Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I draw the Leader of the Opposition’s attention to the package which the government already announced some time ago for the lower lakes. That was an extensive package which went to local irrigation works. Having visited that area with the Minister for Climate Change and Water, the particular request put to us by that local community then was to assist them with the piping necessary to get water from higher up in the Murray to their particular agricultural needs adjacent to the lakes. And that is precisely what we responded to with a very expensive program, way in excess of the $50 million which the Leader of the Opposition has just referred to.

The second point, though, on the question of the Coorong Lakes is: how do we deal effectively with that as a long-term challenge given the extreme overallocation of water entitlements to the Murray-Darling? The government, again, has a strategy in place on that score, which includes, for the first time in the Commonwealth’s history, the buying back of water entitlements. We have commenced that with the Minister for Climate Change and Water, having expended $50 million already for the purchase back of some 37 gigalitres of entitlements. Most recently, at the Adelaide cabinet meeting, we agreed as well to allocate a figure something in the order of half a billion dollars to accelerate the purchase of water entitlements across multiple jurisdictions. This is necessary in order to—

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