Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very happy to hear Senator Farrell, the trade minister. He's going to have to explain why our dairy industry is devastated and why we're not going to be exporting grapes, almonds, apples, pears—horticulture galore—and wine from these regions that his party is seeking to kill. You can't grow anything, Senator Farrell, without water. We have the most efficient irrigators in the world. They're drip-feeding their permanent plantings. The sad reality is—and we heard it in Senate inquiry after Senate inquiry—that the scientists know that measuring the health of the river isn't just about the number of gigalitres pushed down it over a time frame; it's about fish stocks and about leaving water longer in certain places and less long in others. They're all unique aspects because they are unique environmental assets right up and down our rivers. That has nothing to do with actual people who live there.

It appears that our worst fears are being realised before our eyes. Today Labor has bowed down to the Greens to ensure that their ideological bill that will destroy regional communities is passed through the Senate today. Those guys do not have a dirty deal that they're not prepared to do between the two of them.