The South Australian royal commission found that the Basin Plan got mangled by successive water ministers - in breach of the Water Act, mind you - to score political points.
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Well, any damn fool with a brain in his skull could have told you that. Back in 2017, when the candidates had their Q and A at the Coro Club, every single one of them was critical of the plan and the Authority for one reason or another.
The Murray Darling Basin Authority’s an independent, non-partisan body that makes judgements based exclusively on the environmental demands of the river system.
There is no bias, no politicking, no green-left conspiracy, they just looked at the numbers and said “this is what needs to happen or else the river’s kaput”.
Only “what needs to happen” is politically unpopular with people who’ve been doing the same thing the same way for the last hundred years.
People don’t like change. Enter big irrigators like Anthony Barlow allegedly shifting ill-gotten water, then fish kills, then the Nationals close behind blaming the whole damn thing on South Australia, drought and shadowy Marxist cabals, because they’ve been mismanaging the beast for years.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t care about the plan’s economic impact - country towns rely on that river - but the solution isn’t to plug both ears and hope it goes away.
That’s idiotic, and it’s counterproductive.
Even if you don’t buy the climate thing, any scientist worth his salt’ll tell you running the basin like we always have isn’t sustainable. A kid who gets to class on time can tell you about salinity.
You do nothing, the system falls apart; you run a botched plan like they’ve been doing, you have no motivation to find a way to make rural economies work within its framework. The end result is a shot river or a shot economy, maybe both.
But “politically unpopular” means a whole hell of a lot in an election cycle. The Coalition’s going to keep on the path of “climate change? What climate change?”, and half-heartedly blunder through the same feeble charade.
The Shooters, Fishers and Farmers “assert the right to farm free from oppressive green and red tape” and therefore won’t be of any help; and Thomas Weyrich, the One Nation candidate, has taken the baffling position of “good knowledge and good science don’t have a place in this debate”.
Meanwhile, Labor’s not got a chance in hell in Murray, and the Greens can’t even be bothered staggering in through the door. This is the situation.
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