FOR how long will Australians endure the incompetence of our bureaucracies?
The latest blunder by the long-winded Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (what a name!) is beyond comprehension.
Recently this department spent millions of dollars of our money using what many believe are false images to portray the Murray River and its surrounds as an environmental basket case.
Quite obviously, none of the Canberra- and Sydney-based bureaucrats (just like their minister) have bothered to visit the Murray region and learn it is nothing like their images project.
Now, I see they have used an image from Cronulla Bay as part of another Murray-Darling Basin misinformation campaign.
These incompetent bureaucrats, paid with our taxes, are spending $13 billion of our money on a basin plan that is failing rural Australia; it is failing real people who have lived experience, skin in the game and an unwavering desire to protect their environment.
While this department can find many millions for a false television advertising campaign, it can’t seem to find the money to rid our rivers of European carp, which any knowledgeable river scientist will tell you is the most serious problem our waterways are facing.
If they want crystal clear water, the first priority must be addressing the carp problem.
But there’s no money for that, because there are no votes in it.
I cringe at where our nation is heading under some of this politically motivated incompetency, where ‘the good of the people’ runs a distance second to ‘the good of the politics’.
Never has there been a more glaring example than with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
Sue Braybon
Tocumwal, NSW
