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

The Leader of the Opposition says that the government has done nothing. The Leader of the Opposition therefore says that the fact that we have, for the first time in the history of the Murray-Darling Basin, spent $50 million on purchasing back 38 gigalitres of water entitlements—when those opposite had 12 years to buy back one gigalitre—is doing nothing. We have done that in nine months. In 12 years they bought back zero. Secondly, we have allocated, at the Adelaide cabinet meeting, a further half-billion dollars to accelerate the purchase back of water entitlements; thirdly, we have allocated $5.8 billion to improving irrigation infrastructure; fourthly, a new and independent Murray-Darling Basin authority has been established as a consequence of the intergovernmental agreement which this government brought into being—not our predecessors—which will implement a new basin plan from 2011. On top of that, we have for the first time an independently audited account of the total storage within the entire system. These are practical courses of action against a real crisis facing the Murray-Darling Basin system.

I am also asked about alternative responses to the challenges we face. The core problem we face is that those opposite still do not accept that there is any linkage at all between climate change and the impact on the Murray-Darling Basin system. How can we get to first base in reaching a conclusion on what should be done about the Murray-Darling Basin when the alternative government of Australia and, as the Leader of the Opposition often describes himself, the alternative Prime Minister of Australia say that there is no relationship at all between climate change and the current state of the Murray-Darling Basin? That is what he has said. You cannot dispute it. He was asked the other night, ‘Do you accept what’s happening to the Lower Lakes and right up the Murray is also related to climate change? And he answered, ‘No, I don’t.’ It is quite clear-cut.

They were at dinner last night with the former Prime Minister, Mr Howard. Those opposite and those on this side of the chamber may remember the answer that was given at the beginning of last year on climate change when I asked, I think, the Prime Minister at the time whether he accepted the reality of climate change and its relationship to human-induced emissions. He said that the jury was still out. Eighteen months on, that is still the state of the Liberal Party. They are climate change deniers—not in their heart of hearts but in the words put forth this week by the alternative Prime Minister of Australia. Can I just say to those opposite: in terms of the leaderless rabble that the Liberal Party have become, the time has come for the conspirators to come out of the shadows and bring this to a conclusion. It has gone on for too long—whether it is plan A or plan B. It is about time this was brought to a conclusion. We have here a clear statement from the climate change denier who is currently the Leader of the Opposition and the alternative Prime Minister. Our Murray-Darling Basin system is in crisis. It requires, therefore, national political action—not opportunistic, short-term political pointscoring. It is time that the climate change deniers in the Liberal Party got with the government’s program and backed a national solution to a river system in crisis.

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