Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Anyone around the country will tell you that we have a real problem in terms of management of the nation’s water resources. Anyone will also tell you that in the 12 months or 14 months which elapsed between when the previous Prime Minister stood at this dispatch box and announced his national plan to take over the Murray-Darling nothing happened. That integrated body for the management of Australia’s greatest inland water system did not come to fruition. We had one series of negotiations after another and as a consequence of that by the time we came to the election there was no body. It took this government—in fact, at its second meeting of COAG—to strike a deal with the states to bring about a single authority for the proper national management of this nation’s inland water system. This is a reform which stared the nation in the face for the better part of a decade. Of course, at one year to midnight the then government decided they needed to do something about it; they did not bring it off and, after three to four months in office, we actually achieved that outcome.

Managing effectively the nation’s water resources is going to be difficult but buying back water entitlements is part and parcel of the process of responsible management of the inland water system as well as ensuring that it is on the basis of providing proper compensation for those who wish to sell those entitlements. We believe that this is an essential part of properly dealing with our national water crisis both rural and urban. Secondly, the long-term manner in which you deal with the water crisis for the nation must also embrace a proper response to climate change—another area of long-term systemic neglect on the part of those opposite.

Therefore, what I would say to those opposite—the Liberal Party—is: if there was a serious commitment at all on the part of those opposite to deal with the huge challenges of water scarcity in Australia, where did we see the evidence of this in the 12 years in which they were in office? We saw nothing. What we have done within four to five months of taking office is create a national mechanism to preside over the better management of our inland water system, and we intend to get on with the business of doing it.

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