ATTENDING last week’s MDBA Rivers Reflections Conference in Albury, the warm fuzzy-feeling conference highlighted the need for through leadership for a highly collaborative approach with all stakeholders in the basin.
MDBA handed out its Basin Plan Review Early Insights Paper, which was the focus of day two work sessions.
However, the paper did not mention the nation’s food-producing farmers or water needed for critical human needs but did at last acknowledge First Nations people.
According to the MDBA, there were 300 people in the room who had taken the time to travel from all parts of the basin to attend, stating, “Here we have thousands of years of water and land management expertise in one room”.
However, at the last minute, Minister for Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek pulled out of her 15-minute day-two opening address.
Instead, she gave a three-minute pre-recorded speech on the room’s big screen, which was seen as both deceptive and a snub to those who had travelled specifically to hear and interact with her.
You could feel the discontent across the room.
There was no collaboration here. No respect shown to those in attendance, just contempt from a minister with a legacy to take as much water as she can, while destroying the nation’s irrigation communities and their ability to grow and process Australian food and fibre.
Geoff Kendell,
Chairman
Central Murray Environmental Floodplains Group
