The Adelaide-based Centre Alliance party says it will introduce legislation in the next session of parliament to halt the export of Australian cotton.

Centre Alliance environment spokesman Senator Rex Patrick said the the bill would seek to amend the Export Control Act 1982 to prohibit the export of cotton grown in Australia. 

“Exporting cotton is like exporting water,” Senator Patrick said. 

“We are quite literally sucking the life blood out of the Murray-Darling river system at the expense of downstream food producers, the towns and cities dependent on our rivers for water supply, and the overall environmental health of the river system all the way to the Coorong lagoon in South Australia.

“We live on the driest inhabited continent on the planet yet are using our precious national water resources to produce a water intensive crop which we then export overseas so that foreign entities can profit making textiles and clothing.” 

Senator Patrick failed to mention that based on hectares, more than 50 per cent of this year’s cotton crop is either dryland cotton or is being grown outside the Murray-Darling Basin.

The fringe Centre Alliance party has three members: two in the Senate and one in the House of Representatives. The party is an incarnation of the Nick Xenophon Team party.

Cotton Australia chief executive officer Adam Kay said the cotton industry would not be dictated to by point-scoring politicians disguising their vendetta as being in the national interest. 

“Once again we are seeing some politicians, mainly those from South Australia where no cotton is grown, kick our hardworking growers in an attempt to score easy political points,” Mr Kay said. 

“These farmers are enduring one of the toughest droughts in our nation’s history and do not deserve to be targeted so unfairly. It must stop.”

Mr Kay said the “ridiculous claim” ignored the fact that most agricultural exports in Australia used water in some way.

“To ban the export of cotton based on its water use would set a dangerous precedent for the fate of other agricultural industries that use water,” he said.

“This idea that if the cotton industry was restricted, or banned, more water will be saved for the environment is ludicrous and represents a lack of understanding of water licensing.

“Banning cotton would not see any extra water returned to the environment, as the water has been allocated to the irrigator’s licence. Cotton is the crop of choice as it gives growers the best return per megalitre of water.

“Other summer crops, like corn and soybeans, use similar amounts of water per hectare. Cotton is an annual crop that is only grown when sufficient water is available. If cotton was to be banned in Australia, farmers would use their water to grow the next most profitable crop.”

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said the government was not in the business of telling farm businesses what decisions to make.

“We’re not Russia,” he said.

“This idea might mean the media gets a headline but it won’t help the basin, the fish or the farmers one bit.

“Farmers have bought a certain amount of water and in a year of reasonable rainfall, they still get to use that water to grow something, whether it’s rice or crops or cattle. 

“If farmer Joe has 100 megalitres he normally uses to grow cotton and you make cotton unviable, he just uses that water to grow a different crop. 

“Further, farmers only get to use their water in years of good rainfall.” 

“Very little cotton was grown this year. Australia’s largest grower, Cubbie, grew only about 1 per cent of its usual crop.”

This story first appeared in the Queensland Country Life.