Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

The member from Adelaide over here might like to reflect on this and she might learn a little about what is actually happening in regional Australia and in the Murray-Darling system. Last week in here we spoke on a bill that required another $650 million to cover the shortfalls in the government’s misjudged, misguided and mismanaged water buybacks.

This government has no commitment to improving the efficiency of water delivery and has no commitment to saving. Indeed, some of the foolish decisions made by this government are breathtaking in their stupidity. There is no greater example of this than the purchase of Toorale Station at Bourke—one of the landmark agricultural properties in western New South Wales, a producer of food and fibre not only for the citizens of Australia but for people all around the world, an employer of some 100 people, and the major taxpayer and ratepayer in the Bourke shire. This property was purchased without a word of consultation, and it was purchased because of a small amount of water. I would like to ask some of the members from further down the stream about that, and I will make an offer to my good colleague from Adelaide here. I will supply her with a digital camera. She can go out and stand on the banks of the Murray River. If she takes a photo when that water from Toorale Station reaches the Murray, I will come in here and apologise. But it is not going to happen. That water may, at best, make it to Menindee, where it will evaporate. A couple of penguins might get a couple of days benefit from it, but that is it.

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