It highlights a need to review the basin plan before there is irreversible damage to regional communities.

In a couple of months about 50 people will be forced to walk away from their job with SunRice, many of them not knowing where the next pay cheque is coming from. These are family members, some of them the key or only bread winner for the family. They’re the collateral damage who seem to be forgotten under a basin plan that continues to hit struggling rural communities, with little action from politicians to address it.

I acknowledge that SunRice has done everything possible to retain its workforce, but with a small rice crop due to low water allocations this has not been possible.

The impact of losing dozens of workers in Deniliquin not only has a significant effect on the individuals and their families, but it resonates throughout the community. There’s a loss of confidence, which is difficult to reinvigorate, as well as the obvious loss of local families who must relocate – usual to capital cities or larger centres – to find work.

Their children leave the local schools so the number of teachers gets reduced; then there’s usually a local service or sporting club that also loses a valuable member. If you’re in a capital city – like those employed by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority who are implementing the basin plan – you’re immune from all this. But it’s real and it needs to be addressed.

Wakool Football and Netball Club last week announced it would not be fielding teams in 2016. This club, with a long and proud history, doesn’t have enough players. Most of its playing stock has traditionally been from local farms, but with virtually no water for productive use this year there are fewer jobs available.

This will have a huge social impact on Wakool, especially for its young people who will have to travel long distances if they want to continue playing football or netball. For some it is likely to be the end or their career as it’s well known that when a person stops playing a sport, for whatever reason, they often never return to it.

The social damage from the loss of a football club can be immeasurable. We are not just talking Saturday sport, it’s also the social interaction at training nights and other functions, providing an opportunity to get together with people from your community.

It is abundantly clear that the basin plan is having a severe impact on rural communities, yet this continues to be down-played and under-estimated by the MDBA. It’s website tells us it is ‘tracking the social and economic effects of the basin plan’ and encourages people to ‘read about our findings’.

The trouble is, this is followed by nearly 10 pages of excuses, but no acknowledgement that the plan is hurting communities and people. We’re told by the MDBA that ‘local community wellbeing depends on viable industries and economic activity’, but nowhere does it admit that communities are suffering from the reduction of water for productive use.

Millions of dollars in production has been lost, and because of that we now have families who do not have a major bread winner. This is unacceptable when it is so unnecessary.

It’s disappointing to hear some people trying to justify job losses from the reduced rice crop by citing secondary reasons, including low inflows into the dams and decisions to grow other crops. Both these factors have had an impact, but the fact remains that it is the removal of water from productive use under the basin plan which is the major cause. That’s the reason people have lost their jobs, so let’s not skirt around it.