GOVERNMENT MUST LISTEN TO YOUTH VOICES
Dear Editor,
Being a young person within Greater Shepparton and someone who has continued to pursue professional ways to advocate for the rights, needs and desires of young people across our state, it is quite alarming that my hometown’s council has seemingly forgotten the voices of so many young people.
Having done a brief stint in Melbourne for the beginning of a degree, I realised how incomparable the youth voice support is between Melbourne and Shepparton, seeing recently that Campaspe Shire Council is advertising applications for their youth advisory group, it is disappointing that the last thing I can find from the Shepparton Council concerning a youth voice body interacting with Council was now more than two years ago.
Young people, especially those under the age of 18 should be provided the opportunity to influence the policies that will impact them for years to come, whether that’s at a national level or a local level. Disenfranchised young people tend to only become less engaged when they feel as though their needs are ignored and that the focus of policy is merely in pursuit of political gains and focused on serving the political interests of an individual rather than the good of the community.
Having disbanded and defunded the previous Word and Mouth organisation, the poorly executed replacement has had little continued involvement, and if you were to survey most young people – or adults for that matter as to whether we even had a youth advisory body, the closest thing which you could draw would be the GS Young Champions. While playing an important role in providing information, it does not properly fulfil the same purposes as Word and Mouth had.
Consider this a request to the sitting councillors, with elections looming this year, please remember the voices of not only those who will be going to the polling booth this year but also those who will be going to them in a few short years.
Sincerely,
Rowan
Mooroopna
BUYBACKS AND FLOOD MITIGATION UNALIGNED
Dear Editor,
A document updated on the Murray-Darling Basin Authority website on February 7 explains issues around relaxing constraints, describing a ‘constraint’ as “a technical term that reduces the ability to deliver water for the environment”.
Of course, it’s pointless recovering and storing environmental water if there are ‘constraints’ that thwart the ability of authorities to deliver that water.
Therefore, in a common-sense world, wouldn’t any reasonable thinking person deduce that the constraints issue must be resolved before governments recover more water than can be delivered? Because if you don’t do it this way, we will have too much water stored in dams and will significantly increase the flood risk when there is an unexpected rain event.
And yet the MDBA tells us it will be preparing a constraints ‘roadmap’ by the end of 2024, and the Albanese Government has extended the time “to design and implement the constraints measures projects” to December 2026.
This is being done at the same time as the government announces its next round of buybacks, which is the worst possible way to recover water due to the damage to rural communities and the Australian population in general, as they reduce food production.
Talk about putting the ‘cart before the horse’!
It is such a shame the Basin Plan has degenerated into a plan that is all about politics, not the environment. If governments were genuine about maximising water efficiency and using it in the best possible way for the environment and food production, there would be far more rigour around what volumes it actually needs to recover, and how they can best be stored and delivered.
Buying vast volumes of water at massive taxpayer expense, when you don’t even know how much will fit down the system without causing even more flood damage, is surely the methodology of fools.
Yours faithfully,
Stuart Hipwell
Wunghnu, Vic
