Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

The budget—which is a plan for the future, a blueprint, a vision for what we laid out for the future for COVID recovery—included $2 billion for water infrastructure on top of the $1½ billion that we've got for the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund. We are getting on with the job of building water infrastructure. We're working with state governments. I look forward to working with Deb Frecklington, the Liberal National Party state government in Queensland after Saturday, to build water infrastructure in North Queensland. Hells Gates, Big Rocks Weir, Rookwood Weir—let's get on with that. We've put $176.1 million on the table. What we've seen, unfortunately, is procrastination and stalling by the state Labor government in Queensland. We'll get on and we'll build it. We want willing partners—Hughenden, Macalister. We go further south. We've got Stanthorpe and Emu Swamp. I know how important that is for water security and for the irrigators at Emu Swamp. In fact, they've put up millions of dollars of their own money towards that project. I know how important building dams and building pipelines is. There's Mitiamo. We go to Scottsdale in north-east Tasmania. We are getting on with the job. I can hear the member for Watson shouting out. He wanted to take water away from our irrigators. He wanted to take water away from the Murray—

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