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

It has been quite a robust debate here today—congratulations, ladies; it is nice to see a bit of passion in the chamber. I rise to speak on the management of the Murray-Darling Basin report from the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee. I congratulate the committee. We are an unusual committee, for anyone who pays a visit but does not belong there permanently. It is an unusual culture, with a hardworking secretariat. We tend to give unanimous reports, and I am pleased to say that this document, which has 23 recommendations, is a unanimous report of all parties in this parliament, as was the coal-seam gas interim report of this committee.

It is a huge report, which brings together what for many years, under many governments of many persuasions, has been a bit of a mess of water management in Australia. Politics versus science and political interstate rivalries have tended to try to outsmart Mother Nature, but Mother Nature is the referee, as Acting Deputy President Stephens knows—how are things at Goulburn?