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

I have acknowledged members of the opposition before. You do not get overwhelming numbers in a parliament like this without a level of bipartisanship. But I will also say that none of us deserve more credit than Henry Jones, who is in the parliament today. He is a fisherman from down in the Lower Lakes in Coorong, down near Goolwa, who has been a champion of Murray-Darling reform for a long time. He has been the face of the advertisers' campaign to save the Murray and deserves great credit for achieving what activists for a century had failed to.

For those traditional owners, for the communities who were involved in the consultation and for the many people who have seen a challenge that has always been out of reach, it is important for us to acknowledge that this has been the parliament that has solved what no other parliament could. This has been the parliament that has guaranteed that the Murray-Darling Basin will be restored to health and that the degradation of the past is now a thing of the past.

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