Nation deserves better
WE had the privilege of growing up on the banks of the Murray River in Cobram, and now we are raising our own families in this town.
We find the damage being caused to our wonderful environment totally unacceptable and continue to be frustrated by the fact this is ignored by our politicians.
The scale of bank erosion we have seen in recent years is not natural, and it is not being caused by recreation activity.
The erosion is, without doubt, the result of trying to force huge quantities of water down the river.
We are not farmers, but we can see how they are suffering from poor water management and we can also see the damage being caused to our communities.
The main contributor to this damage is the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. And the main contributor to the stuff up they call a plan is politics.
To us, it is obvious that nothing will change under the present political scenario.
The Coalition won’t fix it (even the federal environment minister who is the local member on the NSW side of the Murray won’t do anything), and nor will the other coalition of Labor/Greens.
That is why we are starting a political movement called Don’t Vote Major.
We want to show our communities there are options available in a democracy to bring about change. If none of the major parties are interested in saving our Murray River because they are more interested in winning marginal seats in South Australia, let’s do something about it.
All we get from the major parties is smokes and mirrors, along with empty or broken promises.
Our nation deserves better. Please support our efforts so we can save our iconic Murray River and our regional communities before it is too late.
Mark and Shane Bugge,
Cobram
Businesses need support
THERE’S a lot of talk about recovery from COVID-19 shutdowns, but months after the harsh lockdown ended, I’m still hearing the same message: the Andrews Government’s focus is in all the wrong places.
This week we learned that Daniel Andrews is sitting on millions of dollars in small business grants that was intended to be a lifeline to get them on track to recovery.
Yet he’s poured at least $7.7 million into legal fees to hide the truth of what went wrong in Labor’s bungled hotel quarantine program.
It’s a hard pill to swallow for hundreds of thousands of Victorians whose livelihood was decimated by COVID restrictions and border closures.
The Liberal-Nationals know that hundreds of thousands of Victorian jobs and small businesses depend on our agriculture, tourism and international education industries.
We’re urging the Victorian Government to adopt our plan for recovery.
This should include working with National Cabinet on a national approach to the definition of ‘COVID hotspots’ and to ensure that border closures are only implemented as a last resort.
A dedicated facility should be immediately established in regional Victoria for the quarantine of seasonal workers to get them on-farm and helping our farmers harvest crops, before they rot.
Other measures that must be implemented are further rounds of the tourism vouchers program — including for travel to Melbourne — and a blueprint to bring international students back to Victoria for study this year.
Businesses, employees and communities will need more support as we rebuild our economy post the COVID second wave.
Peter Walsh,
Leader of The Nationals
Member for Murray Plains
Bizarre finding
I LOOKED at the calendar, saw it was the first day of the month and thought it must be April Fool’s Day.
That was my immediate reaction to claims announced on Monday, February 1 that the reduced capacity of the Barmah Choke is from 19th Century gold mining.
The bizarre finding was announced by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA), and it is amid growing concerns over the environmental degradation along the Murray River from increased flows.
In fact, the real reason for problems with the Barmah Choke is that we are trying to force too much water down our rivers which is damaging the environment along the way. If the MDBA bothered talking to multi-generational river families, that’s what it will learn.
Instead it comes up with these pie-eyed ideas to justify the failing basin plan, which was built on false assumptions and poor science.
The MDBA tells us “we are still seeing the impacts of legacy issues from almost 200 years ago” and that “ensuring a sustainable future for the river is a mammoth undertaking and it is not something that can happen overnight”.
Of course, we can’t return the river to what it was like 200 years ago because of the infrastructure that has been built and the downstream demands, especially in South Australia. If we go back 200 years (or even only a hundred), we know the Murray River was dry during times of drought and could be crossed by a bullock dray (as photos have shown).
It is also interesting that the MDBA blames an activity from 200 years ago when it’s convenient, but ignores history when it’s not.
For example, the Lower Lakes in South Australia were estuarine before the barrages were constructed less than a century ago.
Now, because it suits the narrative, the MDBA wants to insist that they were historically fresh water lakes. It conveniently forgets evidence such as major Mulloway breeding grounds, and shark or dolphin activity upstream of these lakes.
It is unfortunate that it has reached a point where we find it almost impossible to take the MDBA seriously. One can only conclude that a politically determined flow target to SA, coupled with a $13 billion taxpayer ‘carrot’ to achieve it, takes precedence over peer reviewed science and common-sense decision making.
Maybe one day, as a nation, we will wake up to the con they call a basin plan before our food production capacities are totally decimated.
Peter McCallum,
Moama
