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The Basin. Can agriculture and environmental happiness coexist?
25-January-2012
As I fly my small plane over this magnificent landscape, I notice a myriad of small bodies of water, marked on my flying chart as various swamps, dams, salt lakes and billabongs. If it rains they have water in them, if it doesn't they are empty. The madness of this Plan would see many of them artificially watered, except no-one has a clue how you would actually do that.
It’s not that long ago, one hundred thousand men and women combined their efforts
to forge a defining moment in Australian history.
At the 1949 launch of the Snowy Mountain scheme, Prime Minister Ben Chifley
correctly forecast it as a national milestone – one responding to our needs to irrigate
the land, while providing valuable drought relief, power generation and prosperity.
Time seems to have changed the way we look at ourselves as a country.
Granted, I can understand how citified masses are bamboozled by talk of over allocations, buybacks & dated irrigation practices – and that many would then believe
we should all use less water, look after environmental sites and return rivers to health.
A worthy concept in itself, but at what cost?
Australia needs agriculture.
Sure, it takes water to run it, but so does mining or constructing a building.
There is also strong evidence to suggest that by 2050 the world won't be able to grow enough food to feed itself - which doesn't leave too many options for miners or builders, or you or me.
Still not sure why the current Murray Darling Basin Plan will take us backwards?
Try these reasons to start with.
If implemented, this Plan would prevent Canberrans from ever watering their lawn or garden again, unless the ACT government bought extra water at ratepayers' expense.
Areas below Hume Dam would be permanently in flood, with 4000 megalitres
of water a day sent down a Murray River channel capable of only carrying 2500 megalitres.
At the expense of hundreds of farms, 2400 wetlands would be watered along the way, although the extravagantly staffed offices of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder have not actually designed the means or the method to do this.
Last, but by no stretch least, you might have imagined a well thought
Murray Darling Basin Plan would involve reflection on how the Darling River could contribute?
Oops. Not factored in, all too difficult, apparently.
All this reminds me of another disastrous intervention into agricultural policy.
The wool floor price scheme saw government paying too much for wool
from growers who continued to produce it for a market that didn't want it.
The massive stockpile caused the scheme to collapse on itself with the industry yet to fully recover.
So can agriculture and environmental happiness coexist?
Yes. And the first step is for the desk bound boffins in the MDBA to be untethered and permitted to visit the Basin, discovering first hand what Catchment Management Authorities, progressive farmers and irrigation companies are already doing in the field.
No, formulaic half day public meetings & consultations do not count.
These are simply stage managed events, where weary river communities say the same things they've been saying for years in front of MDBA suits with faux furrowed brows already predetermined in their course.
Australia may no longer ride on the sheep’s back but wool, rice, dairy, cereals, horticulture and forestry should still be respected and supported for their contribution to our nation’s comparatively healthy physical and economic well being.
Economically unhealthy, is the MDBA which last year alone spent 218 million dollars drafting a plan both sides of the debate disagree with. Compare this with the Snowy scheme which over 25 years cost a billion dollars from go to whoa.
Inland Australia was developed by explorers, drovers and settlers – pioneers of a young country who saw the value of tilling the soil, watering a crop, feeding their family and a nation.
Also, not a bad concept really.