Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-11-26 Daily Xml

Contents

MURRAY-DARLING BASIN

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (15:20): I have a supplementary question. What happened to the Jay Weatherill Labor (or whatever moniker of government you're using at the moment) '4,000 gigalitres and not a drop less'?

The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (15:20): How many times do we have to educate this sorry lot about science? We said that we will rely on the best science available to us to bolster our case—and, when the science comes down with a number, that's what we go with.

We don't make up numbers like they do. We don't pretend to have all the wisdom ourselves. We rely on science to inform our decision-making, and we use the figures that science gives us. We use the information that we get from the best available science, and that's what informs our policy. That, I think, is the way to form public policy: not make up figures, not pretend to know yourselves, but to use the science that is available to you. That is the way you make good public policy.