Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator McKenzie, representing the Minister for Water Resources, Drought, Rural Finance, Natural Disaster and Emergency Management. Australia's population has grown by five million, or 25 per cent, since 2007. During this 12-year period, the price of water has increased dramatically, causing hardship for rural and regional communities. This hardship could have been avoided if the government had invested in water security and not become the single largest owner of water in the Murray-Darling River system. The federal government owns 28 per cent of all water entitlements in the southern basin of the Murray-Darling, which means droughts there are experienced earlier and more intensely than would otherwise be the case. This scale of water ownership cannot be justified when the government is unwilling or unable to prepare a detailed water management plan for Australia. What is stopping you from taking the necessary action to reduce immigration until we can create nation-building water projects like the hybrid Bradfield scheme or like?