LIFEBLOOD DRAINED
Water is the lifeblood of any community and what has gone wrong when communities find themselves with no drinking water and irrigation communities see water that they cannot use?
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Communities along the Murray see their water allocation at 0 per cent and water passing their properties and are unable to use the water, and are charged $18 a megalitre for use of the channel. Over the border in South Australia, charges are $3 megalitre and 100 per cent allocation.
The MIA allocation stands at seven per cent (May 21), Burrinjuck Dam 30 per cent, Blowering 28 per cent, Hume 14 per cent and Darmouth 63 per cent.
The Dartmouth Dam was built by Victoria Rural Water Commission on behalf of what is now the Murray Darling Basin Authority. The cost was shared by the Commonwealth, Victoria, NSW and South Australia.
The Dartmouth Dam has repeatedly rescued the nations from disaster, people along the Murray River know its valuable to irrigators having four extra million megalitres of water in northern Victoria.
The Murray Darling Basin in Australia is the most important agricultural region, covering more than a million square kilometres, growing a third of all the nation's food, especially in times of drought.
Dartmouth is about 80 kilometres south east of Wodonga and it supports the inland towns and farming communities. In 1982-83 droughts, the dam saved the Murray Valley by releasing water from the Dartmouth and in 1989 the dam was first filled, then the big drought of 2001-10 and in 2007 the dam was at 25 per cent capacity. That was the year Malcolm Turnbull came up with the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
Governments are elected to serve the people in times of need, the Murray Darling Basin Authority has failed the people and the environment.
Fran Pietroboni, Griffith
THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN
Great election result to know the Aussie people's lives will be able to get back to normal with a sense of purpose.
It was not altogether unexpected as the Australian people are well versed when it comes to ferreting out deceitfulness and deliberate willful mischief making by those hell-bent on destroying the stability and sense of proper positive values this nation was founded upon.
It was also gratifying to see the real warmth of Tony Abbott gracious in defeat (as always). He will be remembered as a man able to surmount all abuse directed at him yet shown an inner strength during and after the persecution. We now have a Christian prime minister holding the reins (lucky us). My sincere wish is that he will pull the ABC into line (cut their funding) until they run this taxpayer funded set up with a fair balance of weight for both parties to have freedom of speech rather than a one-sided circus aimed at lefties propaganda with a rigged audience to match.
It's amazing when it comes to the crunch how the silenced ones in our nation can always be counted on to rise to the occasion and hone in on the message that they will not be silenced on election day.
The people have spoken and our nation will be better off for their wise decision.
Long live our blessed land of the free compared to other countries worldwide who do not have this but rather live under a socialist communist regime ruled by the iron fist of dictators.