A controversial water buyback has thrust water management to the fore of the election campaign.Credit:Nick Moir
Mr Taylor co-founded Eastern Australia Irrigation and served as a director until he entered Parliament in 2013. Mr Taylor says he did not benefit from the buyback,never had a financial interest in the companies and is no longer associated with them.
Mr Joyce said on Monday he had"zero knowledge"of Mr Taylor’s history with the company.
Mr Joyce said he relied on advice from his department when signing off on the deal,and did not question the price paid or who would benefit.
"If you do not rely on the competent advice from the department,who on Earth are you going to rely on"he said,describing Labor's criticism as"a load of horse crap".
Asked whether he knew a company in the Cayman Islands would benefit from his decision,Mr Joyce said such questions were"not my job"and he trusted the department to"do the right thing".
"I do not negotiate the price,I do not negotiate the vendor … These were the people who were offering water to us to buy,"he said.
"You ask whether they’ve got water to sell,you are not asking what clothes they wear,you don’t ask who they are married to."
Mr Joyce's attempts to distance himself from the deal appear to contradict his insistence in 2015 that he,rather than assistant minister Anne Ruston,would"have the lead"on water in government.
"There is not one thing that can go through cabinet without the cabinet minister responsible having the say. I'm actually responsible for it if it goes wrong. Responsibility resides with me,"Mr Joyce said,according to an ABC report.
In November 2015,Queensland Labor's Minister for State Development,Natural Resources and Mines,Anthony Lynham,urged the Morrison government to buy water entitlements from Eastern Australia Agriculture.
Mr Joyce said unless the Queensland government were"morons"or"asleep",their proposal suggested to him that the deal was sound.
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In relation to the Queensland government proposal,a Labor spokesman said the federal government negotiated with the company and signed off on the price paid for the water,and the deal was"their responsibility".
Labor has not ruled out holding a royal commission into the basin plan if it wins office. Mr Joyce said he “wouldn’t give a toss” about appearing before such an inquiry because he had not committed a wrong and had simply followed Labor’s “precedent”.
Labor environment spokesman Tony Burke on Monday questioned why the government bought the water from a foreign-based multinational rather than local farmers. He said the Coaliton had questions to answer over the deal.
Critics say the government paid too much for the water and that it will not produce environmental gains.
The department issued a statement on Friday defending the buyback,including the due diligence it carried out. The government says the deal was transparent and documents relating to the purchase have previously been released to the Senate.
However Mr Burke on Monday said the documents were heavily redacted and should be released in full.
In a letter to secretary Daryl Quinlivan,Mr Burke wrote that"given that the department has chosen to insert itself into the public debate in this way,it is not consistent[with] the operation of the public service to provide reference to those documents to make a case in order to defend the minister without then also making those documents public". The department declined to comment on the request.
Asked on Tuesday why he did not release the unredacted documents if he had"nothing to hide",Mr Morrison said the process was overseen by the Auditor-General and negotiations conducted"at arms length".