The Murray Darling Plan

I attended the information meeting for the Murray-Darling Plan/Guide/Draft this afternoon. The Crossing Theatre was packed with people coming from all over the region, including Tamworth and the eastern parts of the Namoi catchment as well as many locals.

The Murray-Darling Basin covers a huge chuck of the Eastern third of the continent. Part of the dilemma for planners is that irrigation has become a huge economic driver in the last 50 years, but it appears that too much water has been allowed to be taken out and the environment is suffering. With a 10 year drought and the excessive influence of ideological environmentalists it has become a political hot potato.

What many city people do not realise is that the MDB is home to over a million people- excluding Canberra and Adealide. It isn't just desert and wilderness interspersed by rich fat cotton growers.

There is a lot of argy-bargy going on over the politics and how this plan might be implemented.

I'm pleased to see that the MDBA has come to the realisation that it's not just about water and the environment but the lives of lots of people and the towns and communities that we love so deeply. They seem to understand that they will have to tread lightly as they try to work out what a sustainable river system might look like.

The challenge will ultimately be to persuade politicians to invest in the MDB environment. For example the Menindee Lakes which is an artificial system designed to provide water security for the city of Broken Hill, loses more water in evaporation than is the capacity of Keepit Dam. By learning to eliminate that kind of needless loss, and by helping irrigators to improve their own infrastructure, it should be possible to improve the health of the rivers and wetlands without just cutting irrigation production.

But that costs money, and where Governments cough up real hard cash shows what their priorities really are. I hope that our Governments, State and Federal, are genuinely prepared to invest the kind of money needed. Past history suggests that they will not be.