Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

But then the member for Sturt, who is interjecting across the chamber—and I am happy to quote him back to himself—said:

There should have been a billion dollars being spent on returning environmental flows in the Murray-Darling Basin.

But the problem for the member for Sturt was that he had not spoken about this policy position of the coalition to the member for Murray, who says that we should be restricting the buyback. She said in a press release:

Minister Wong should conduct the buyback only on overallocated streams.

The member for Mayo chimed in. On 891 ABC Adelaide on 10 October, he said: ‘Speed up the buyback. We need to hasten these plans. We need to get the buyback happening more quickly’. Then, of course, we had the memorable contribution from the member for Bradfield, when he was asked on 31 July 2008 if he would consider compulsory acquisition. He said:

Well I think that’s the kind of thing that needs to be considered in different parts of the basin.

This brings me to the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition had the view—and it was a different view from that of the member for Bradfield—that they should not consider compulsory acquisition. He said earlier:

… our plan is based on no acquisitions of water being other than from willing sellers.

Now we get to position 10. As Parliamentary Secretary for Water, he said that the buyback was suddenly necessary:

It is increasingly difficult to see how the Living Murray initiative can be met without the purchase of water for the environment by governments.

Then we come to position No. 11. As shadow Treasurer last year, he said, ‘Buy less water’. He said:

Senator Wong is allocating more money for water buybacks than we would have allocated.

Finally, we come to position No. 12. As opposition leader this year, he said, ‘Buy more water’. He said:

… and we believe there is—then that water should be bought in order to preserve the health of the lower part of the system.

If … temporary water … can be acquired … to keep those lakes alive, then that should be done …

This is a very serious issue and it needs a consistent public policy position. The public policy wanders around the coalition tactics group like a lonely white cloud because they are concerned with other things. That is the great problem here: the delivery of a meaningful, consistent and decisive program to deal with the significant issues that are faced in the Murray-Darling Basin is something this government is committed to, but the inconsistency of 12 different positions that have been held by the coalition shows that they simply are not up to the task.

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