It\u2019s untenable to leave the National Party in charge of water and a Royal Commission is needed more than ever, after today\u2019s Auditor-General\u2019s report into \u2018Watergate\u2019 found the government didn\u2019t even try to achieve value for money of water entitlements and didn\u2019t appropriately manage conflicts of interest, the Greens say.
\nToday\u2019s report comes after Greens Water Spokesperson and Senator for South Australia Sarah Hanson-Young, and a number of other MPs, referred analysis conducted by The Australia Insititute, and reports alleging the Department of Agriculture and Resources, which manages the purchase of water, had significantly overpaid vendors for water in the Warrego catchment, Tandou and the Condamine-Balonne Valley to the Auditor General.
\nSubsequent analysis released in January 2020 by TAI showed the Federal Government paid exorbitant prices for water rights to a company linked to Minister Angus Taylor, while Barnaby Joyce was the Water Minister.
\nSenator Hanson-Young said:
\n\u201cTaxpayers footed an $80m bill to a company linked to Energy Minister Angus Taylor, for water that\u2019s never been seen. The deal stunk.
\n\u201cToday\u2019s report raises even more questions. There must be a Royal Commission to get to the bottom of these scandals and I again urge all sides of politics to back my bill to establish one.
\n\u201cThe Auditor-General\u2019s report confirms the department\u2019s approach to managing water procurements, overseen by Barnaby Joyce, was a shambles and stinks worse than fish rotting in Menindee Lakes in summer.
\n\u201cAt best, this report reveals incompetence, at worst it shows another taxpayer rort overseen by the National Party.
\n\u201cThe Auditor-General found the department didn\u2019t use a value for money approach for procurement of strategic water entitlements. Put simply, taxpayers were ripped off by a government that claims to be good economic managers.
\n\u201cThe Auditor-General also recommended the department update arrangements for managing conflicts of interest.
\n\u201cThe Murray-Darling Basin has been riddled with dodgy accounting, mismanagement, and out-right water theft. The National Party and their corporate irrigator mates have used it as a slush fund while river communities, family farmers and the environment suffers.
\n\u201cThe stench around Morrison\u2019s Energy Minister Angus Taylor is growing. How many more scandals before the PM shows him the door?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s untenable to leave the National Party in charge of water and a Royal Commission is needed more than ever, after today\u2019s Auditor-General\u2019s report into \u2018Watergate\u2019 found the government didn\u2019t even try to achieve value for money of water entitlements and didn\u2019t appropriately manage conflicts of interest, the Greens say. Today\u2019s report comes after Greens … Continue reading “Auditor-General\u2019s \u2018Watergate\u2019 report shows incompetence and dodgy practices”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}