2019-03-26
Barnaby Joyce should be blaming his party’s consistent backing of corporate cotton for his electoral woes, not water flowing into South Australia, the Greens say.
“Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals will defend their corporate cotton grower mates to the bitter end. They only have themselves to blame for their NSW election blowout, as much as they want to pin it on South Australia,” Greens water and environment spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
“This isn't the first time Barnaby Joyce has tried to blame South Australia for the state of the river. The fact is if he wasn’t doing favours for corporate cotton, the Nationals wouldn’t be bleeding votes in river seats.
“A healthy river must be the priority. When the river is healthy, our river communities have clean drinking water, we don’t have mass fish deaths, and there is water for our nation’s food bowl.
“This latest attack from Barnaby Joyce is simply malicious from a member of a party that has continuously done the wrong thing by their constituents, our nation’s most important river system and the people who rely on it. If we are serious about restoring the river and cleaning up the corruption and rorting the Nationals turn a blind eye to, we need a Royal Commission.
“South Australia is at the bottom end of the river, we bear the brunt of bad decisions upstream and we’re not going to cop attacks from a man who boasted about taking water from the environment to hand to big corporate irrigators. The Nationals should be stripped of any responsibility over water policy before it is too late for our river.”