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House of Assembly - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-04-30 Daily Xml
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MURRAY-DARLING BASIN AGREEMENT

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite—Leader of the Opposition) (14:42): Does the Premier now accept that Labor premiers in other states and Labor's federal minister for water, Penny Wong, outsmarted him on the need for an independent Murray-Darling Basin Commission? The Premier claimed that in the agreement on the Murray, which he hopes will be signed by COAG in July, he won the day on the independent governance of the Murray. But last night, on ABC television's Lateline program, federal water minister, Penny Wong, revealed where the power will sit in the Murray-Darling Basin. Senator Wong said, 'We have to change the architecture, the governance and the management of the river.' Then she said that the federal minister would overrule any other entity dealing with the Murray when she said, 'with the commonwealth minister having the final determination on the basin-wide plan, which is the significant important reform that COAG achieved'.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: On a point of order, apart from taking a long time, the Leader of the Opposition does not need to yell—no-one else is yelling.

The SPEAKER: There is no point of order.

The Hon. M.D. RANN (Ramsay—Premier, Minister for Economic Development, Minister for Social Inclusion, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change) (14:43): I think all of us can see the phoney anger of the Leader of the Opposition. Basically, his position has changed from day to day but his anger stays the same. We remember the barking chihuahua and so will you, let me promise you that. Let's just go back to the beginning of last year. The former prime minister of Australia, the Hon. John Howard—and I see he is being mooted for an Order of the Garter—

The Hon. P.F. Conlon: I thought Downer should get that.

The Hon. M.D. RANN: That's right. I thought that Alexander Downer had also applied. The fact of the matter is that over a year ago, the former prime minister, John Howard, suggested that there be a federal takeover of responsibilities for the River Murray in which the minister for water would have sole responsibility; and that, of course, was Malcolm Turnbull, soon to be the federal leader of the opposition.

I said that we should have an independent commission that should run the River Murray, that it would report to a federal minister and that, if the independent commission was ever to be overridden by the federal minister, he or she would have to walk into parliament and explain why they had gone against the independent experts. That is what I announced last year. I remember seeing a cartoon in The Australian with me sitting on a branch in the middle of the river and left out to dry.

That is exactly what we got support for: I got support from former Queensland premier Peter Beattie, I got support from Morris Iemma, and I got support, too, from the then prime minister, John Howard. What happened after the intransigence of Victoria is exactly what I had been lobbying and advocating for. The federal minister, under both models, always had the right to override, but had to explain to the federal parliament if he or she ever went against the advice of the commission, and the advice of the independent commission then had to be made public. I would say that is a substantial win. Maybe if the Leader of the Opposition's memory went beyond one day he might just be up to speed.

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