Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. With the resignation of the chair of the authority, resignations of board members of the authority and the revelations the minister just mentioned from estimates last week that Minister Burke sought to influence in some way the recommendations of the authority, how can anyone accept the Prime Minister’s promise from the election campaign that the authority is independent from government and that it is appropriate being independent from government? Isn’t this just another clear-cut broken election promise from the Gillard government?