Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

So we have a situation where the National Party talk about rain, blaming it on rain. It's not about rain; it's about taking too much water. Some of them think that we're letting the water roll down to the Murray mouth and then letting it go out to sea. Let me read what Richard Beasley said in his recent book: 'Several people involved in agriculture in the other basin states and some of the politicians they support consider any water that flows out of the Murray River to be an exercise in irrigating the Southern Ocean. These people are idiots.' I think he got it right. Imagine a river that runs into the ocean—imagine that! Unfortunately the Nationals don't even understand that. They don't even understand that, in order to have water that is not saline and is useable in irrigation, you've got to have a healthy river system. But, no, they continue to take, take, take. And they continue to stand in the way of the execution of the plan, making silly water purchases that don't actually return anything to the environment and paying twice the tote odds. The National Party have corrupted the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. (Time expired)