Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I will put a question to Senator Birmingham, but firstly I cannot let that go. He is trying to justify these amendments by saying that the opposition is somehow weakening the government's own bill through not supporting these amendments. It is, in fact, the government that is weakening water reform in this country by having this bill pass in this place. It is certainly not the opposition who want to weaken water reform; in fact, we want to continue to strengthen water reform and we support the National Water Initiative through the continuation of the National Water Commission, because we know the work of the National Water Initiative—carried out by this independent expert body—has not been completed.

It was in fact former prime minister John Howard who saw the need to establish this National Water Commission to fulfil this task of water reform. So it is not, in any way whatsoever, the opposition that is weakening the water initiatives in this country; the government is weakening them by putting forward an abolition bill which gets rid of the National Water Commission.

I ask the minister, in light of the fact that the National Water Initiative has the task of water reform—and the National Water Commission is intrinsic in carrying out that role—and in light of the fact that that is not completed, what is the justification, other than this word of 'efficiency'? This would mean a saving of only .0001 per cent of its expenditure in the forward estimates.

How can you justify abolishing this independent expert body? Without it the future of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan will be continued to be threatened and our water resources will be left worse off. How can you justify its abolition, when your former prime minister John Howard saw the need to set it up to ensure that water initiatives and water reforms were carried out in this country?