It looks like Dullard and Co installed a closet envirotard to oversee one of the most important macro-econo-enviro reforms.Former water minister Malcolm Turnbull says he is baffled by a senior public servant's differences with the government over the Water Act.
The chairman of the Murray Darling Basin Authority, Michael Taylor, resigned on Tuesday, saying the Water Act puts priority on the environment alone, and not equally with social and economic concerns, as Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Water Minister Tony Burke argue.
Mr Turnbull, who oversaw the introduction of the legislation as water minister in 2007, said he found Mr Taylor's interpretation of the act baffling.
"I find his proposition, his argument about the act, is contradicted by the act itself," Mr Turnbull told ABC television on Tuesday night.
"I don't know what Mr Taylor's real issue is.
"He says he's sighted legal advice. It's never been produced."
The reform package announced by the Howard government in 2007 has been allocated $10 billion.
Of that, $3 billion has been earmarked for buying water and $6 billion for water-saving infrastructure.
"Now, that was a critical part in building community support for the reform, a critical way to have a win-win," Mr Turnbull said.
Labor had spent just $500 million on infrastructure in nearly four years, Mr Turnbull said.
"It's depressing enough to watch the government bungle their own policies but when they start wrecking ours and mine, in particular, it's particularly dispiriting," he said.
"Their incompetency here is extraordinary."
Of course they were going to fuck it up
