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

The best way to ensure the long-term health is to implement the plan the government is implementing. It is to take action now. The government has taken over basin-wide planning. That plan will reduce the amount of water that can be taken from the rivers. In contrast, what we now know is the opposition will continue to give priority to irrigators upstream rather than focus on the overall health of the basin.

The reality is the South Australian Liberals talk tough in South Australia. What they should be telling the South Australian people is the truth: the federal opposition’s policy is to wind back reform in the Murray-Darling Basin. They should fess up to the fact that the Country Liberal members and the National Party will have to sign off on any referendum that Mr Abbott puts forward. They have made it clear that they will only sign off on it if it does not do the right thing by South Australia.