Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

But it is not a regime that is consistent with what we have negotiated with the states. I want to also raise a practical issue. I think all of us who are close to the issue of water management in the basin have a sense that much should have been done before but, in terms of the practicalities of this, the government is focused on getting the authority up and running, on resourcing that authority adequately and on ensuring that we achieve a Basin Plan in early 2011, as I said in my second reading speech. That is a very substantial task to put in place with the relevant community consultation that is required under the legislation. Also, it is already a substantial task to, as a matter of policy, take into account a whole range of scientific issues which have previously not formed the basis of management decisions, as Senator Xenophon and others well know. To load on top of that an additional interim plan is, in our view, unmanageable.

Question negatived.