Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

But I live on the Murray. I can throw a stone from my front yard into the river, into the Murray-Darling Basin. I cannot throw it into the Murray. I would be up there with Clive Lloyd if I could throw it into the Murray. This is something we can work on together. Let us take the nexus of this issue. The WELS Scheme has worked. We are about to have a piece of legislation that will go through tonight without argument—we will work with the government. We can do that on other pieces of legislation if we just realise that between the Labor Party, the National Party and the Liberal Party we have the numbers to do good issues. If the Labor Party wants to look after the Greens then we have a complete split.

I have said openly that I am prepared to work with Minister Burke. I have shown tonight on a piece of legislation that is my shadow portfolio that I am happy for this to go through. I want it to go through and without problems. We have worked on other issues, such as the National Water Commission—even though that was highly debated. So we can get to an outcome. I want to get there on the Murray-Darling Basin because I do not want to hurt people. I can make a big man of myself by screaming no and doing showdowns, but I do not want to do that. I want to make sure that we get to an end, but if the Labor Party sides up with the Australian Greens with their own agenda, which is to destroy the Labor Party. We had the Australian Greens once—they were called One Nation—and they wanted to destroy us. Do not let them destroy you.