Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why did the Prime Minister tell the people of New South Wales on Sunday that the Commonwealth would fund three water infrastructure projects on a fifty-fifty basis when half of the Commonwealth contribution is in the form of loans, making the Commonwealth funding of the projects just 25 per cent?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm glad the member opposite can read a press release, because we're very transparent about the arrangements we put in place for these major projects. We're getting on and doing those projects, and I absolutely welcome the support of the New South Wales government. These projects are projects that, frankly, should be fully funded by state governments, but our Commonwealth government is going to turn up and support state governments that want to build dams.

Our support for this project is 50 per cent of the funding. Half of that is coming from concessional finance and half of that is coming from direct grant support. That's what we announced on Sunday, and that's what was warmly received by the New South Wales state government. Whether it's the shire council up there in the member for New England's electorate or elsewhere across New South Wales, we're getting on and we're building dams. We're building infrastructure. We have $1½ billion now in 21 water infrastructure projects all around the country, whether it's Scottsdale down in Tasmania, out at Dungowan or up in Queensland, where we'd like to build a lot more dams. We want to build the Emu Swamp dam.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I get the interjections from those opposite, so I encourage them to ring the Premier of Queensland, who is the only person standing in the way of the Emu Swamp dam being built and the Rookwood Weir being built to the full capacity that we pledged to build it to. We want to get on and build this dam infrastructure, this water infrastructure, the pipelines—the plumbing of the nation, which is going to support our agricultural industries not just today but into the future. On this side of the House, we want to build dams; we want to build lots of dams. On that side of the House, they don't want to build any dams. How do we know that? Because their Labor cousins in the states continue to say no each and every time.