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

(—) (): That is completely incorrect. It is completely incorrect, because the facts do not align with that version of events. The facts say that we are implementing the plan. We are recovering the water, and can I say that we are doing so in a way which is a lot more balanced and a lot more coordinated than what the former government was doing. It is not just how much water we recover in this process; what is also very important is how we do that recovery and what we use that water for. That has a lot of impact on the environmental benefits that this water will achieve and also the social and economic harm that it may cause in basin communities. We are doing so in a way that is strategic, that is coordinated and that is not just buying water back willy-nilly all over the basin, with no consideration of what its impact is, just to meet a target. We are not interested in just meeting numbers. We are interested in the overall outcome and the overall health of the basin, and that is exactly what we are doing. (Time expired)