Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's not; it is what is proposed and I have been talking to them. It is a disgrace. There are still 5,000 kids in the north there who do not have a high school to go to and we do not give a rats!

The Northern Development Taskforce commissioned the CSIRO to do a study of the water resources of the north. Just so you know that I do not know what I am talking about, Senator McLucas, there are 78,000 gigs of run-off in the Timor catchment, there are 98,000 gigs of run-off in the gulf catchment and there are 85,000 gigs of run-off in the eastern catchment, which has the complication of the run-off into the Great Barrier Reef. So we have said to the CSIRO, 'Can you study the water resources of the north?' As you would be aware, because I do not know, but you will know and you can work that out for yourself, the most northern aquifers up there are annual recharge. By the time you get down to Alice Springs, it is very old water.

We said to the CSIRO, 'Give us a study on what we can do and what the potential is.' The government changed and you said to the same mob that we instructed to do that, 'Still do it, but don't have dams in your terms of reference', because the Northern Territory and the Western Australian governments at the time opposed new dams. You said to the CSIRO, 'Do this study of the water capabilities of the North, but don't consider storing the water or damming the water.' What a stupid bloody proposition. That is your mob. Do not tell me I don't know what I am talking about!