Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

And a plan announced by the minister for the environment is to now recover more than 400 of the 450-gigalitre target by the end of this year. To do that, at the end of last year the minister for the environment announced an expression-of-interest process to make sure that, in acquiring water, we did so in a way that delivered value for money.

This has not always been the way that water is acquired under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. When those opposite were in office, there was water acquired from the northern basin. The government of the day spent $80 million for the entitlement. At the time, that entitlement—guess how much water it had allocated to it. Zero. They spent $80 million for it. And, if anyone's wondering whether it was value for money, it was value for money for someone, because the company that it was bought from booked a $52 million profit.

The history of that company is interesting. It was formed with the original director being the now Leader of the Opposition. And the government of the day paid Versace prices for water from the Reject Shop. Only the Leader of the Opposition could explain how on earth that was in the public interest.

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