Nick Xenophon (SA, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Hansard source

You may provoke him to use profanities, Senator Gallacher.

I am very happy to table, in due course, the letter from the Prime Minister. It is online. But it now is the case that the issue of the implementation of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, something that the Australian Greens had a very strong and passionate interest in, as have I, over a number of years, is now elevated to the status of first ministers—to the Prime Minister, premiers and the Chief Minister of the ACT. So it is now going to be on the COAG agenda twice a year. It will now be subject to an additional Senate estimates hearing twice a year, in the cross-portfolio estimates, which will allow a significant degree of scrutiny of the plan and its progress, and I am aware that Premier Weatherill and Prime Minister Turnbull have had a number of discussions about this in recent days.

There is more work to be done. You cannot simply turn on the tap with respect to the 450 gigalitres, but you can make commitments and progress with respect to the water efficiency measures, whereby $1.78 billion was set aside. That is something that, as Treasurer Morrison reiterated to me today, is in a special account. It is not something that can be taken away. It goes beyond forward estimates; $1.58 billion of that is for the water efficiency measures in respect of the 450 gigalitres, for those on-farm efficiencies, and $200 million is to deal with issues of constraints.

The important issue is that if there has been any slowing down of the plan or there has not been that political will, then there is what has happened in recent days and the commitment that this will now be elevated to the top of the agenda of COAG twice a year, at a first ministers level, and will be elevated to a greater degree of scrutiny at Senate estimates. And of course I will continue to work constructively with Premier Weatherill to ensure that the plan is implemented fully and on time. I am reassured not just by the discussions I have had with the Prime Minister but also by the letter to Premier Weatherill, the commitment to a new process that we have never had before and my discussions with Premier Weatherill and South Australian water minister Ian Hunter.