2018-02-05
Today’s intervention by prominent scientists and economists warning that the roll-out of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is failing should be a wakeup call to Canberra that the health of the nation’s biggest river system is not going to recover without urgent and bold action, Australian Greens Murray Darling Basin spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
"The rollout of the Plan that is meant to save the Murray Darling Basin is failing; without an urgent refocus and effort to secure environmental water, the river will die. A full- independent audit of the Plan is urgently needed," Senator Hanson-Young said.
“The Murray-Darling supports the livelihood and wellbeing of more than three million Australians. Without adequate environmental flows, there is no irrigation, no water coming out of the tap for thousands of families and no tourism. For a strong, healthy river that supports these needs, environmental water must be secured.
“The intervention by economists and scientists today shows that there’s serious lack of trust amongst policy experts. Experts and the community alike, know that things are not as rosy as the Federal Government or the Murray Darling Basin Authority would like everyone to believe.
"Scandals of water theft, tampering of water metres, and rorting of public money spent on water and irrigation subsidies with little water being returned to the river has undermined the Plan and wasted billions of taxpayers’ dollars. The longer authorities and politicians turn a blind-eye to what is happening the harder it will be to get things back on track.
“Despite these scandals, the Senate is being asked to agree to a further weakening of environmental allocations. The Greens will not stand by and let this happen, which is why we will move to disallow the Government's recent push to weaken the Plan's existing Sustainable Diversion Limits.
"Without any confidence that the Plan is delivering the lifeline the River and the environment needs, there's no way we should be allowing the big corporate irrigators to get their hands on more water originally ear-marked for the environment.
“The Greens are calling on Labor and the crossbench to back our disallowance.”