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Thursday, 29 November 2012
Page: 14010

Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (18:08): I have great respect for my honourable colleague from New England, but I interpreted his remarks to say that there will be no further purchases. I am holding the discussion paper and brief in draft from the minister. It says that there will be a purchase of another 280 gigalitres, or 280,000 megalitres in my nomenclature. There are further purchases. There was three million to be taken of us and there is another 300,000. It is another 10 per cent. It is a buyback. It is the purchase of no more than 40 gigalitres per year. I greatly respect the work he has done and I hope it will be a contribution, but I just simply will not, and cannot, agree to any further cutbacks, and that is the reason I am opposing the proposals before the House, because they involve another 300,000 megalitres that are going to be taken off the irrigators in the basin, and out of the economies of the towns in the basin.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Mr Symon ): In accordance with the resolution agreed to earlier, I will now put separate questions on each motion. The question is that the motion moved by the member for Riverina be agreed to.