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

I thank Senator Gallacher for his question. We will deliver the plan on time and in full consistent with the plan as put in place. I do feel like we are running a few repeats here as we get to the end of the year because we have gone over this before this week. But the plan has in its place a number of conditions around the delivery of the 450 gigalitres that Senator Gallacher mentioned, and we are committed to ensuring that those caveats and those conditions are upheld because that is what is in the agreement—that is what is in the plan—and what is in the plan must be honoured.

As I have also expressed in this place before, some of those conditions—some of those caveats in section 7.17 of the Basin Plan act—go to the fact that, to deliver additional water, we must make sure that it does not deliver additional detriment or socio-economic harm to those communities that rely on water. What we want is to make sure there is a balanced outcome here for all of those people who live in the Murray-Darling Basin and all of those people who rely on the Murray-Darling Basin. All Australians deserve to be respected here, and we need to make sure we do not trade off some Australians against others—that is not our approach. Our approach is to make sure we deliver a plan that is balanced and that is delivered in full and on time.

We have seen the substantial economic harm that has been imposed on those who live in often small country towns from the ad hoc and uncoordinated buybacks. Unfortunately, they were buybacks that were put in place under a government that Senator Gallacher was involved in. They led to the total destruction of some of these towns—their employment base—and we will not subscribe to that and we will not sign up to that. By doing that, we will be acting consistent with the Basin Plan.