Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Regional Australia is being hung out to dry once again by a Labor government that listens to green activists before it listens to the people who grow the nation's food. For more than three years, Labor has brushed aside the voices of communities who rely on the Murray-Darling Basin for their livelihood. In its latest 130-gigalitre buyback aimed squarely at the southern basin and directly at towns across my electorate of Farrer, it is not a policy for the environment; it is a political deal dressed up as reform. Places like Deniliquin, Barham, Wakool, Finley, Berrigan, Jerilderi, Tocumwal and Mulwala will carry the cost. These towns rely on irrigation for jobs, small business activity and the confidence that holds our local economies together. When Labor removes hundreds of billions of litres from irrigation, it is not just water that disappears; it is harvests that never occur, investment that dries up and families who are forced to leave. It is the quiet erosion of a very fabric of regional life.

Labor claims that the environment demands this. In truth, it is the Greens who demand this and it is Labor who caves. That is not stewardship; it is vandalism. Instead of backing success, Labor cancels dams, walks away from water infrastructure and reaches for buybacks as its first and only tool. I will always stand for smarter water policy that delivers real environmental outcomes while keeping regional communities strong. Labor is no friend of the bush.

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