Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, there are certain people who believe that she has won, and it never pays to count your chickens before they are hatched in politics. But I think it would be an issue of great concern to South Australians that their alternative premier decides to come up to Canberra unannounced. At the end of the day, I understand that the government did try and accommodate her, because it is such an important issue, but she was unable to return to South Australia and so missed a full day of campaigning in South Australia.

You might have thought that we would like to take advantage of that, because we have got a very good Premier in South Australia. The fact that you have got the Leader of the Opposition missing in action for a day might lead you to think that Labor wanted to take advantage of that, but that is not the case. We are concerned that this is no way for a Leader of the Opposition to behave. The minimum that you would want to do is let the people in Canberra know that you were coming, tee up an appointment and let them know what you want to discuss. And, if it was at all possible, as the government we would have tried to accommodate Ms Redmond. But you do not hop on a plane and make a surprise arrival and expect the government to be available and ready and able to talk to you. That is not the way you behave as a prospective alternative Premier.

It raises the question of how seriously the opposition is dealing with the issue of water if they behave in that way. Here is the most important issue for South Australians for the election in 10 days time and what has Ms Redmond done: she has turned up unannounced, with no appointment and no indication of what she wanted. We did not even know she was coming up here to talk about water. In fact, I suspect the Leader of the Opposition did not know that she was coming up here to talk about water. He would have been as surprised as we were about what she was doing. I suppose it would have been a surprise for him, because he had a very busy day. We had the President of Indonesia here and he had a number of very important commitments. This was perhaps his first opportunity to step out onto the world stage, if you like, and what did he find? He found that unannounced, Ms Redmond had arrived, wanting to talk to him about water.

I suppose what would have surprised him was what she wanted to say about water. We know what the position of the federal opposition is on water. The shadow minister for infrastructure and water is Mr Ian Macfarlane. He agreed with the National Farmers Federation, which claimed that the basin reform was happening too fast and that too much priority was being given to improving the health of the river instead of agriculture. I have to say that Mr Macfarlane is completely out of touch with the people of South Australia. That is a worry, 10 days out from an election. Mrs Redmond turns up here unannounced and Mr Macfarlane is completely out of touch with what people in South Australia want. What people in South Australia want is more water—