Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

With respect, I find what you just said absolutely ridiculous—that it's not logical or not practical for a government to mandate that a scientist be on a board making decisions about distributing water in a climate constrained future. I would ask the minister to reflect on whether he really wants to stand by those comments, that he thinks it's not good practice to have science informing decisions on water allocations, given that we are in a climate crisis.

It doesn't look like the minister is going to rise on that one, so while I'm on my feet: I'm also interested to know whether any advice was received on the quantum of water that's been allocated to fossil fuel companies in these drought declared areas. As my second reading amendment established, it kind of makes a mockery of having a drought fund to help farmers when we've got free, unlimited groundwater going, for example, to Adani, with a 60-year water licence. So I'm interested in whether, if you're going to ignore the climate crisis—well, we think that's patently wrong—you're at least going to get advice on the distribution of water entitlements as they stand at the minute before you decide where to dish this money out to?