Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities) Share this | Hansard source

then you have got to let on to the public what those conditions are. Instead, what happens is they just run down the clock so that when the basin authority comes back with a final plan those opposite can say, 'Oh, that's not what we meant by a good plan,' and then, reluctantly, the Leader of the Opposition will be compelled to vote no. Who would have thought? Who would have thought that you would have a design of a line which is—every step of the way there—to not let on what sort of plan you would vote for, and, in the whole consultation period, to run down the clock for the final 26 days and not make clear what the conditions would be for coalition support?

Make no mistake: there are people on this side of the House who are arguing strongly for changes to the plan. But there is no-one on this side of the House, during the consultation period, who is saying, 'Let's spike the reform.' There is no-one on this side of the House who is saying that we should abandon the hope of having a national plan. Yet every word that has come from the mouth of the Leader of the Opposition has been designed to get to the day the authority comes back and then say, 'Oh, I never thought I had to support something like that—I will just vote no.'

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