Senator Barnaby Joyce
Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Water
Leader of the Nationals in the Senate
Basin plan going nowhere fast
The revised draft basin plan has not excited anybody. When I called three State Minister’s offices this morning I got three answers, “No, no, no”. The South Australian State Minister is on the TV screaming “No”.
The Federal Minister, Tony Burke, has said he is not prepared to take the plan to Parliament, so he has said no to his own plan.
It would not be unusual, in this environment, that the Coalition would not agree to a plan for which we cannot find one key stakeholder to sign off on.
The Minister tries to wriggle out of it by saying, “What would you do if you were me?” Well, if I were him I would definitely call an election, but as far as water goes, I would try to ensure that when the plan was announced I had some senior stakeholders on side with me.
There is no certainty when the Minister himself talks about the fact that the figure 2,750 could go up to 3,200 or down to 2,400, or anywhere in between. That’s not certainty, that’s a threat.
You are not looking after the socioeconomic aspects of the Basin when your own report talks about 1,600 people losing their job, and then freely admitting that those who are keeping their job might be moving from Deniliquin to Mt Tom Price to do so.
Every Australian who pushes a shopping trolley has a stake in the Murray-Darling as it produces 40 per cent of our food.
The Coalition is prepared to sit down with Minister Burke and get a better outcome but the 2.1 million people who live in the Murray-Darling deserve better than this.
May 28 2012
More from a scientist that knows the Murray River…
More Nonsense in National News about Murray Darling
Posted by jennifer, May 28th, 2012 – under Information, News, Opinion.
Tags: Murray River
Comments: 5
THIS morning our national newspaper, The Australian, has a very misleading story about a farmer Colin Grundy complaining that Murray river water is too salty for irrigation. [1]
In fact Mr Grundy does not live anywhere near the Murray river. He lives right beside the sea.
Mr Grundy lives on Mundoo Island that faces the Murray’s sea mouth that is a narrow outlet to the pounding surf of Encounter Bay and the Southern Ocean.
Reporting on water quality in the Murray River with reference to Mundoo Island is like reporting on water quality in the Parramatta River from Circular Quay in Sydney Harbour, or water quality in the Brisbane River from Fisherman’s Island at the mouth of the Brisbane River.
There is a sea dyke across the Mundoo channel to hold back the tides of the Southern Ocean but last autumn the Southern Ocean did splash over the top of it.
Upstream, in the Murray River proper, salinity levels are at historic lows. [2]
Later today the Murray Darling Basin Authority will release its plan for water reform – over the last couple of years we have had the draft-draft plan, the draft plan and today its time for the plan.
This new plan will recommend the buy back of a tremendous volume of water: about 25% of all the water currently used for irrigation in the Basin.
And as I’ve written many times before, the freshwater that is recovered will be sent to the Lower Lakes where there is no longer any natural environment worth saving. [3]
Indeed if government really cared about the Lower Lakes it would restore the Murray River’s estuary that was destroyed with the damming of the Lower Lakes through the construction of the five sea dykes that block the five channels that converge on the Murray’s sea mouth.
But according to Labor, Liberal, National and Greens senators and members of parliament, restoring the estuary would be too hard, too political, and potentially a vote loser in South Australia. [4]
And these people smooch with journalists at our top newspapers, who quote scientists dependent on government for funding, or farmers with a vested interested in getting ever more freshwater to the very bottom of the system. And so the false narrative about a lake that would always be fresh if it wasn’t for greedy upstream irrigators is perpetuated never mind that this freshwater lake was once the central basin of a wave-dominated barrier estuary. [5]
Expect lots of news stories relating to the Murray Darling over the next few days and weeks, but don’t believe much of it.
Indeed ignorance isn’t only what you don’t know. It can be what misguided journalists want you to believe, but that just isn’t correct.
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References and Links
1] Undiluted Murray plan leaves states cold. Lauren Wilson and Verity Edwards, May 28, 2012. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/undiluted-murray-plan-leaves-states-cold/story-e6frgczx-1226368776295
2] A Note on Murray River Salinity Levels. Sent to Water Minister, Tony Burke, August 29, 2011. http://www.mythandthemurray.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/A-Note-on-Murray-River-Salinity-Levels2.pdf
[3] Saving the Murray Darling
http://jennifermarohasy.com/saving-the-murray-darling/
[4] Save the Murray Restore the Estuary, Address to Sydney Institute by Jennifer Marohasy, February 8, 2012
http://jennifermarohasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Murray-Estuary_Sydney-Institute-Paper-2.pdf
And you can find the podcast here: http://jennifermarohasy.com/publications/
[5] Plugging the Murray River’s Mouth: The Interrupted Evolution of a Barrier Esuary
http://jennifermarohasy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Plugging-the-Murray-Rivers-Mouth-120212.pdf
