Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I want to place on record how ridiculous this is. This is what it looks like under the leadership of the new Deputy Prime Minister. We've got the National Party in here moving amendments to gut the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, against the will of their coalition partners. The amendments before us this evening do things like take all of the science out of the part of the act that governs a $1.7 billion fund. How disgraceful. It essentially creates the circumstance where that fund can be used for any purchase in rural Australia. This is exactly the kind of pork-barrelling that we have seen again and again from these people. We are in a position now where we have to gag these people, because they are wasting the Senate's time, bringing on amendments that are immensely complex to an immensely complex agreement with no notice. It is disgraceful and we will not be supporting the National Party amendments.