Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, support this resolution for a judicial inquiry. At the outset, I would just like to say that I accept that Senator Ruston and Senator Birmingham have genuinely articulated their respective positions. Senator Ruston alluded to politics in this argument. Well, the politics is not coming from this side of the table. What has caused the alleged untoward activities of these upstream irrigators who have treated the Basin Plan with such disregard or alleged disregard? What's caused it are the actions of people like the Hon. Barnaby Joyce, who said on 21 November 2016, 'You have not got a hope in Hades of delivering 450 gigs—not a hope.' And, when he was asked subsequently, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the current funding for the promised 450 gigalitres was insufficient, saying, 'You have not got a hope in Hades of delivering the 450 gigs—not a hope.'

So the Deputy Prime Minister casts aspersions and doubt on the credibility of a plan that took 100 years to make. And then, if you throw in Senator Hanson, a person who is critical of people who don't have English as their first language—and I apologise for the verbatim Hansardthis is what One Nation said:

I will tell you about this 450 gigalitres that is supposed to be on the table. That is like a guillotine over their heads. If you took away the 450, they can handle the other. They will be able to survive. They will try to do something about it. They understand about environmental. They have had to change their farming ways. But what you have done is that they feel that they are not being listened to—no-one is listening to their concerns.

What this is really all about is the seat of Orange. The Nationals lost the seat they'd held since 1947 with a 20 per cent swing to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party. In other words, the Nationals wanted to vote for anybody else but the National Party. Anybody who stood in that seat would have won except the Nationals. That's the genesis of this. Barnaby Joyce is trying to out-politic One Nation.

One Nation comes to this parliament courtesy of a double dissolution, which is owned by the Prime Minister. No-one else can take credit for that double dissolution other than the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull. He filled the place up with One Nation. They come into this argument very late and totally misinformed. They go around the country articulating unrealistic positions, giving hope to people who really have to think about their viability in a much more professional way than having Senator Hanson come here and say, 'That's all rubbish. Why do you need more water down the Murray?' That's the level of her contribution. And the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia is actually having to outgun that position. He is having to go into a country pub and outgun Pauline Hanson's One Nation.

It is an absolute disgrace, but that is what is happening with this Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It needs to be put back on track for the health of Australia, for the health of the river, for the health of South Australia and for everybody up and down the river. We cannot have it reduced to this level of crass politics, with the National Party trying to outdo One Nation in stupidity by advocating irrational, illogical positions.