Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

The Basin Plan is no longer a plan; it's a death sentence. It's a death sentence that has been delivered by this government. Do you know what really hurts me? It's not the obvious political delight that the minister and the Prime Minister have just taken in this achievement. Do you know what really hurts me? It's the faith that has been broken with the communities that I represent. They all came here. They asked nicely. They sat and explained what they do. They tried. They said to me and all of my colleagues: 'Let's try and work with this government. Let's try to make them understand.' It's their hearts that have been broken today. It's those people who get up every morning and work so hard to deliver food, to deliver fibre, to deliver regional jobs. It's people in regional communities, people in small schools, people who care deeply. It's people in a community like Griffith, which the member for Riverina knows well, who came here after the war, who dug irrigation ditches with a horse and cart and who broke their backs and dug the soil in the heat and toiled for a future for themselves, their family and their children. It's those people who have been trashed here in this parliament today by this government. It's a bitter pill to swallow.

The basin's heart has been broken by a government that has ignored communities. They haven't even bothered to visit them. We know the politics that goes on in this place. We know the glee with which the environment minister looks at all of us and laughs at us. We see it every day in question time. We know that she hasn't set one foot in the basin and hasn't demonstrated one shred of care for the communities that she's tearing apart. This is a really bad, bad day, and the smile on your face, Minister, says it all. It really does say it all. I don't care what you think of me. I don't care what you think of my colleagues. I don't care about the Prime Minister's carefully prepared speech when he comes in here. He didn't even mean it. He had no passion in his voice, because, deep down, I think someone who has been in the parliament as long as he has, as long as you have—you know exactly what you are doing, for base political gain.

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