Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. The fact that the minister has not answered the question as to whether Mr Garrett was present at those meetings leads me and others to assume that he was. Can the Senate be assured that the close political relationship between the Prime Minister and the Premier will not in any way influence the decision of the environment minister on the Traveston Crossing dam? And does the fact that Mr Garrett, then the President of the Australian Conservation Foundation, and Mr Rudd, then the senior advisor to the then Queensland Premier, worked together to stop the Wolffdene dam in South-East Queensland in 1989 have any influence on Mr Garrett’s responsibilities for the Traveston Crossing dam, given that it is accepted that the failure to construct the Wolffdene dam in 1989 is the reason for the critical water situation in Queensland in the last decade?