Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water (Senator Wong) to a question without notice asked by Senator Ferguson today, relating to the South Australian election.

Rudd Labor backed Rann Labor in preferencing the climate sceptics in the South Australian election: this from Rudd Labor and this from the Rann Labor Party, parties which parade as environmental evangelists. Now, Rann Labor is leading the charge in coming clean. They appear to be environmental evangelists. However, in reality they are environmental change sceptics. These guys are the carbon cheer squad of Australia. Rann Labor is preferencing them in the South Australian election and Rudd Labor is backing that preferencing. And why not do so when the Australian public has learnt to be sceptical of Rudd Labor and sceptical of Rann Labor when they say they will deliver on the environment? The environmental evangelists are in reality the climate sceptics and backing the carbon cheer squad. Why wouldn’t the Australian electorate expect this from Rann Labor and Rudd Labor when on water, nationally and in South Australia, Rudd Labor and Rann Labor have failed to deliver for the environment, let alone for man. Why wouldn’t the Australian public be sceptical about Rudd Labor’s and Rann Labor’s environmental credentials when both Rann Labor and Rudd Labor have failed to deliver on the environment, and Rudd Labor fails to deliver on the environment in respect of this supposedly successful yet suspended Home Insulation Program?

Let us start with water—the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 issue in South Australia, my home state. The environmental evangelists in Rudd Labor and Rann Labor would have the Australian electorate believe that there is a national agreement to look after the environment and the River Murray. What a mockery is that agreement! How can there be a national agreement when states have the veto? How can there be a national agreement when Rudd Labor and Rann Labor allow Brumby Labor to walk away with the Sugarloaf Pipeline; to put Melbourne on the teat—that is effectively the Murray—when Melbourne at that time was not even on the teat? How can there be a national agreement to manage the Murray and deliver for the environment when that happens? How can there be a truly national agreement to deliver for the Murray, to deliver for the environment, when what Rann Labor does—and all that Rann Labor does—is run a charade of a High Court challenge against Victoria’s trading cap on water from the Murray? That is a really genuine, working national agreement, ain’t it?

No, the Australian people are sceptical of the environmental credentials—so called—of both Rudd Labor and Rann Labor. How can there be environmental credentials from Rudd Labor when it promised to look after the infrastructure at the Menindie Lakes and to look after the environment? By looking after the infrastructure you stop some of the most inappropriate evaporation of water that is occurring in storage places across the country. Not a sod has been turned, as Senator Birmingham pointed out yesterday, on that election promise. How can there be environmental credentials of Rann Labor when Rann Labor has failed to take any of the first real steps to weaning Adelaide off the Murray? It is a city that is not even on the Murray yet it continues to be on the teat that is the Murray River.

How can there be a genuine national agreement when South Australia continues to have to beg other states for any benefits from what has effectively been the greatest wet in the north for more than 30 years? Mike Rann would have us believe that 400 billion litres—swimming pools—is going to come to South Australia. Well, big whoop, mate. Big whoop Mike! Is that a Rann-made consequence? You have to be kidding. It ain’t man-made; it is mother-nature made. There is so much water coming down from the north. It was going to happen anyway. It was going to happen without Mike, and it should happen without Mike come the election in South Australia this weekend. Mother nature knows what happens when you let the bottom silt up: the mouth of the Murray— (Time expired)