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

I acknowledge Senator Lazarus and the concern he is expressing on behalf of his constituent, and I acknowledge the question. It is an important issue. Obviously with something like 80 per cent of Queensland now declared to be in drought, it is an issue that the government has significant focus on, and I know that Minister Joyce has himself spent a fair bit of time in Queensland and in other areas around the country where we are dealing with issues around drought. And Senator Lazarus is correct: in the white paper we made quite significant contributions towards particularly water infrastructure. That is one of the reasons I know Minister Joyce was very keen to bring the water portfolio back into this particular portfolio, because he wanted to ensure not only that the environment is properly looked after as part of managing our water resources but also that there is a fair resource available for our agricultural sector, given that the intention of the government is to make agriculture one of the five pillars of the economy.

So, the government has in place a group within the Department of Agriculture that is developing the rollout phase of the agricultural white paper. We will be working with the states to determine the priorities that the states will have as well with respect to water infrastructure. And of course part of the conversation we had in Northern Australia over the past few days was the huge importance of the water resource, the infrastructure that is required to take that water resource to the right places and how that might be best used in the development of Northern Australia. So we are quite focused on rolling out our commitments under the white paper. (Time expired)