Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Not many places! It is still on sale at the parliamentary bookstore, member for Dunkley. I am happy to sign a copy for you. In my fictional book I call the river the Jude River. As all good Catholics would know, St Jude is the patron saint of lost causes. However, when it comes to looking after the Murray-Darling system, the Rudd government does not see this as a lost cause. We actually have faith in the fact that we can restore flows to the Murray, that we can restore as much water as possible so that hopefully the member for Mayo will see water flowing back down into South Australia. These bills will ensure that the government can continue to accelerate environmental water purchasing.

As we reflect on the success of these two schemes—both important planks of the Rudd government’s stimulus package and response to dangerous climate change—it is important for the parliament to recognise just how important our response to the global financial crisis is. The unemployment rate has crept up to just 5.8 per cent, nowhere near what was initially forecast and lower than in every other major advanced economy. Unemployment is 10.2 per cent in the United States of America, 8.6 per cent in Canada and 7.8 per cent in the United Kingdom. They are easy figures to roll off the tongue but we well know the misery that comes with those sorts of figures—the misery and heartache and life-changing circumstances that come with unemployment. The Australian economy is now expected to grow by 1½ per cent in 2009-10 and 2¾ per cent in 2010-11. Not only that, but a recent IMF report showed that Australia’s debt and deficit are among the lowest in the world. This is not a fact touched on by those opposite in their fear and smear campaign. Without the Rudd government’s decisive response to the global financial crisis—injecting fiscal stimulus—combined with the Reserve Bank’s monetary stimulus, we would not be in a position to quote such encouraging figures today. Surely the dole-queue schadenfreude of those opposite would dry up if we were approaching unemployment levels of 10.2 per cent like the United States. As I have said previously, caring is doing. If you do not do, then you do not care. Those opposite seem to have an absence of caring.

I turn again to water. I note that the member opposite responsible for negotiating on behalf of the coalition is the member for Groom, Mr Macfarlane, who lives on the edge of the Great Dividing Range in Toowoomba—I think his home is right on the edge of the Great Dividing Range. That is where the Murray-Darling system basically starts. Water just to the east of Toowoomba flows down into Brisbane, and water to the west flows all the way down to South Australia. If you go further along that river you get to the Balonne and Condamine rivers and we find Senator Joyce, whose office is right on the banks of the Balonne River in St George—one of the few National Party senators who actually has an office in the country. I think he might be the only one who has an office in the country. Every other National Party senator seems to be glued to the city.

Senator Joyce—I will give him his due—has his office on the banks of the Balonne River. However, he has a slightly different approach to climate change from the member for Groom, Mr Macfarlane. Senator Joyce’s approach to climate change has all the science of alchemy, or phrenology or something like that. He can throw lots of figures around but they do not actually have any scientific basis. We go further and further down the river, away from Senator Joyce’s destructive populism towards one of the senators for South Australia, Senator Minchin. The water flow takes a long journey through the waterholes, dams, weirs, irrigation pipes et cetera all the way down to South Australia. By the time it gets there, it has all but dried up. This is where the Murray River is not even able to make its way out to the sea—and this is were we find people like Senator Minchin, whose belief in science and climate change has dried up as well. This is a dangerous situation..

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