Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The government do not have to be cuddling up to Mr Abbott and Senator Joyce just to appease the upstream states. If they are truly into reforming the system—saving our river and doing what is right by the environment, setting us up for a future we can rely on for the next 20 years—then they should be putting in place a plan that will save the river for the future, based on the best available science, backed up by the modelling, including the realistic impacts of climate change, not carrying on with the Nationals' approach of head in the sand and ignore, ignore, ignore, that everything will be all right, somebody else will look after it. That is the response of the Nationals to anything in relation to the environment in years to come. It is unfortunate because they are cutting their own communities short by doing it.

What an opportunity to get reform right is $11 billion to ensure that we start rebalancing and paying back to the river the water that has been ripped away from it for so long. As I said at the outset, I stand here with a heavy heart that we have not been able to convince the government to do the right thing by the river, the right thing for South Australia and to stand by their commitment to proper reform. What is in this plan is a dud. It does not protect the river system for the future, it does not set us up for resilience and it is going to waste $11 billion in the meantime. It needs to go back and it needs to be fixed. The Greens will continue to fight for that to happen.