Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Around one in five South Australians are employed in the agriculture, food or tourism sectors, much of which depend on the river to sustain them. Many people live along the basin communities in South Australia and, as everybody appreciates, Adelaide is heavily dependent upon the basin as well. All of these factors are reasons the Basin Plan needs to be delivered in full and on time. It needs to be delivered in a way where we won't walk away from commitments that we have made to each other, which is what the Labor Party sadly did in this place last night. We must make sure that at every step we back the independence of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, which the Labor Party ignored last night, and the scientific evidence provided by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, which the Labor Party ignored last night. We must make sure we live by our commitments, and, sadly, the Labor Party broke the commitments they made to the northern basin communities last night, and that is what is putting the whole plan at risk.