Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Siewert for injecting a bit of reason into this debate after the 15-minute outburst from Senator Wong. It was quite an extraordinary decision by Senator Wong to come in here and defend the inaction of the government, because earlier this week, when we attempted to discuss this in taking note of answers, the government could not put up a South Australian to do it; they trotted out a Western Australian and someone from the ACT on the government side to talk about the crisis facing the Lower Lakes.

My motivation in proposing this matter of public importance is simply to identify and highlight the inaction from this government in the crisis that is facing the Lower Lakes and their communities. We are facing two crises here. One of them is simply an environmental disaster in the making. We accept that there are many challenges in solving this, but the one particular challenge, the crisis that the government could do something about and has failed to do anything about, is to offer relief to the human component of this suffering—the communities, the farmers and those who depend upon the Lower Lakes for their livelihoods—rather than simply to the environmental component.

Whilst Senator Wong and the government say that they cannot do anything about supplying more water, they can do a whole lot more to ease the burden on these communities. Even though the coalition are not in government, we still want to see people do better. What we have asked the government to do is to support a $50 million injection of funds to offer immediate relief to the communities, and the government is silent on it. It says that it does not accept that any relief is needed, despite the rhetoric, the spin and the insubstantial statements that Mr Rudd and his ministers have made.

Mr Rudd was elected in November of last year. In July of this year he made his first visit to the area that is facing the most pressing environmental issue in this country. He said, ‘It will be tough, it will be difficult, it will be expensive, but we intend to take on this challenge.’ They were his words, yet in mid-August—just last month—he said, ‘What we’ve done is to take every possible measure available to us in the last six months to try to turn this disaster around and it is a real problem.’ He has not turned around the disaster. He has not taken the measures and the steps that are necessary to ease the burden on people who have to truck in their own drinking water, who have to reduce their herd of dairy cattle from 800 to 250 and who struggle to send their kids to school and to put food on the table.

This is the human impact, Senator Wong. It is the human impact that your government is absolutely ignoring and you should be very ashamed. There is an absolute dire need for urgent government assistance. If the government are prepared to ignore the people of the Lower Lakes and the good people of South Australia, let me tell you that the opposition, the coalition, are not prepared to do it. We will continue to raise this issue. We will continue to advocate for relief for the people who are doing it really tough, no matter how much Senator Wong and all the expert reports that she is relying on say that nothing more can be done. You cannot give up. You cannot wash your hands of these sorts of things.

Minister Wong has shown absolutely no interest in relieving the immediate plight that is facing so many South Australian communities. It is embarrassing. This is what is written in the papers. This is what I am reading every day. These are commentators, these are journalists and these are people who actually are interested in these communities. These are the local papers. They are throwing their hands up and going: ‘What do we have to do? How much more do we have to struggle in order to get some relief and some compassion from what is a very heartless government?’

In the context of what governments do, if there is a disaster in another country we step in and help out straightaway. But when the biggest environmental disaster, the catastrophe, that is facing the communities of the Lower Lakes happens in our very own backyard this government does nothing about it. As a South Australian senator I say to Senator Wong: stand up for South Australia. Do not fall into the ‘let’s support Queensland’ routine which is coming out of Mr Rudd’s office, with the Treasurer and all the powerbrokers up there. Fight for South Australia. I urge every South Australian senator to do the same thing. It is absolutely embarrassing that we have a cabinet minister who is prepared to let communities suffer. (Time expired)