Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Xenophon for the courtesy. Minister Burke is aware of these points and saw the powerful information presented by David Peake on the lawns in front of Parliament House today.

Pressure on the Murray-Darling Basin for more than a century is why we now face tough decisions about how we manage our most precious water resource in the future. The Murray-Darling Basin has been dealt with as a tug-of-war between the states for more than a century. What you have described is one of the ways in which this tug-of-war has worked to the disadvantage of South Australia. By moving to a national plan for the Murray-Darling Basin, this year we can finally end the tug-of-war between the states that has always resulted in less water for South Australia.