Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I like the member for Werriwa, the previous speaker, but unfortunately she, like so many of the other Labor members, will come into this place for this debate and read from the notes that they have had provided to them by Labor's dirt unit. And that is an unfortunate fact. It's almost like AI listening to the Labor members, many of whom do not have in one sense a stake in this game—and this is an important game. But, in essence, every single member in this place, and in the Senate over there, has a stake in this debate. I'm not reading from any notes because it's in here, it's in my heart. It's also in here, in my head.

Why everybody has a stake in this debate is because three times a day, every day, every member will sit down and have something to eat. And that something to eat will be provided by a farmer. That farmer will come from Griffith or Shepparton in the member for Nicholls' electorate, or Deniliquin where Senator Perrin Davey has probably forgotten more about water policy than the collective wisdom of all of those opposite will ever know. Or it will come from elsewhere, like Renmark or some of the mighty irrigation areas of South Australia. Heaven help them if they come from Victoria though, because Victoria's not part of this plan. It's not part of the Labor Party's new, 'Let's get the basin plan in, done and legislated'. Victoria doesn't want a part of it.

What we have is a policy, a piece of legislation, going to the parliament with no Victoria. A map with Victoria taken off it. And why would that be so? Well, don't ask me, I don't know the answer to it. Ask the water minister. I see the member for Hunter chortling away there—and he's right to chortle! He's right to laugh. It is laughable. It is preposterous that you've got a government wanting to implement a plan without a key state. Absolutely ridiculous.

I talked about this in the Federation Chamber the other day and referred to a book I purchased. The book was published in 1888. It's about Australian exploration, written by Ernest Favenc. I promise you it's the only part of the speech I will read. It hasn't been produced by the coalition's talking-point department, if there is such a department—I don't know; I give most of my speeches from my heart and from my head. But it states:

In many districts of the inland slope, the rivers have sandy beds, incapable of retaining the water for more than a few months; whilst running parallel with them on either side, are chains of lagoons that often run dry through the floods not being excessive enough to overflow the banks. These lagoons are, as a rule, well calculated to hold water, and could be brought under the influence of ordinary floods, instead of being, as now, dependent upon extraordinary ones; thus atoning for the insufficient retaining power of the river bed.

The present great need of Australia is the conservation of water, and the irrigation works which have been already commenced on the banks of the Murray River, coupled with the recent discoveries of an apparently unlimited artesian supply on the arid plains of Western Queensland, testify alike to the recognition of the want, and to the ease with which it may be met. One inevitable rule of settlement is that population follows water; present prospects therefore amply justify the hope that at no very distant date the one-time "central desert" of the first explorers will be the centre of attraction for the fast-growing population of the coast line; and that in the merging together of the peoples of the colonies, now separated by merely imaginary boundary lines, will be found the one great help to the fulfilment of the desire of every true Australian, a Federated Australia—a grand result of the indomitable courage, heroic self-sacrifice, and dogged perseverance of the men of all nationalities, who have established a claim to the proud title of "Australian Explorer."

They knew in 1888 what we should know now. They were doing in 1888 what we should be doing now—that is, putting infrastructure in place, building dams, helping line the channels and making sure that the insufficiencies, perhaps, of the geography are aided by human endeavour, to meet human want and human need, to make sure that our irrigation communities can be the best that they can be. That's what we did as a coalition, and it irks me no end—it angers me—when those opposite say that we did nothing in nine years.

See this speech in context