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

You can say it is the same speech; the message is the same. You change your message depending on where you are delivering it. The opposition cannot say they want to save the rivers but then say they do not want to send any water down them. They cannot have it both ways. When they are upstream in Victoria, they tell their constituents that the lakes cannot and should not be saved and that the government should stop purchasing water entitlements. Those opposite are all over the place on the issue of water.

The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Turnbull, said:

We’ve made it absolutely crystal clear that our plan is based on no acquisitions of water being other than from willing sellers.

The former Leader of the Opposition, Dr Nelson, when asked on Adelaide radio if he would buy back licences compulsorily, replied with:

Well I think that’s the kind of thing that needs to be considered in different parts of the basin …

It was then reported that the Victorian Nationals leader, Peter Ryan, communicated his concern over the comment to Warren Truss, who noted that Dr Nelson was speaking to a South Australian audience about the lower reaches of the Murray and ‘probably got caught up in the moment’. Perhaps, Senator Fisher, he got caught up in the fact that he was speaking to a South Australian audience. So, as I have already said, the coalition changes their position based on where they find themselves. That is not leadership. For 11½ years in government, the coalition lacked leadership when it came to our environment, particularly in addressing water needs and the health of our river systems.

We know there are no easy options. We know that hard choices have to be made. The Rudd government is the first federal government to purchase water entitlements. The opposition failed to deliver a single drop of water over their 12 years in government, they refused to support urban water infrastructure and now they want to spoil the government’s effort to improve the health of the rivers. The government is investing $3.1 billion in purchasing water from willing sellers so that water can be returned to the rivers to help improve their health. Let us be clear: we are not creating a false impression that any single intervention, any one act, will fix all of the problems of the Murray-Darling Basin or, for that matter, the Lower Lakes. There must be a concerted effort across the basin in purchasing water from those willing to sell and in improving infrastructure efficiency.

The opposition seems to be implying that somehow it was unfair for the government to be part of the purchase of Toorale Station. What they fail to say, though, is that Toorale Station was put up for sale. They wanted to sell and we wanted to buy. Let me also make it clear that the National Reserve System values of Toorale were assessed by— (Time expired)