports 2 million people. There are so many people with a buy-in on this. People are looking to Labor to see if there are signs of the competency that they brought to other every decision they have made. People are terrified that the competency that brought about the ceiling insulation debacle, the building the education revolution debacle, that has got us into $170 billion of gross debt, that as we watch this week the absolute pathos surrounding NBN and now Australians are a wake up to that. NBN has turned into a white elephant, and utter incompetency, complete misunderstanding of their own act.

 Minister Burke has made the statement but now he has to realise like other Labor Party decisions, it is more than the statement, it is the competency in managing the outcome of what you have said.

QUESTION: This tender round includes the Lower Balonne, which includes Cubby Station. Would you support them buying the entitlements?

 JOYCE: I wouldn't support them buying all the entitlements of Cubby station because that would close down the town of Dirranbandi. If you’re going to buy all the entitlements of Cubby station, you had better buy the whole town of Dirranbandi. You had better buy the service station, the hotel, and all the houses. You better make sure all those people have a financial parachute because they have been kicked out of the economic plane because the main driver of commerce in the area has been taken away.

 A purchase of a section of water is entirely different. We are not against the purchase of water. We are against the total and utter incompetency in how this process has gone thus far. There will be people who will be willing to sell water, and in that case you should engage with the local Mayor, in that case, Donna Stewart, engage with the Chamber of Commerce, John Travers, with the irrigator groups to they are on board, to make sure cotton gins are not closed down that would change the whole economic structure and fabric of those communities. 

QUESTION: In a week where we started talking about the foreign buyout of Australian farms, do you think this water buy back might give some farmers an incentive to cash it in and possibly leave the land open up farms to foreign takeover?

JOYCE. The most fundamental thing we must protect is our capacity to feed ourselves. It is in our national interests that Australia maintain the capacity in food production, in general ownership of the land that is identified in Australia. That is not a unique or parochial view. That was the also the view that was displayed in the bipartisan way we change the rules so we wouldn’t have foreigners buying up all the houses in suburban streets. If it is alright for suburban streets, it should be alright for farms as well.

 What I do is say is this: what is their definition of a willing seller. Minister Burke has not given a clear definition of what a willing seller is. I hope it is not someone who is under pump from the bank, who is under pressure. That should be between the farmer and the Government. A negotiation between the bank and the government would   be unfair and a complete corruption of the term 'Willing'. I want to see what Mt Burke means when he says willing seller, or who is a willing buyer. I hope that means more than the banks and the government.

QUESTION: Should the areas in the north be subject to the cuts given that there is some doubt that the water will reach the lower parts of the system?

JOYCE: Well they won’t. We’ve got to understand the hydrology of it. The Murray Darling Basin is a big old dry carpet, and flat. In the areas around me we’re about 1500 to 2,000km to the mouth of the Murray. And to think that the purchase of water there has any effect on the lower parts of the river, it doesn't. There might be other environmental assets around that it does affect. Let’s remove from our psyche the fact that buying water in Mitchell or in Cecil plains will help things at Murray Bridge, it won't

There is obvious conjecture about the environmental study proposed by the guide, the correlation between the environmental assets and the water that is taken, the examination of the Paroo as a pristine system as opposed to the Lower Balonne- Condamine. What the guide says is explicitly different to what State Labor Governments have said over studies over about 10 years.

This paradox has not been properly explained and needs to be further fleshed out .I know that other hydrologists are coming into the argument now. There are other studies like those on macro –invertebrates and so on and it is disagreeing with what the guide said. Classic example is their understanding of inter-valley flows and how do they determine them when the flow of water was not possible to measure because of the lack of gauging capacity. These are examples the general public don't understand but people on the ground do. The place where you apparently measure the height of the river was in an area you couldn't get to when it rains because it is on black soil and was at a height that it was flowing over the gauging station. So how did you work out how much water was getting to the end? In some areas the figures are wrong. In some areas, where they have determined the sustainable diversion limits, the SDL’s , they never actually did a study to determine what it should have been.. They assumed on associated catchments what the SLD should have been.

 This leaves people with a sense of disbelief. Also, they believe they're part of a guide that was not a guide to save the Murray-Darling but a guide to garner votes in inner suburban seats. 

QUESTION: this morning at the Telstra AGM, the CEO said they are keen to see talks progressing as quickly as possible, given that the Government hasn’t released its business plan how likely do you think this is?

JOYCE: The government is hiding. Everybody has seen this week the government in complete and utter meltdown. We had a Minister who didn't understand their own plan. We have a Minister who went through to the end of week literally in contempt of the Senate. He refuses to send the plan to the Productivity Commission for further proper examination, forensic examination. This is just not another day in the park.

This is project is the biggest infrastructure spend in the history of our nation. This money is going to be borrowed from over seas and we are going to have to pay it back. This money sits on top of the other $170 plus billion dollars gross you owe to people in China and around the world. The only way you pay them back is if you get it wrong is jacking up the taxes. The Australian people are right in saying how much longer do I have to lay bricks in the sun to pay the tax to pay back this debt? How much longer do I have to sit in this office late at night to pay the taxes to pay back? Why didn’t this Government to have the prudence to understand what it was doing? Why did they think people were such fools they would never ask for the details and now they are asking for the details? How contemptuous this government is. It refuses to be transparent to people. When it has the audacity to say it was going to have the light shine in and all the other palaver and BS they went on with.

They gained Government on the back of the strength of the National Broadband Network. The house of cards is falling down. The Australian people are saying I have been launched with a government that that is incapable of delivering anything, that is not being straight, that is sending me into a mountain of debt, that is creating a debacle on the Murray-Darling, couldn't get fluffy stuff in the ceilings, and this is the Government we are stuck with? It started with a war against obesity? obesity? What happened to the fat people, did we beat them? Was it a win or a draw? I was hiding behind trees because I thought they would get to me. This is the same Government that is in power now. They are looking pathetic and hopeless and the Australian people will hold them to account.