John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

We had. I thought in fact we had done the very thing you had asked us to do. I might also tell the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that in the last budget, after I had made that statement, we put another $500 million into the Murray-Darling Basin. The reality is that this government has provided more money to solve the problem of the Murray-Darling Basin than we ever agreed to do in discussion with the states. The original arrangement was that we would put a couple of hundred million dollars in and the states between them would put $300 million in, but the Treasurer announced in the budget of May of this year that over and above that we would put another $500 million in. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, the member for Wentworth, announced the tender to buy back the water some weeks ago. I suggest the Deputy Leader of the Opposition do a bit of research.

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