Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, there are not many things that I congratulate the opposition on, but on your election to Deputy President I do congratulate them. I know that you will serve the Senate very well. Let me say that I have sat here and listened to tripe coming from South Australian opposition senators, bearing in mind that a couple of them have only been here in the Senate in the last couple of years. For them to sit there and lecture us on this side about the situation of the Murray-Darling Basin after 11½ long years—I did not think I would have to use that line again—because, in what I think were Senator Fisher’s words, we are not fast enough, not strong enough—I say, through you, Mr Deputy President, fair go, Senator Fisher! We have been in power on this side for nine months.

Through you, Mr Deputy President, we are unlike your side over there, who sat on your collective bums for 11½ years and never realised that there was a problem with water in the southern half of Australia—for 11½ years. There was not a word until, 12 months out from the possibility of a federal election, the previous Prime Minister, Mr Howard, decided that there was a problem in the Murray-Darling Basin.