Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to address the matter of public importance currently being debated in this place. Accusations from those opposite of ‘the government’s failure to act to better collect, store, use and reuse water’ are unbelievable. For an opposition senator to put up such a motion is an embarrassment. For nearly 12 years those opposite when in government failed to prepare Australia for the tough challenges of the future. The Rudd government is not sitting back with its feet up, nor is it turning its back on a crisis, denying its existence, like those opposite did. History will record that it was those opposite, in government for 11½ years, who failed to act to better collect, store, use and reuse water. It will not reflect kindly on their failure to do so.

So now, in government for only 10 months, the Rudd government is confronting the problem of historic overallocation, compounded by more than 10 years of drought and a future where it is likely there will be less water in the Murray-Darling Basin as a result of climate change. We know we need to act now for Australia’s long-term future, for our children’s future, to protect our economic security and to assist in protecting our environment.

As I have already said in this place, we have had so many different positions from those sitting opposite. What their position is depends on which state they live in or who they are speaking to. When they are downstream in South Australia they express outrage at the state of the Lower Lakes and then call for emergency action.