FEDERAL Water Minister Tanya Plibersek is bulldozing Parliament and set to take another 450 gigalitres of water away from Australian farmers by Christmas through the Water Amendment Bill, leaving Australian food and fibre production on its knees.
A major shockwave is again about to hit the supermarket shelf. If you thought shopping during COVID was hell, well this is going to be worse. Yet politicians are happy to make you suffer.
Water buybacks are divisive, as they severely impact the economy, environment and population of our river communities.
Head to the centre of the Southern Basin of the Murray Darling River system, Kerang/Cohuna in Victoria and Wakool/Deniliquin in NSW. It is the epicentre of water buyback destruction and not a favourable place for a politician to visit.
Eighty-three per cent of the environmental water recovered under the Murray Darling Basin Plan has come straight out of the Southern Basin, economically devastating these communities on both sides of the Murray River.
While redgum forests lie in water for eight months of the year, environmentally flooded for the third consecutive year, even with two years of natural flooding, you are losing high quality food supplies grown under stringent Australian safety protocols. Instead of being used to grow food for this nation’s population and balance our finances, much of this freshwater is being flushed out to sea.
Gone from the region are 228,000 prime lambs, 34,000 prime beef cattle and over 50,000 dairy stock, over 70 dairy farms and the loss of over 1500 personnel, all affecting Australia’s overall food supplies.
The impact to the region an annual loss of over $1.3 billion.
Add a loss of 40 per cent children in schools, the community has been hit hard, placing pressure on critical mass for social engagement but also causing business closures.
Yet the Federal Government wants more.
They already hold 2750 gigalitres of environmental water which the Commonwealth environmental water holders says they can only use 78 per cent of. But they want another 450 gigalitres to bring their total to 3200 gigalitres. How much more? Port Phillip Bay plus two Sydney Harbours-full of water.
They already have 4622.5 gigalitres in storage more than they want.
River communities keep highlighting the nightmare they are suffering, but government officials keep implying the communities don’t know what they are talking about.
Work it out for yourself who is right, with losses of meat, milk, cheese, butter, fruit, and vegetables production, has the price gone up on the supermarket shelf? Has your cost of living risen?
Seems it is more important for government to destroy river environments and habitats that have been formed naturally over millions of years, artificially flooding them while tipping millions of litres of freshwater out to sea in the second-driest continent on Earth at the expense food production. Apparently COVID hasn’t taught them anything. No-one else is going to look after Australians other than us. We must stop the destruction and any future Federal Government water buybacks.
Geoff Kendell
Chairman
Central Murray Environmental Floodplains Group Inc
