Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Boothby for her question. I know how determined she is to see the full delivery of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. That's what we promised before the election and that's what the legislation that I introduced into this place today will do. It will deliver on the Murray-Darling Basin Plan in full. I want to thank the state and territory ministers who have come to the table and made compromises and are working with us at the Commonwealth level to deliver on the plan.

The plan was meant to be completed by June next year. Instead of being completed by June next year, we're going to be around 750 gigalitres short of the full Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Of course, initial progress was very good and basin communities stepped up. They delivered around 2,100 gigalitres of the 3,200 gigalitres that the plan requires. But, more recently, we have seen a very different picture. More than 80 per cent of the water that has been delivered towards the plan has been done while Labor is in government, with only 16 per cent done under those opposite. In fact, when I became the water minister, just two gigalitres of the 450 gigalitres of additional environmental water had been delivered. Just two gigalitres out of 450 gigalitres had been delivered.

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