Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Minister, isn’t it the case that, while climate change is having a big impact around the world, Australia is particularly vulnerable? Hasn’t it been projected that river flow in the Murray-Darling Basin may decline by 10 to 25 per cent by 2050 and that by 2100, without global mitigation of atmospheric carbon, the value of production from irrigated agriculture in the basin may decline by as much as 97 per cent? Isn’t it also the case that the most recent drought update from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority showed how badly we are really tracking, with May inflows into the River Murray the third lowest on record, at only 90 billion litres, well below the long-term May average of 390 billion litres? Doesn’t it say that the Murray-Darling Basin has experienced its ninth consecutive autumn with below average rainfall?