Murray-Darling Basin Regional Economic Diversification Program

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:31): Supplementary, Mr Speaker, to the minister: will he support the $25 million diversification fund currently on the table?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (15:32): I'll go through this again, this tiresome sort of question. I refer the honourable member to the previous answer I gave in this house—and if I have to go through it all again. I was at the table when we negotiated—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member Hammond is called to order.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —the $25 million amount of money that's to come into South Australia. If the member really wanted to do a favour for his electorate, what he would do is simply impress upon his federal colleagues to actually not remove the $25 million in the current upcoming federal budget, which they have threatened to do, through a letter we received from Jamie Briggs. If you had any influence at all at a national level, if you weren't utterly impotent at a federal level, you would get in touch with your federal colleagues and—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hammond is warned.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —ask them to simply hand over the $25 million that we negotiated as part of the Murray Darling Basin Plan—

Mr Griffiths interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Goyder is warned.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —agreement.

Mr Whetstone interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Chaffey is warned.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: This is the parallel universe we're living in here: it's their money, it's our agreement. They want to nominate the projects, yet they want us to pay for them. Well, naturally enough, we've said no. The other thing that they advance is, 'Oh, this is complicated. We'd have to make an exception for South Australia.' Well, pardon me! We've just had something like $400 million worth of exceptions granted to the Western Australian government because they got themselves into a bit of trouble on the iron ore price. So, when it's necessary to sign a little bit of paper to get a Liberal mate out of trouble—

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Hammond is warned a second and final time.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: —they are happy to do that. They can be whistled up at a moment's notice. It just demonstrates the complete lack of influence the local Liberal Party here in South Australia have at a federal level. They cannot even get their federal colleagues to stand by an agreement—

Mr Gardner: Point of order.

The SPEAKER: Point of order, member for Morialta.

Mr GARDNER: No. 98, please, sir.

The SPEAKER: Debate? I'll listen carefully to the Premier—perhaps a little less accusatory.

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Well, we could join together in some happy sort of harmony here and jointly approach the commonwealth government and ask them to simply hand over $25 million so it can be spread in the Riverland communities. It might have passed the attention of those opposite but this is not a natural constituency of the Labor Party, the Riverland. However, we have been fighting for the Riverland community; we fought for this $25 million, we secured it, and it is now their federal colleagues. So do not come in here pointing the finger at us—

Mr van Holst Pellekaan interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The member for Stuart is called to order.

The Hon. J.R. RAU: Point the finger at the people who are actually to blame; that is, your federal colleagues. For once, put your state ahead of your party.