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

I certainly will, Mr Deputy President. Let me talk about a certain reference to the committee that I chair, the Senate Standing Committee on Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport. I am joined on that committee by the good senator Senator O’Brien. There is a reference to that committee for which we have already advertised for submissions and for which we are going to be paying visits to Adelaide and Melbourne. Unlike senators opposite, we want to hear about it. We want to know what the problems are down there. We want to hear from the communities, the irrigators, the growers and all those involved in the Murray-Darling Basin. We want to hear from them. We do not need our Prime Minister, all of a sudden, 12 months out from an election, to think: ‘Oh my goodness, how can I deflect all these issues around Work Choices and the issue of the sale of Telstra? Let’s throw up the Murray-Darling Basin. Let’s recognise now that there is a problem.’

To those good people who rely on the Murray-Darling and all the tributaries and the rivers down there, whether they be through their communities or farming or whatever—