House debates

Thursday, 3 December 2015

Questions without Notice

Water

2:16 pm

Photo of Malcolm TurnbullMalcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I caught the last part of the honourable member's question, about cattle farmers upstream and foreign purchasers of water downstream. It reminds me of the great wisdom of Mark Twain, who said: 'Whiskey is for drinking and water is for fighting over.' As a former minister for water resources, I have found, very often, that there are very difficult to reconcile arguments between users upstream and users downstream. There clearly is more concern from downstream users about diversions upstream, so I am surprised that somebody upstream on a river would be disadvantaged by somebody downstream. Normally, it is the other way around—anyway, maybe water flows uphill up there.

Ms Claydon interjecting

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