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

I utterly reject the premise of that question. I utterly reject it. It is absolutely just wrong. The authority on groundwater sustainable diversion limits et cetera used the available groundwater models and, in areas where these were not available, a CSIRO developed resource risk assessment method which uses estimates of recharge and scales back recommended limits on use based on an assessment of the level of connectivity, the geology and the quality of data to allow access only to a fraction of the estimated recharge so that the resource is not being mined. I am sure that is very clear to all senators.