Shadow Portfolio — 2 June 2026

David Littleproud used a parliamentary intervention on 2 June to press the case against a water export licence granted to a Chinese company to extract 96 megalitres per year from aquifers in the drought-affected Southern Downs region of Queensland [TA-260602-house-c5d321b8ff24:s028]. His core argument was that the licence, originally issued by the former Labor Queensland government for a housing development, is now being repurposed for bottling and export to China — a use he characterised as an abuse of the original licence conditions given the acute water stress facing the local community [TA-260602-house-c5d321b8ff24:s028].

Littleproud congratulated the Crisafulli government and water minister Ann Leahy for announcing a review of the licence, framing it as a direct response to representations from the Southern Downs Regional Council and to his own advocacy. He disclosed that he wrote to the federal agriculture minister on 2 March requesting that no export permit be issued, and noted he has not yet received a reply — a disclosure that simultaneously pressures the federal government and establishes his own prior engagement on the issue.

The intervention sits at the intersection of water security, foreign ownership of natural resources, and regional community protection, themes Littleproud has consistently associated with his portfolio positioning. The observation that "Australian resources are for Australians" surfaces in the source record as the animating principle behind his stance, linking the specific Southern Downs case to a broader sovereign-resources argument.