John Cobb (Calare, National Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Food Security) Share this | Hansard source

Okay. The word is that the delegation of Senator Wong to the second spot has been reversed. Somebody stepped down, which would be a big thing to do, and it was before they had developed a watering plan which showed how outcomes could be achieved.

The reality is the Labor and the Greens have no skin in the game when it comes to seats in the basin and will never have any understanding of the basin communities. And it would seem they have never cared by the way they have processed this from day one. I repeat that: the problem here is that the Labor Party have no skin in the game when it comes to the Murray-Darling Basin, which is about half of one electorate. I support this mechanism but not without ministerial or parliamentary oversight so that the water required is lowered to achieve environmental outcomes, not to allow the government to expand its environmental imprint at the expense of basin communities. So I am unable to support this bill in its current form.

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