Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to debate this MPI today and I welcome the opposition coming out of the shadows where they have been hiding since the submission options on the Lower Lakes were provided to the Senate yesterday.

For those of you on the other side who have read the submission to the committee which outlines the options that are being considered by the department and by the MDBC, it certainly makes for very sobering reading. It outlines the serious situation in the Lower Lakes and outlines the short-term options for managing the situation that had been provided to government. It is interesting to note what has happened since it was provided. We have not heard a peep from the opposition somehow on which option they would choose. I am sure if you did a straw poll over there we would certainly not have a single position from the opposition because we know how divided they are on this.

Can I say this: given how serious the situation in the lower Murray is, I am shocked that we have the Leader of the Opposition trying to play it down. Today on Adelaide radio we had an astonishing distortion of the facts by the Leader of the Opposition, who misrepresented a report by the Bureau of Meteorology. He said, ‘Annual mean rainfall has been slightly more than average recently, 25 millimetres, but also we have had an annual mean maximum temperature for 2007 of 0.73 degrees.’

Dr Nelson was referring to the annual Australian climate statement for 2007. It is a statement that showed that 2007 was the sixth hottest year on record and it also showed that, whilst there was slight increase in annual mean rainfall attributed to La Nina, that was in Australia overall including the tropical north. But that very statement also showed that the Murray-Darling Basin remained dry. What is Dr Nelson’s message to Adelaide? His message to Adelaide is this: there is no shortage of water; just move to Darwin. Dr Nelson says: ‘Never mind if you are in the Lower Lakes because in the Kimberley it is bucketing down. Never mind if you are the member for Riverina and there is no water in Deniliquin.’