abbott late for press club, page-40

You are talking of a separate issue, the Libs and Nats were behind the plan.

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Victorians tired of Murray-Darling power struggle: Baillieu

Posted Mon Jun 4, 2007 5:04pm AEST

The Victorian Opposition has criticised Premier Steve Bracks for not signing on to the Commonwealth's $10 billion takeover plan for the Murray-Darling Basin.

While the Premier says he is hopeful a compromise can be reached, State Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu says Mr Bracks is playing politics.

"All I've heard the Victorian Premier talk about is who should have the power," he said.

"That's a power struggle, not a struggle about outcomes.

"I think Victorians, people in the basin, Australians, are tired of those sorts of power struggles when there's such an urgent need to get on with this, and I think the Premier should have signed up a long time ago."

Victorian Nationals Leader Peter Ryan is convinced the Premier will eventually sign on to the plan.

"This will go on for another couple of weeks, I suspect," he said.

"They've apparently made ground today, so he says.

"Inevitably we'll have Mr Bracks saying that, 'Oh well, the Government's rewritten the legislation at a federal level. That now better suits our purposes. We're now prepared to sign.'

"They will sign."

He has accused Mr Bracks of not negotiating in good faith.

"The problem here is that the powers issue has not been sorted out to the extent that is needed to be the case," he said.

"That in turn has happened because the state of Victoria has not been prepared to come to the table and negotiate in good faith to bring that about, because Mr Bracks is enjoying his moment of politics and I think that's most unfortunate.

"The issues here are bigger than that."

The state and federal governments appeared closer to a compromise to allow the Commonwealth's water plan to go ahead, after talks lasting more than an hour and half in Sydney today.

They did not reach a deal on the plan, but Victorian Premier Steve Bracks says the Federal Government is going to change its proposed legislation to help address the state's concerns.

"The principles are there, there will be new legislation," he said.

"It will be much more limited and that's a good thing."

Federal Water Minister Malcolm Turnbull says there will be changes from both sides.

"All we need is a bit of lateral thinking and a lot of goodwill," he said.

Mr Bracks says he wants to see details of the legislation before deciding whether Victoria will join other state and territory governments and sign up to the plan.