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

The biggest threat to the implementation of reforms in the Murray-Darling Basin appears to Mr Springborg, who in the Queensland election has essentially put at risk the reforms and the agreement which was put in place by this government with the agreement of all state premiers. As a senator from South Australia, which is a state that has a strong interest in a whole-of-basin approach, I suggest to Senator Birmingham that perhaps he should get on the phone to Mr Springborg and tell him this is not an issue on which he should play petty politics. This is an issue where the national interest requires that the states work together and we look to a whole-of-basin approach for the first time in Australia’s history. That is the reality. The leader who has been the only one to suggest—