Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, Senator Cadell. Well, what do you know? In the final sitting week of a six-week block, on the final sitting day before the Farrer by-election, the National Party discover the Murray-Darling Basin. After months of total silence about this issue, the Farrer by-election is called. The Nats are on track to come fourth, as admitted by their former leader Mr Littleproud. We have had One Nation call for a royal commission into water. We've had Michelle Milthorpe, the Independent candidate, call for a royal commission into water. So finally the National Party wake from their slumber and have this original idea: let's have a royal commission into water. That is how slow these people are, and this is why Australians are walking away from the National Party in droves, because they have stopped being thought leaders when it comes to regional Australia and they have started becoming thought followers. They have become a party whose sole reason for existence is to distribute preferences either to the Liberal Party, to a teal Independent or to the One Nation party.