James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Two weeks ago we had the devastating news that the government are abandoning their commitment to implement the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full and on time, on time being by 30 June 2024. The minister has now said that that date will not be met, and we are none the wiser as to what, if any, commitment is going to be made about when the government believe they will be able to achieve it. But that in many ways is irrelevant, because it is absolutely unacceptable to abandon delivering this plan in full and on time by 30 June 2024.

The now Prime Minister, the then opposition leader, came to South Australia during the election campaign 15 months ago and made a very solemn commitment to the people of South Australia that an Albanese government would deliver the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full and on time. Fifteen months later, that covenant with the people of South Australia has been broken.

After the election, when the Prime Minister was announcing his new cabinet, there was an interesting decision that he made to move the now Minister for the Environment and Water from the portfolio she had held in opposition, that being education, across to environment. He made this comment:

My view is that Tanya will be outstanding in that area, but also particularly in the area of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, as well; it's very important that that actually gets delivered. Tanya is someone who can get things done.

What we know now, 15 months later, is that the minister is someone that can't get things done. The Prime Minister might have known that all too well when he appointed her to that portfolio, given our understanding of the tension between the two. Nonetheless, the people of South Australia have been misled.

It was the Howard government that developed the Water Act, a bipartisan initiative coming out of the millennium drought, and that was passed in 2007. It was the then Gillard government that developed the plan that that act required. All constituent governments within the basin signed up to the plan on the basis that there were 2,750 gigalitres within the plan. South Australia signed up on the basis that there would be an additional 450 gigalitres, taking the plan to 3,200 gigalitres, which would be delivered by 30 June 2024.

Nothing has changed since the now Prime Minister promised he would honour that. Nothing has changed since then. There is no new fact or piece of information that could possibly be used to explain this, other than that he never intended to keep that promise in the first place.

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