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

Having indicated our support here—and, of course, perhaps we will return to these when we return to Senator Xenophon's deferred amendments—I want to try to start working through some of the earlier issues in the draft regulations that the government has tabled. I am wondering if the minister would be so kind as to advise the chamber on what basis the figure of 600 millimetres of long-term average annual rainfall, which is specified in the regulations, was set and what evidence or parties were consulted in relation to that as a minimum benchmark, why that benchmark applies, what advice was taken as to whether that is an appropriate benchmark across all regional areas of Australia and whether there may be some merit in different benchmarks for different geographic localities.