Mr WINDSOR (4:53 PM) —I congratulate the minister on being with us today. It is good and I think there should be more of it. Minister, I am sorry to bring you back to the property-right debate, but there is some confusing language and confusing messages are being sent. The Deputy Prime Minister on 13 May said that the national action plan `specifically recognises compensation because I put it in'. It cannot be in a draft. It has to be in some plan somewhere. I would like you to identify the plan we are talking about. You inferred in regard to the catchment blueprints that that plan may well but not necessarily have some identification of some compensation or property right. I think you said that if it was in a catchment blueprint the Commonwealth government would consider that.

My question is: have you encouraged the regional catchment committees—the 21 that are recognised in the national action plan—to include a definition of property rights where the removal of some resources or management practices may be in the interests of that particular catchment? If you have, I do not think it seems to be filtering through to them. If that is the only plan that the Commonwealth is going to recognise, do you think it may well be time that the Commonwealth gave some instructions to those committees that they identify in the plan the removal of some of the management practices and probably some entitlement if they feel that that may be part of what is going to happen in the catchment to get water quality and salinity into balance? Otherwise you run the risk of the various states running renegade again, and I do not think I have to tell you about New South Wales's performance in relation to this.

Minister, you were very involved with the Namoi Groundwater Management Committee. I thank you for that, and I particularly thank you for the membership of the committee. I think Ross Dalton from the department was invaluable in terms of that particular process. The question that I would like you to consider is: if, as in the case of Namoi-Gwydir, there was a specific recommendation through the regional management blueprint that suggested the removal of active entitlement—because, in some zones in that particular area, there will have to be active water removed—would the Commonwealth government consider compensation by way of property right recognition? Is that the sort of thing that you are talking about, the case of a catchment blueprint actually identifying some active entitlement that has to be removed for the greater good of the aquifer or because of salinity ramifications?

To use the language that has been used recently, Mr Anderson says he has got it in a plan somewhere, but we have not seen that plan yet. If the plan recognises property rights, the Commonwealth has the capacity to withhold not only its contribution but also the state's contribution of $198 million. Does the Commonwealth really have the constitutional capacity to withhold the money the Prime Minister has just signed off to New South Wales? If it does—and I would like to see that it has that capacity—would it have the capacity to transfer that money directly to those impacted if they were indicated through the catchment blueprint? In a sense, that is allocating what would have been state money but, because of the recalcitrance of the state, transferring that money directly to those who are going to be impacted. Minister, I ask you to consider those questions in a brief answer. Also, do you see the issue of property rights coming up at the next COAG meeting?