Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister recall stating, in February 2006, that fixing the ailing Murray River was at the top of his agenda and that he would ‘put a bomb under the process’? Prime Minister, why has the government refused to use one cent of its promised $700 million to buy water rights from willing sellers to get water into the Murray? Prime Minister, when will you stop blaming the drought and take responsibility for national leadership in the water crisis?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know whether I have misunderstood the question, but I thought the Deputy Leader of the Opposition asked me why we would not spend any of this money to buy back water. I thought we had issued a tender—

Government Member:

Yes, we have.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We had. I thought in fact we had done the very thing you had asked us to do. I might also tell the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that in the last budget, after I had made that statement, we put another $500 million into the Murray-Darling Basin. The reality is that this government has provided more money to solve the problem of the Murray-Darling Basin than we ever agreed to do in discussion with the states. The original arrangement was that we would put a couple of hundred million dollars in and the states between them would put $300 million in, but the Treasurer announced in the budget of May of this year that over and above that we would put another $500 million in. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, the member for Wentworth, announced the tender to buy back the water some weeks ago. I suggest the Deputy Leader of the Opposition do a bit of research.