Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

Well, my colleague says maybe $4 billion. Other estimates range from $5 billion to as much as $20 billion. A 2022 statutory review found it could cost $11 billion to meet the targets. Let's put this in perspective: amidst a cost-of-living crisis when Australians can well remember the brief vegetable price bubble during COVID-19, Labor's focus is not on the cost of living. Labor's focus is squarely on making good on the promise it made to voters in the Adelaide suburban seat of Boothby—and my colleague the member for Boothby is across the chamber—in early 2022, so it wouldn't swing back to the Liberals. That's where this 450 gigalitre pledge was made pre-election, not on the side of the Murray or the Darling rivers, not in Mildura, but in Adelaide with then opposition leader Mr Albanese beside the candidate for Boothby, who's in the chamber, former water minister Penny Wong and the newly minted Labor Premier Malinauskas.

Back in our regional communities like mine, in the electorate of Mallee, previous buyback programs left irrigation districts as a patchwork quilt, as I said earlier. The coalition's focus in government was more on water-efficient infrastructure because this meant irrigated agriculture and horticulture could continue. What a great idea! Our irrigators have become increasingly efficient, as I have noted from the previous speaker, and cropping techniques are getting the best value for the water supplied. But Minister Plibersek's patience has run out because South Australian Labor wants 450 gigalitres.

I have to say that it was astonishing to me that the minister made this announcement on the banks of the Torrens River in Adelaide—amazing!—not in my electorate of Mallee, not on the edge of the Murray, not at Barmah Choke, where there are so many issues. She stood in Adelaide, where her votes are, where Labor's votes are. For anyone to think this is not simply a political move, they haven't got a clue. This is absolutely political, and I'm calling the minister out on it.

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