Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Patrick for his question and I also thank him for a short period of notification of this question. I note that the South Australian royal commission, which was announced on the weekend, has not come with terms of reference at this stage. So I'm unable, Senator Patrick, to provide specific advice or legal advice on the issues you have raised in your question, or precisely raised in your question. We, of course, will wait for more details from the South Australian government about how they intend to establish this inquiry. However, I can assure Senator Patrick that the Commonwealth government will cooperate with any inquiry that the South Australian government conducts, including a royal commission if it so chooses to go down that path. We are already cooperating with five different inquiries and another inquiry in Queensland as well—six in total—into various aspects of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

So the specific questions that Senator Patrick has asked will not be specifically enlivened in this case, because the Commonwealth will cooperate and make sure that we involve ourselves in any inquiries—because we have nothing to hide, Senator Patrick. We are committed to delivering the plan and we're committed to making sure that the plan is delivered in full and on time. We realise and recognise that we have to work with the basin jurisdictions to do that—we don't have all the powers or involvement to deliver the plan ourselves—and we're committing to doing that. That is why we are working with all the inquiries, including the two that we've established at the Commonwealth level, some at the New South Wales government level and one at the Queensland government level. If the South Australian government chooses to establish its own review and inquiry, we'll cooperate with that as well.