Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

Centre Alliance has no beef with hardworking cotton farmers. However, we know that the Murray-Darling system is in crisis. We know that there's an overallocation of water, that the climate change science that backs the plan is flawed and that there are risks associated with the supply, constraints and efficiency measures and those risks are high. Yet we have ministers, both state and federal, and organisations such as Cotton Australia and the National Irrigators Council in denial about this. They want to maintain the status quo. They think the plan is the end, not the means to an end. Centre Alliance has moved a bill to ban the export of cotton. That's not an unusual thing. We banned the export of uranium. We are considering banning the export of live sheep. Changes are needed to the plan. Noting the resistance and difficulty in changing the plan, it is good for the federal parliament to have an option, albeit unpalatable, to save the river in the face of abstinence from vested interests.

Question agreed to.