From The Editor’s Desk...

By Lloyd Polkinghorne

Water, why I probably will bore you with it!
P.S. It’s long.
Our Federal Government is ‘saving’ the Murray Darling Basin.
It uses the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to:
implement the plan;

• spend $13,000,000,000;
• manage our rivers;
• review the plan;
• provide reviews when complaints are received;

Our communities expressed their concerns for the best part of 15 years.
Those years of being ignored culminated in people leaving their businesses, homes etc to rally peacefully in Canberra, even having been labelled a noisy minority of self-interested bullies before departing.
They rallied and they got an independent review of their concerns.
Step in Inspector General Mick Keelty, he will give these communities the trust they so rightly deserve.
The only state to agree with the Federal Government asking for an independent review is NSW.
The review will push on! Townhall after townhall, I sat and listened as Mr Keelty listened to these desperate people. Mr Keelty kept having to remind people to stay relevant. That’s because he could not look at all the problems, only the ones the Federal Minister for water at the time, David Littleproud instructed. And then there’s QLD, VIC and SA not partaking but it’s still a genuine review of the Murray Darling Basin Plan implemented by the Murray Darling Basin Authority.
Hundreds of attendees, hundreds of submissions, 1,000 of hours and probably $1,000,000’s and the people’s concerns are essentially assessed by the Murray Darling Basin Authority themselves.
You know the ones who implement the plan, manage our resources and mark their homework. 
Then the media celebrates that there was ‘nothing in these peasant’s claims,’ “Review Finds Nothing!” “On Time and in Full.”
So people essentially reviewing themselves find nothing, shock horror.
If it’s all so ridiculous why don’t the politicians act? Or public servants?
Maybe it’s because politicians don’t even have to declare they own water. Yet as a third-generation young farmer I saw prices explode from $300 permanent general security to $1,800!
In 2004, legislation was passed requiring a water register. The Federal Government spent $30,000,000 building one and dropped it with no explanation.
Then there are the super funds of government employees operating in the irrigation space, developing wildly expensive irrigation layouts, even growing cotton in Victoria.
Then there’s ICAC investing corruption claims and years on nothing.
Also, questionable government water purchases, many times over the market rates, allegations of politicians with interests in governments who benefit.
The list of politicians with shares in companies that are playing in the water space would be staggering.
But it’s ok, it’s an adaptable plan based on best available science.
What if that contradicts other prominent scientists, historical accounts, geography and even the mighty power of the Southern Ocean?
Why does it matter if it’s salty or fresh anyway?
Well, several key objectives relate to the health of the lakes.
They are Ramsar listed you know, like Japan’s rice paddies, like Australia’s could be, they qualify and provide critical habitat to migratory birds, ask Birds Australia or the Bitterns In Rice project. You know the endangered bird that has lost 80% of its habitat in Australia under the Murray Darling Basin Plan. Yeah, rice isn’t just good to feed your body, it’s also home for the endangered Southern Bell frog but that’s fine as Phillip Glyde said at Senate Estimates “there are winners and losers.”
That’s O.K. for the Southern Bell Frog, Bittern and the millions of other animals that rely on rice. That’s right, I said nice things about rice.
Because, if you know anything about rice, it’s grown on flood plains in the Riverina. You know those things that existed before us white fellas cleared the natural wetlands and put irrigation farms where the water used to sit for up to six months? Not sure what crop sits in water?
Maybe it’s O.K. though, because we’re saving the environment. The Basin is 70% privately owned, 30% public. What percentage of this 30% are the environmental objectives of the plan? 5% of that 30%?
But it’s ok, we’re saving the environment... Just not yours...
Ok, if they’re spending $13,000,000,000 ($13 Billion) with no meaningful oversight or accounting, I’m sure that small percentage of the 30% publicly owned should be a ripper!
But it’s not. But it’s O.K., the Murray Darling Basin Authority is monitoring that bit of the environment. You know the ones that the people had written on their trucks in Canberra, at that noisy bullying irrigators one? Slogans like ‘save the Yanco/Billabong’.
You know the Yanco/Billabong right? Holds some of our most precious wetlands, the ones they were going to effectively kill under the SDL projects for the Basin Plan. Well until the guilty secret came out, you know about the modelling and that the project would probably only benefit corporate irrigators on the Murrumbidgee? Surely couldn’t be the same corporates with funded giant storage dams under the Murray Darling Basin Plan?
But we’ve got the ‘environment’ just not the narrow sections of the Murray and Edward rivers. You know the ones that have been eroded by up to four metres, I’m sure the platypus can find another home.
Why didn’t those greedy irrigators erode these things over the last 70 years? Well, that’s because the water was attached to the land. The water that was always in that area was allocated to our parts of the flood plain. But that won’t work for the Murray Darling Basin Plan. You can’t ‘save the environment’ by not being able to ‘return’ water, right? Also, don’t forget those economics. We want water going to the highest value crops, not what works with the environment.
That’s why under the plan, Sandhills of the Victorian Mallee and Western Riverina, where family farmers went around the big old trees for a hundred years had to be cleared and levelled, not completely levelled just enough so the almond harvesters of the foreign companies, who don’t pay tax, can harvest their mad profits! ‘How much profit,’  you say? Well if dairy, wheat etc are out at $250-300, almonds will pay up to $900 for temporary water, mad coin indeed! But that’s economics of an environmental plan opening new irrigation districts on land NEVER PREVIOUSLY IRRIGATED.
But don’t stress, we’ve still got this. And if we don’t just ask the Murray Darling Basin Authority, or our politicians, you know the ones who have let foreign companies pay no tax for the past 67 years as they take our natural resources. But it’s O.K., they don’t have to help with the $1,300,000,000,000 ($1.3 Trillion) debt we will soon have.
Nah, just kidding don’t stress about the debt thing, Our manufacturing, forestry, fishing industry and food bowl will power us back from the brink, whoops I swear I saw them a minute ago.
Well if we can’t find them I’m sure China will partner with our infrastructure projects and we can always import whatever we need whenever we need it and if not the Murray Darling Basin Authority will have a report to cover it.
not completely levelled just enough so the almond harvesters of the foreign companies, who don’t pay tax, can harvest their mad profits! ‘How much profit,’  you say? Well if dairy, wheat etc are out at $250-300, almonds will pay up to $900 for temporary water, mad coin indeed! But that’s economics of an environmental plan opening new irrigation districts on land NEVER PREVIOUSLY IRRIGATED.
But don’t stress we still go this and if we don’t just ask the Murray Darling Basin Authority, or our politician’s, you know the ones who have let foreign companies pay no tax for the past 67 years as they take our natural resources but it’s ok they don’t have to help with the $1,300,000,000,000 debt we will soon have.
Nah, just kidding don’t stress about the debt thing, Our manufacturing, forestry, fishing industry and food bowl will power us back from the brink, whoops I swear I saw them a minute ago.
Well if we can’t find them I’m sure China will partner with our infrastructure projects and we can always import whatever we need whenever we need it and if not the Murray Darling Basin Authority will have a report to cover it.