LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Water for all
Our mayor is in lock step with the Nationals on water policy (“Moar rejects buyback bid” The Guardian 16/07/21) and their position is dangerous and lacks integrity.
The day after Barnaby Joyce regained leadership of the Nationals, they were in Parliament trying to undermine the Basin Plan, yet again. More political stunts designed to polarise communities rather than negotiate good policy.
Swan Hill Rural City Council’s commissioned research “Irrigated Crops in the Swan Hill LGA” (March 2020) determined that between 1997-2018 irrigable area in our municipality alone has expanded by 92% with a 291% increase in permanent plantings.
It says that in 2018 the gross value for irrigated crops was 1.18 billion.
All that has taken place within the cap on take and buybacks for the river.
Too much just ain’t enough for some though, who believe in growth at any cost.
Expansion in horticulture and cotton alone in the Southern Murray Darling Basin is estimated to increase water demand by about 380GL per year in the five years from 2016 and 2021, according to DELWP’s work from 2019.
That’s a 1900GL increase in demand for our shared, diminishing resource, guaranteed to push the price of water up far more than the 450GL required by law to be recovered for the river.
As an irrigator I want to make sure our extraction is both fair and sustainable and enables our rivers and lakes to thrive.
Our communities need clean water to drink and places like forests and lakes to recreate in, especially during our long hot summers.I’m fearful though, that there are other issues threatening our water future that are not being properly addressed by all governments:
· Climate change reducing our median inflows by up to 50% on the previous century (Mick Keelty report)
· Irrigators in the Northern Basin taking water via floodplain harvesting – unlicensed, unmetered and for free which diminishes our water availability. Slattery and Johnson (2021) estimate the capacity for this type of take has increased by approx. 2.5 times since the cap, to approximately 1400GL. A “freely available bonus” to those irrigators according to NSW Water advice from 2003!
· Metering and compliance in the Northern Basin completely inadequate.
· Unregulated new irrigation development driving the price of water up and contributing to a water shortfall and deliverability risk in future dry years.
The whole community really needs to think about what kind of rivers and water quality we want for our future.
At a time when water is treated as a property right and is owned privately (often by foreign entities), I think a good supply of publicly owned water is a very good idea.
Peta Thornton, Woorinen
Fury at the bureaucratsI
WOULD like to say first, the letter in The Guardian a few weeks ago from David at Wakool was spot on, it hit every nail on the head.
I’m not sure where to start with all the cr*p and BS over the last 18 months.
The simple and clear things are, that all this year, there has only been two deaths from Covid 19 – so much for the Delta type, supposed to be the worst kind.
[Ed’s note – that number has since changed].
All we get every minute is the same people and the same thing said, but there is no one, or other media outlets, will concentrate on the real and bigger picture.
How many businesses have been lost?
How many livelihoods lost?
The rates of family violence and divorce?
And that is just to name some issues, there are many more that could be named.
But that would be the truth, and we can’t have that named!
The [Covid] numbers aren’t scary at all, and media outlets are to blame.
They’re supposed to be independent from any governments.
Instead, they dish us up what we get every day, every minute, and think of ratings only.
They live off the scare and the hype, and it shows they’re in bed with politicians and other groups in this.
In our past and more recently, we have had marches and voices for all reasons – sexualities, races, religions, and many other issues, but now we do nothing for a free society.
Our basic human rights are being dictated over.
In regards to society, what have we become?
In the past, our ancestors would be turning in their grave.
Justifiably so – these bureaucrats are playing God, and they would have to be the worst bunch we’ve had so far in this country.
We have been treated like a mob of sheep.
NAME AND ADDRESS NOT SUPPLIED.
Concern about Chinese pilotsI
HAVE great concern about the training of Chinese pilots in our skies above Swan Hill.
Fifty years ago, I was in Vietnam, in a major operation in 1971.
It was called ‘Operation Overlord’, which has been recently recognised by our government with a wreath laying ceremony in Canberra.
Australia lost a few young soldiers in that skirmish.
With the continued aggression shown to Australia at the present time shown by the Chinese regime, will the next time we see these graduate pilots be in a war plane?
Greg Whitlar, address not supplied.
