Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Tourism and International Education) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Day for his question and for some notice of the question.

I have had the good fortune to spend a little bit of time over the last couple of years in the Murray-Darling region. The price of water is something that is obviously of significant concern to the growers in that neck of the woods. You talk of the price of $300 or $400 per megalitre now; at the height of the last drought it got to $700 per megalitre. That is the way the market works. Two years ago, dairy farmers and producers in the basin were paying something like $30 a megalitre for temporary water, and last year it was $120. The market is fluctuating.

As I said in answer to questions from Senator Wong over the last couple of days, the responsibility for water is quite clear. It is held within the agriculture portfolio, and we are very fortunate to have two people within the water portfolio who have extensive knowledge of the water portfolio: Minister Joyce and Assistant Minister Ruston. So we have an excellent team who will look after the roles and responsibilities around water with great capacity, and I have every confidence that it will be managed well.

We have the plan in place. Our objective is to deliver the plan on time and in full. In the hands of the two very capable ministers we have in place in the water portfolio—