Dear Editor
A wide range of individuals and organisations seeking improvement to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan have attended recent hearings of a Senate inquiry which is investigating its implementation.
However, this is not the first Senate Inquiry we have attended.
A Senate Inquiry visited our region in 2015 and prepared a comprehensive report, including 31 recommendations to improve the Basin Plan.
Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie, for one, was here in 2015 and is a committee member again this time around.
So what have we seen since 2015? The answer, unfortunately, is nothing.
All we get is a succession of Water Ministers, none with the knowledge, courage or power to fix the numerous flaws in the Basin Plan.
We see local Members of Parliament who continue to get silenced by their leaders who see too much political risk in taking affirmative action.
We have politicians who lack the courage to acknowledge the well-known fact that the plan was built on questionable science for political reasons, has not delivered as promised, has caused unintended environmental damage and, importantly, has economically damaged rural communities to a far greater extent than the modelling suggested.
Under those circumstances, we should reasonably expect our political leaders to take serious action to right the wrongs.
Instead, as we saw at the most recent Senate Inquiry hearings, all we get is political posturing and playing the ‘blame game’ with no effort to work constructively with our communities to develop a better Basin Plan.
All the major parties are complicit in the shameful way our farmers have been treated under the ‘plan’. The Liberals, led by Scott Morrison, are too afraid of the backlash from South Australia; the Nationals, ‘led’ by Michael McCormack, pander to Morrison; and Labor/Greens see nothing but the environmental votes they may win or lose.
History will not look kindly on the political legacy in this important policy area.
Yours etc,
Lachlan Marshall
Speak Up Chair
