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

No, we did not, Minister Rishworth. We worked so hard, with states, to make sure that water recovery was there. We made sure that we put the infrastructure in place. As the infrastructure minister and Deputy Prime Minister, I gained an extra $3½ billion for the National Water Infrastructure Development Fund. Tasmania—the Liberal state of Tasmania—came to the table and built Scottsdale dam. And I have to say that Minister Bailey was interested in what we were doing in Queensland. I'm only sorry that we weren't able to progress that. Certainly the Nationals in New South Wales had ideas too: to lift the wall at Wyangala Dam and Dungowan Dam—and I know how much that means to the member for New England. Victoria? Well, they just said, 'Climate change will be such that we don't want to build any more water infrastructure, because we're not going to need it anyway'—a ridiculous notion.

Then, of course, we've got the newly minted New South Wales Labor Minister for Water, Rose Jackson, saying, 'We're not going to increase Wyangala Dam wall,' and, despite the floods which have beset the township of Forbes half a dozen times in the last dozen years, 'We're not going to build any flood mitigation for them; we'll just build better roads so they can escape more quickly.' I mean, have you ever? Anybody who's driving their truck along the Newell Highway at the moment, remember that when you vote next. Remember that when you're driving along the Newell Highway, one of the busiest freight corridors in this country, which has been shut for weeks and months on end because of the flooded Lachlan. Remember that Rose Jackson, the water minister in New South Wales, said that. Quite frankly, she wouldn't know what she's talking about when it comes to protecting regional communities.

Then we have Minister Burke, who last week in question time maligned the National Farmers Federation, when he said:

As an organisation, they often provide very good advice on policy, but they've never been that good when it comes to the rights of workers, historically.

That's what he said about the NFF. Then we had the member for McEwen, who yelled out across the chamber on 5 September when the member for Dawson was on his feet, declaring that the backpackers were 'scab labourers'. I'm, quite frankly, sick of how the government, its members and its ministers treat people in regional Australia who grow food, who grow fibre, who boost exports and who make sure that we are fed three times a day, every day. This stuff's important. Water is vital.

I have to admit that I did cross the floor and move the disallowance motion on the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

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