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

The answer to Senator Madigan's question is that undoubtedly there have been lots of problems in Murray-Darling Basin communities. The one you have identified is one that probably replicates itself in many other parts of the Murray-Darling Basin. It is not simply a northern Victorian problem, it is a problem in the Riverland and other parts of the Murray-Darling Basin.

The whole point of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is to restore certainty to these communities, to provide some support for these communities and to restore the environmental health of the Murray-Darling. It is the government's intention that by passing this legislation we will achieve that. That is what we want to do: we want to bring prosperity back to these Murray-Darling Basin communities, we want to restore the health of the river, and the way we see that being done is by the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, which we have done. By adding to that this piece of legislation, which has been agreed by the affected federal and state governments, we will bring about those achievements. That is our aim: to sort out these sorts of problems. I cannot say it will solve every single problem of every single community in the Murray-Darling Basin, but I can say that this is absolutely the best plan that we can come up with to set about the task of restoring the prosperity and the health of the river. That is what we are aiming to do with this legislation.