Farrer MP Sussan Ley slams Basin Plan in Parliament
Farrer MP Sussan Ley slams Basin Plan in Parliament
Transcript
00:00 The Basin Plan is no longer a plan, it's a death sentence.
00:03 It's a death sentence that's been delivered by this government.
00:05 And you know what really hurts me?
00:07 You know what really hurts me?
00:09 It's not the obvious political delight that the Minister and the Prime Minister have just
00:13 taken in this achievement.
00:15 You know what really hurts me?
00:16 It's the faith that has been broken with the communities that I represent.
00:20 It's the fact that they all came here, they asked nicely, they sat and explained what
00:25 they do.
00:26 They tried, they said to me and all of my colleagues, let's try and work with this government,
00:31 let's try to make them understand it's their hearts that have been broken today.
00:36 It's those people who get up every morning, who work so hard to deliver food, to deliver
00:42 fibre, to deliver regional jobs, regional communities, small schools, people who care
00:49 deeply, people in a community like Griffith, the member for Riverina knows well, who came
00:54 here after the war, who dug irrigation ditches with horse and cart, who broke their backs
01:00 and dug the soil in the heat, in the toil, for a future for themselves, their family
01:06 and their children.
01:07 It's those people that have been trashed here in this parliament today by this government.
01:11 It's a bitter, bitter pill to swallow.
01:13 The Basin's heart has been broken by a government that has ignored communities.
01:19 They haven't even bothered to visit them, Mr Speaker.
01:22 We know the politics that goes on in this place.
01:24 We know the glee with which the Environment Minister looks at all of us and laughs at
01:29 us.
01:30 We see it every day in question time.
01:31 We know that she hasn't stepped one foot in the Basin and hasn't demonstrated one shred
01:38 of care for the communities that she's tearing apart.
01:41 This is a really, really bad, bad day.
01:44 And the smile on your face, Minister, says it all.
01:47 It really does say it all.
01:48 I don't care what you think of me.
01:50 I don't care what you think of my colleagues.
01:52 I don't care about the Prime Minister's carefully prepared speech when he comes in here.
01:56 He didn't even mean it.
01:57 He had no passion in his voice.
01:59 Because deep down, I think someone who's been in the parliament as long as he has and as
02:03 long as you have know exactly what you are doing for base political gain.
02:11 The Minister and the Prime Minister know exactly what they are doing for base political gain
02:16 because they have banded together with the Greens to take more water out of communities
02:20 that I represent, out of Griffith, Leighton, Deniliquin, Findlay, Barham, Moorlambin, Ballrand
02:24 and Wentworth.
02:25 Do those places mean anything?
02:26 They're just places on a map.
02:27 They mean nothing to you, Minister.
02:29 They're code for, you know, your code for transitional funding.
02:33 It's just we don't care.
02:35 We don't care if we shut down your town.
02:37 It's just such a nail in the coffin to single-handedly trade off the lives and livelihoods of the
02:43 farmers that we represent, not even to have the courage to look them in the eye and tell
02:48 them what you had planned.
02:50 Buybacks, simplest, laziest form of water recovery with the biggest impact on regional
02:55 communities.
02:56 But the regional communities that I represent, we will not forget this.
03:00 We will not forget this betrayal.
03:02 And I don't think every Australian will agree with what you have done.
03:06 I think Australians in the cities will wonder why a government has used billions of taxpayers'
03:13 money to try to take water away from farming with no positive result at all.
03:20 Every single Australian will tune into this.
03:22 Australians in Western Australia, Australians in far north Queensland will wonder why you
03:26 have done this and wonder what was the point.
03:29 Because if it means what you say it means, tell us how much it will cost.
03:34 But you couldn't.
03:35 The Minister couldn't, Speaker, couldn't say how much it would cost, how many billions
03:40 of dollars will be allocated to this buyback.
03:42 You see, I know why.
03:43 I know that it is a sham that you will try to do socioeconomic measures, that you will
03:48 try to do infrastructure, that you will try to work with communities.
03:51 I know it's a sham because I know this government too well.
03:55 What you will do is get money out of your budget process and lazily go into the basin
04:00 and buy water, just so you can say you've delivered on a political promise.
04:04 That's the only reason.
04:06 That you cannot say how many billions of dollars taxpayers will be—that the Minister cannot
04:11 say how many billions of dollars taxpayers will be up for, for something that achieves
04:17 nothing, that takes the country backwards, that takes every regional economy in the basin
04:22 backwards, that adds to the cost of fresh food and groceries in our country and refuses
04:28 to recognise that Australia is also the Murray-Darling Basin, that Australians care about food, about
04:36 farming, about the people who live in these communities, about the people who love these
04:41 communities.
04:42 We love our communities.
04:44 It's so, so sad that this Labor government does not.
04:47 [End of recorded material]
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