Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The member for McEwen—who is now having her shadow minister chime in, a shadow minister who was a member of a government that never bought a drop of water back—would be aware that this government has taken a series of actions to deal with the water crisis. Amongst them we have entered negotiations with states and territories. We have moved decisively on federal actions in relation to the Murray-Darling. We have commenced buybacks of water entitlements, something that never happened over 12 years of the government of which the member for McEwen was a part. There is a difficult set of problems and we have never said to the Australian people that these were going to be resolved overnight. We have had a longstanding drought and we face the circumstances of climate change. These are difficult issues which take concerted action. But in the 12 months of this government we have made more of a start than the government of which she was a member ever made.

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