Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. The mean flow of the system is 2,700 gigalitres and is predicted to be 300 this year, which has serious implications for downstream and for environmental flows. How can the minister on one hand say she is trying to return water to the Murray-Darling Basin when at the same time she is allowing Melbourne Water to extract 75 gigalitres—which is not even considered a gross figure; it is a net figure—of environmental reserves from the Goulburn River, a tributary of the Murray? This is just plain stupid.