Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield for the question. Members would be aware that the latest climate projections are not good for many parts of Australia. To quote from the Bureau of Meteorology:

In addition, many computer models, including the Bureau’s POAMA, remain firm in their predictions of an El Nino event in 2009. This puts the odds of an El Nino at above 50%, which is more than double the normal risk of an event. However, it’s still possible, though increasingly less likely, that the recent trends may stall without El Nino thresholds being reached.

That weather projection carries with it a problem that we have dealt with in this parliament for many years, and that is: what to do about a shortage of water—what to do to deal with the fact that El Nino brings with it extraordinary shortages of rain, often when you need it most.

There are a number of policies of the past that the government will not be considering. While we have decided to embark on the $300 million expense of improving on-farm infrastructure, we will not be providing the $5 million payment to upgrade the irrigation at Flemington Racecourse. Nor will we be adopting the policy that was used in the past of funding the Australian Rain Corporation. It takes a significant level of self-confidence when you are faced with a drought, to say, ‘Well, I’ll just tell it to rain,’ but that’s what the rainmaker sitting opposite at the table decided to do.

Against advice that the Australian Rain Corporation ‘have provided no convincing experimental data or theoretical modelling to support the proposed mode of operation of technology,’ and despite the independent review then saying that there is ‘no convincing evidence that the ATLANT technology operates as believed by its proponents’, the Leader of the Opposition chose a different path.

I have to say I think the Leader of the House and I have been unfair to the National Party. We have not given nearly enough attention to the outrageous abuse of public money by the Liberal Party and in particular, as a former minister, by the Leader of the Opposition, because what does he do when there is no legitimate data—

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