Malcolm Turnbull warned to keep word on Nationals' control of water issues
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Version 0 of 1. The Nationals have warned Malcolm Turnbull against welching on the spirit of the Coalition agreement by giving a Liberal responsibility for water issues, implying that such a move would fracture government discipline in the Senate. The agriculture minister and deputy Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, is due to meet with the prime minister on Wednesday to clarify his responsibilities after water resources was added to his portfolio in the cabinet reshuffle last month. The South Australian Liberal senator Anne Ruston was also sworn in as the assistant minister for agriculture and water resources. South Australia, as a downstream state in the Murray-Darling Basin, takes a strong interest in maintaining environmental water flows. Related: Murray-Darling water buybacks capped at 1,500 gigalitres as bill passes Senate It is understood Joyce wants Ruston, who is not in the cabinet, to focus on fisheries, forestry, horticulture and wine. The Nationals also have questions about Greg Hunt’s Department of the Environment retaining responsibility for the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, which manages environmental water holdings in the Murray-Darling Basin. Joyce, who has written to the prime minister about responsibilities, said ministers were in the “process of negotiating the role we do” including the tasks for assistant ministers. He said the honouring of the Coalition agreement, reached before Turnbull was sworn in as prime minister, was “crucial for how the Coalition works”. “A Coalition is a business arrangement between two different parties and within that certain requirements are there and we support the prime minister and we support legislation and with that comes other things and one of the issues there was that water returned to agriculture and I’m absolutely certain that that will happen,” he told the ABC’s Radio National on Monday. Other Nationals are closely watching the outcome of the talks, with vague threats of crossing the floor on future government bills. The Australian newspaper quoted a Nationals MP as saying that a successful resolution would allow Turnbull to have a “non-eventful” run to the election due in 2016. Turnbull faced an early embarrassment on 15 September, his first day as prime minister, when three Nationals senators crossed the floor to support a symbolic Greens motion advocating changes to competition laws. Two others abstained from the vote. Labor and the Liberals did not support the motion, which was about the introduction of a so-called “effects test” backed by small business but opposed by big business. The issue had previously divided Tony Abbott’s cabinet, which deferred consideration of the issue shortly before the spill. The composition of the Senate means that the government needs support from at least six of the eight crossbench senators to pass any legislation opposed by Labor and the Greens. But those numbers assume that no Nationals senators cross the floor to vote with the opposition. In Senate question time on Monday, Labor’s upper house leader, Penny Wong, asked for clarity about water responsibilities. Tasmanian Liberal frontbencher Richard Colbeck, who represents Joyce in the upper house, said there were “still negotiations being conducted between minister Joyce and his assistant minister in relation to the overall specifics”. Colbeck played down the tensions, saying Nationals and Liberals were concerned about proper water allocation and the health of the Murray-Darling Basin. “In my view there is no differential between the National party and the Liberal party in this space. We are a very, very contented Coalition. We are working very closely together,” he said. Related: Tony Windsor threatens to sue Barnaby Joyce over Shenhua mine comments Colbeck said the objectives of the Murray-Darling Basin plan would be “delivered in full and on time”. “The operations of the Murray-Darling are in very good hands between the minister for the environment and the minister for agriculture and water resources,” he said. The Queensland Labor government has also sought an explanation about the roles but has yet to gain a clear response. The state agriculture minister, Bill Byrne, wrote to Hunt, Joyce and Ruston on 23 September asking “which elements of the agriculture and water resources portfolios each of you will have carriage over”. “Recently attempts by Queensland government departments to ascertain this information have been unsuccessful,” Byrne said in the letter. |