Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

As I stated earlier in this chamber, the government is fully committed to ensuring the Basin Plan is implemented, and this Northern Basin Review is a part of that plan—it is a part of the plan that now has been delivered. Those that support the implementation of the plan should get behind this now, because the experts, the independent Murray-Darling Basin Authority, are recommending this result, and those are the people that we should take advice from on this issue.

That review has also found that we should ensure that we have a toolkit of measures that recover water and improve environmental outcomes in the Murray-Darling Basin. This system, as I was told up in St George recently, is not like two-minute noodles—you do not just add water to it and expect better outcomes. You need to make sure you deliver better results in terms of fish management and better results in terms of cold water pollution. We need a suite of measures to make sure that we actually improve the environment in the basin, not just hit arbitrary targets. That is our goal and that is why we are implementing the Basin Plan in full.