Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I absolutely did, and do you want to know why? I'll take the interjection. Do you want to know why I supported it? At that point in time, the Greens were going to run off with 6,000-plus gigalitres, completing decimating the Murray-Darling Basin. And the good and learned member for Watson, the then water minister, Mr Anthony Burke, said that what we could do was to go to 2,750. That's where we landed. That 450 was there, but it had an economic and social detriment clause. I believe that, in a way, that's better than neutrality, because that way you can say: 'I win here, I lose there; therefore, it's neutral.' No. 'Social and economic detriment'—any detriment, and you could not go forward. That was the position of the Australia Labor Party under Minister Burke.

Now we have the member for Sydney with a completely alternative policy. This is substantially and diametrically different. So to which person do we owe gratitude for their wisdom? Does wisdom reside with the member for Watson, or does wisdom reside with the member for Sydney?

I'll tell you what, this time—and I don't like to involve myself in Labor politics, but I'm going with the member for Watson. I'm going with your Leader of the House. I say to the member opposite who interjected: 'your Leader of the House'—I back him in. But you guys don't. You people don't. You've given up on it. So I back Minister Burke. They don't. They've given up on their own minister. Where does the wisdom reside—with which minister?

I take the interjection. Which minister do you believe is wiser, the member for Watson or the member for Sydney? Which one? You're confounding yourself. You always do.

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