Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

you would have to ask him, Senator Collins—this legislation, because it is not right, it is not fair, it is not on and it should not be going forward.

One of the other issues that is of particular concern to me and my Nationals colleagues is the fact that there have been no hydrological studies done on the impact on the water system and on the impact of interception. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that if you go out and plant a stack of trees they are going to have an impact on that water system. As my colleague Senator Milne said earlier, they are going to be taking water without paying.

We saw just last week in this chamber hours and hours and hours of debate around the Murray-Darling Basin system and what we should be doing to protect it to ensure that it is sustainable in the future. Yet this particular piece of legislation allows goodness knows how many acres of land to be planted with trees. We have no idea, because there have been no studies done; there has been absolutely nothing—