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

I was saying that the government recognise that there is a lot more to do in the Murray-Darling Basin. We are battling, all of us—and by that I mean the communities of the basin—the effects of climate change, the mismanagement that has occurred in the past over allocation as well as the current drought. We recognise that communities in the basin are facing very difficult times indeed, and we recognise the scale of this challenge. One of the things that I have often said as minister is that we need to do things in the short and medium term as well as the long term. The things for the short term and medium term are the policies of the government—the purchase of water and the investment in infrastructure in order to ensure that we can do more with less, to ensure that we are more efficient and to ensure that we maintain and continue to grow viable productive irrigation industries, because, of course, that is the economic base that is so important to basin communities. We need to purchase water to return water to the river to deal with a very significant environmental problem that occurs up and down the river, but we also need, in the longer term, to change the architecture of the management of the basin.

I am very pleased tonight that the opposition are not insisting on their amendments and will support the bill. We do believe this is a very significant step forward because it will enable, for the first time, this basin to be managed on a whole-of-basin approach. That is a very significant thing, particularly if you consider when the River Murray agreement was in place and what has not occurred between 1914 and now. I thank senators for their contributions to the debate.

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Wong’s) be agreed to.