Brendan Nelson (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to comments made this morning by the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Minister Penny Wong, who said in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin, the lower lakes and Coorong:

We are going to have to take a decision and at the moment we are in a holding pattern.

Prime Minister, isn’t this a metaphor for the entire government? When will the government get out of its holding pattern?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In answer to the honourable member’s question I would say two things. Which government committed funding and has actually used that funding to buy back water entitlements for the Murray-Darling? The Australian Labor government. Which government in its 12 years in office refused to spend a single dollar to buy back a single gigalitre of water entitlement? The Australian Liberal government. There is a classic contrast here between action in nine months and inaction over 12 years.

But I go back to my second point. You cannot deal effectively with the challenge of the Murray-Darling if underpinning your entire approach is the deeply ingrained climate change scepticism of the Leader of the Opposition. When I read the transcript—because I did not watch it—of the Leader of the Opposition’s performance on Lateline the night before last, where in response to questioning he disputed absolutely and uncategorically any relationship between the problems of water in the Murray-Darling system and climate change, the conclusion that we had to reach is that those opposite, even having been through the experience of the last election, just do not get it on climate change.

I said to the Leader of the Opposition yesterday that there are at least three sets of scientific reports—from the Bureau of Meteorology, from the IPCC and from the CSIRO—that go through the linkage between climate change and water inflow into the Murray-Darling system. Presumably, the Leader of the Opposition personally knows better than any of those individual institutions. Well, we on this side of the House have a different view: you accept the science and you work within the science. That is the first thing. The second thing is: when it comes to an overallocated system, which is the Murray-Darling system, rather than just dreaming about it, what you do is you act and actually spend money to buy back entitlements, which is what we have done more of in nine months than those opposite did in 12 years. Thirdly, what you do is also bring about practical assistance measures to assist those in the lower lakes area. In nine months, practical action from this government; in 12 years, a litany of inaction by those opposite. The contrast is clear.