Letters to the editor

Levee conditions an election issue

MANY people have asked what they can do to help with the 35km of levee banks downstream of Swan Hill, between now and this time next year.

With state elections coming up, your vote can do more than you think. You can text, email, phone or write to all politicians or just who you like to vote for.

Ask them if they are aware of the condition that the levee banks are in, and if they will help to find the money to carry out the work needed to repair them.

Make your vote do something.

Colin O’Bryan

Swan Hill

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Basin Plan limitations shown by flood

WHILE the Murray-Darling Basin Authority chief executive Andrew McConville urges us not to “lose sight of the bigger picture”, perhaps it is the MDBA that has done exactly that.

Perhaps the report from Peter Hunt, titled “Basin Plan mimics flood”, hit a nerve that neither the MDBA or our federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek want to acknowledge.

There is a simple fact that a key objective of the Basin Plan is to deliver 80,000 ML/day over the South Australian border, and that in the current flood situation we have been achieving only slightly more, at 83,000 ML/day.

These current flows are causing significant damage along the course of the Murray River.

It is also a fact that the flow volumes proposed in the Basin Plan cannot be achieved without flooding public and private land and there appears no solution to overcome these constraints, just as there is no current solution to overcoming the flow limits through river stretches such as the Barmah Choke.

Additionally, the ongoing damage to the Murray River and its tributaries, in particular in terms of river bank erosion, continues to be ignored by our authorities.

Mr McConville says that “for 100 years prior to the Basin Plan, the Murray River was essentially managed as a pipeline to support towns and irrigated agriculture”. Now, it is used as a pipeline from Hume Dam to Adelaide.

If the MDBA was fair dinkum, it would acknowledge the Basin Plan’s limitations and advise the Federal Government of the same, including the fact that it is pointless acquiring the additional 450GL as proposed, because it cannot be delivered down this “pipeline”.

But instead, we play a fantasy game that gives billions of dollars to bureaucrats and helps politicians win environmental votes, primarily from city folk with limited understanding of the true facts.

Laurie Beer

Mayrung, NSW

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Water buybacks are bad policy

WHY can’t people understand that Albanese Government policy is going to make our food security and cost of living crises even worse?

Stories like the mother who wanted to keep a tub of yoghurt as a Christmas treat for her child are both tragic and totally unacceptable in our modern society. Likewise, we have an increasing starvation problem in other parts of the world.

As these stories unfold, the Albanese Government through its Water Minister Tanya Plibersek announces it will reintroduce water buybacks, which will reduce the capacity of our farmers to grow the food that our nation and the world so desperately needs.

Perhaps the buybacks would be marginally palatable if the water was going to improve the environment, but this will not be the case.

Numerous reports, including the Productivity Commission, have highlighted that if we acquire and store more water for the environment it cannot be delivered due to system constraints.

In other words, it cannot fit down the rivers and could cause additional flooding. Haven’t we seen enough flood damage?

If you are concerned about food security in Australia and starvation around the world, please learn more about the futility of water buybacks. They are strongly opposed by state governments of Labor and Coalition persuasion because they destroy communities (a proven fact) and reduce food supply. Water buybacks are the epitome of bad policy.

Sue Braybon

Tocumwal