Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Hansard source

No, it is not to get us through the next election. It is to do something about restoring the health of the Murray-Darling Basin—something that was long overdue under your government. We have done something about it. Minister Burke has done something about it. This government have done something about it. We are trying to proceed to save all of those Murray-Darling Basin communities which you claim to want to represent and, most importantly, to restore the health of the Murray-Darling Basin. That is what we want to do. We have allocated funding so that we can do that. Senator McKenzie wants to pin me down to the exact time frame for the expenditure of that money. I cannot do that, but what I can tell you is that this money will be well spent and spent in a way that does what we want to do, which is restore the Murray-Darling Basin to good health restore the environment.