Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Given the minister’s view on accountability, why is it okay to park the management of the Reserve Bank with an unaccountable body rather than with the government? What is different in this case? Also, given the issue of environmental flows, can the minister indicate to the Senate and clarify the total amount of water that the government is planning to release to the Murray-Darling Basin each year? In the government’s plan they believe their overall program ‘will generate water savings of over 3,000 gigalitres a year’, but 50 per cent of that will be shared with irrigators and 50 per cent is to address overallocation and sustaining river health. Does that mean there will only be 1,500 gigalitres returned to the basin each year? Is that adequate, given recent scientific evidence about how much is needed to be put back into the Murray-Darling Basin?