Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia) (15:30): I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Hanson-Young today relating to water resources in the Murray-Darling Basin. We know that this is a river system that is in absolute crisis, an environmental collapse looming once more; we know that farms and farming communities have their backs against the wall; and now we understand that communities throughout the basin are struggling even to be able to turn on the tap and get clean drinking water. This is a disaster, an absolute crisis, and it has happened on the watch of the National Party while they have had the water portfolio. This government, the coalition government, has for six years mismanaged the Murray-Darling Basin. They have mismanaged the country's most precious water resource. They've prioritised the profits of big corporate irrigators, particularly those up in the north, and they've prioritised those who continue to fund electoral and political donations to the National Party. Meanwhile, small family farmers go without, communities are now struggling even to access basic clean water and the environment is teetering on the brink of collapse. It is a disaster, and it's happened on the watch of the National Party. What do we hear from the Minister for Water Resources, Drought, Rural Finance, Natural Disaster and Emergency Management? Only last week Mr David Littleproud, the water minister and a Nationals member at the cabinet table, said he wasn't even sure if climate change was man-made. Let's not forget that not only is Mr Littleproud in charge of the nation's water policy and the management of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan but he's also in charge of responding to natural disasters. He's in charge of drought policy in this country, and the bloke doesn't even believe in climate change or the science that underpins any way of dealing with this going forward. I'll tell you what's going on in the Murray-Darling Basin right now: it is a mess created by the National Party, with their lack of understanding about climate change, their backing of big corporate irrigators over everybody else and their insistence that their head-in-the-sand approach on coal and carbon pollution in this country will have no impact on the drought or on the climate in the future. Do you know what's killing the Murray-Darling Basin right now? Cotton, coal and climate change. They're what's killing the Murray-Darling Basin. That's why we have farmers with their backs against the wall—because the government are in denial. They've done nothing. It's time they got a real drought policy that takes into consideration what they need to do on climate change and time they started reining in the overextraction of our water supply by big corporate interests. Of course, many of these corporate interests, let's not forget, are big foreign agricultural companies that have no care for the local communities in which they operate. Their profits go overseas. The people who run these places don't even live in the areas from which they're draining water. And then we have the water barons who have now come into the market. The price spikes now are so high that everyday users in the system, small family farms, can't even afford their water licences. They can't afford the water for their stock or to water their crops. And what do we get from this minister? We get: 'You know what? Not my fault, but, everyone, if we just pray for rain, hopefully, the system will get better. Hopefully, the problem will be solved.' We need a whole lot more than hopes and prayers to fix the Murray-Darling Basin. We need a properly managed system, a drought policy that takes into consideration climate change and a minister that is not up to his neck in doing the deeds for big corporate irrigators and their political donations. That's what we need. The sooner the National Party are forced to hand over the water portfolio, the sooner we can get on with fixing our river system for good. Question agreed to.