Perin Davey (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) | Hansard source

Last week we saw the first meeting of all state water ministers in over a decade. You would think that they would need more than an hour over Skype just to introduce themselves to each other. But an hour was all they got to discuss the released-without-fanfare 320-page Productivity Commission report on its inquiry into national water reform renewal. It's incredible. We know Labor don't like debate. Just look at what they've done today, bringing on a guillotine on the issues they don't want to shine a spotlight on. But I would have thought that they would give adequate time to the renewal of the National Water Initiative, which was one of Labor's five points to national water reform that they took to the last election. You'd think they'd want more than an hour to discuss this vital interjurisdictional issue with their own counterparts. This isn't locking Liberals out of the room; this is locking Labor state water ministers out of the room.

Maybe they wanted to keep it short because the report identified that some jurisdictions don't want to retain some of the core principles of the National Water Initiative in a new agreement or maybe it's just that the current Minister for the Environment and Water has completely lost interest since she rammed through the Water Amendment (Restoring Our Rivers) Bill 2023. She also couldn't be bothered turning up to her own agency's premier conference in Albury the other week—the MDBA's River Reflections conference. She was on the program, but she didn't bother to show up. She sent a three-minute video. Now we see she can't be bothered having genuine discussions with her state equals. Shame.