Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Hansard source

Can I come back to the issue of flights later in the discussion. I will get some further information on flights, and I will have a note to be able to give you some more detail on that.

On the issues of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan which have been asked about, I thank the member for those. He had a passionate interest long before he entered the federal parliament that he then continued to pursue in his time as a federal member in making sure that there is a sustainable future for the Murray-Darling Basin and, in particular, a sustainable future for the South Australian end of the Murray-Darling Basin.

I am asked to provide an update on implementation. The final form of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which I am pleased to say received the bipartisan support of the House, is one where we went down what is organisationally a more difficult path. Administratively, it is much simpler if you simply go down a water-purchasing path. Deciding to go down an infrastructure path means that there is a lot more work in program design and making sure that we still deliver and go through the due diligence to ensure that we deliver the actual environmental outcomes and that we do not end up with a situation where infrastructure works are carried out in the name of environmental outcomes and the money goes through but the environmental outcome is not itself delivered. That means that my department has been involved in extensive due diligence conversations and work for a number of projects from the different states. Those projects, I should stress, need to come together, and the states have the perfect incentive to make sure—

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