COULD NEW YEAR BRING BREAK FROM STATUS QUO?
As the world watched the stunning fireworks display on Sydney Harbour, those living over the Blue Mountains continue to battle drought, a plague of kangaroos, fires and a continuation of poorly thought out rural regional policies.
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In the Murray (state) and Farrer (federal) electorates it’s poor policies in water, forests and national park management.
The New Year always brings the promise of an autumn break and hopefully this year a break from the political status quo. With two upcoming political elections it is time for us to evaluate the performance of our state and federal governments.
Have they done a good job? Has our money been well spent? Have the lives of voters across the state improved? Are our natural assets in good hands? Are we proud of their achievements?
Unbelievably, after telling us it would never happen, our governments committed to holding course on water management despite fish and bird kills in the Darling, starving kangaroos and brumbies marooned in flood water and blue green algae blooms in our rivers and lakes posing serious risks to everyone’s health.
Apparently they’re still prepared to ‘flush’ rural regional NSW despite building evidence that the Murray Darling Plan is impractical and is seriously impacting on our way of life.
The MDBA and the NSW state government have not learnt that rapidly draining water reserves in the Menindee Lakes will place big risks for the people and wildlife along the Darling. Drying down other creeks will cause fish and bird kills and place the livelihoods of many at jeopardy. Artificially flooding areas kills plants and animals, damages river banks and breeds carp.
The best that Niall Blair can offer is to relocate the MDBA to an irrigation area in regional NSW. That’s just like shifting deck chairs on the Titanic…Too little, too late!
It is time to have a national conversation about whether we are prepared to continue spending billions of dollars and sacrifice inland NSW environments to save the Coorong which has been in decline and poorly managed by SA since the 1880s.
It’s also time to stop bowing to vague threats about ‘the lesser of two evils’. We’ve been accepting that for three decades. Not working!
Our Governments are abandoning our NSW recreational sites, our natural inland assets and our health for city centric politics. It is time to send a clear message to STOP taking rural NSW for granted!
Helen Dalton, Shooters, Fishers Farmers Party
WE MUST KEEP FIGHTING FOR OUR COMMUNITIES
Firstly I have a question for Niall Blair, the NSW Government and the Federal Government. “If the millions of fish now dying in the Darling River are dying due to drought then how come the very mature fish we have all seen died? Remember they have survived the millennium drought”.
Obviously it would be answered by more spin, but the shocking facts tell the horrible story of our poor old Darling River. It has been manipulated, wrung out and hung to dry by very egotistical, narrow minded politicians and bureaucrats.
The spin coming out of the MDBA is mind boggling, somebody must be working on it full time. I keep saying how biased and deeply flawed the Basin plan is and I will keep saying it.
I am very deeply disturbed about the Darling River and have this horrible thought that will not go away and that is they could do it to the Murray River too if we let them.
We as Australians simply must take control of this disgraceful and disgusting situation to protect our very valuable water assets for our future generations, we must keep protesting and not let our Basin become something akin to a sewer, because that has happened to the Darling River. We must keep fighting.
