Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Murray-Darling Basin continues to create anxiety and angst across the northern Victorian and southern New South Wales regions. Whilst we have made some progress over recent months—we have allocated over $25 million to ensure the northern basin is properly metered and we have been successful in splitting the Murray-Darling Basin Authority as we search for a government authority who should be, in the words of Mick Keelty, 'a single source of truth'—it is shameful that they cannot be trusted to tell the truth in the way that they should.

We still have some serious challenges ahead of us. The federal coalition government has made it clear that no more water can leave agriculture. As we look to ensure that the spirit of the agreement is honoured we also need to ensure that we cast no more pain and damage on our farmers and their associated supply chain businesses. That is why we clearly state that 450 gigalitres of up water cannot be delivered.

But we can still deliver the environmental outcomes that have been identified. We need to use engineering and civil construction to deliver these environmental objectives. A great example of this is the work to bring the Coorong from its current hypersalinity to a level of salinity that's closer to seawater. By using a range of equivalency measures we believe that we can complete the environmental objectives and outcomes without taking any more water out of agriculture. Nobody wants to see more water leaving agriculture. I commend the minister for pushing these equivalency measures.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for members' statements has concluded.