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

My simple point was that the former government was a government that acted in a series of areas but not in relation to this one in any effective way. Can I say to the member for Mayo that I have reasonable eyesight, assisted as I am, but clearly I cannot read across the chamber a letter he holds up. I am very happy, should he choose to have the letter brought round, to ensure that it is responded to and responded to promptly, but I cannot respond to it in detail having it held up as far away from me as that letter was.

What I can say to the member for Mayo is that the government understands that right across the Murray-Darling Basin irrigators and the environment are suffering as a result of very extended drought. These statistics are probably very familiar to the member for Mayo but, for members of the House, we have now had 38 consecutive months of below average monthly inflows into the River Murray. Over the last 10 years, inflows into five of the eight catchments in the southern Murray-Darling Basin have been around or worse than the CSIRO’s worst case projections for 2030. As we all know, water entitlements issued to the river under the Living Murray initiative—

See this speech in context