The Murray River crisis isn’t farmers versus the environment: It is big business versus everyone else – local farmers, communities and the environment.
This week I visited the Riverina and Murrumbidgee. I saw irrigation expansion as far as the eye can see and huge new dams that have been built using taxpayers’ money.
Dams that will catch even more water, leaving those of us downstream even worse off.
For years the argument made by politicians and big industry players is that the battle over the survival of the Murray-Darling river system is “environment v farmers”.
Cleverly, those who haven’t wanted to accept that the river was over allocated, with too much water being taken out for it to survive, have pitched environmental needs against the needs of river communities.
Divide and conquer. Classic, brutal, power politics.
This week’s Four Corners showed that tired old argument for what it is. Greed has exposed the truth. This can no longer be explained as farmers versus the environment, it is actually about big business versus everyone else – local farmers, communities and the environment.
Big, foreign and corporate interests only care about their profits. They don’t mind what happens to our rivers in years to come, and they don’t care about the family farm on the property next door. Taxpayer rorts and gaming the system is all part of doing business. With the ear of politicians in Canberra, through donations and mates looking after mates, they can get away with it.
Now we know, after a million dead fish on the Darling, and family farms on the brink of closure, that both the environment and farmers have been left high and dry.
Here in South Australia, we know if we want thriving river communities, clean drinking water and a healthy Coorong, we need environmental flows.
The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was meant to save our river. As the SA royal commission showed, maladministration and politicised science have allowed the plan to be undermined. With most of the $13 billion allocated to the plan spent, the river is still sick and family farms are struggling, while big investors are banking record profits.
This week I visited the Riverina and Murrumbidgee. I saw irrigation expansion as far as the eye can see and huge new dams that have been built using taxpayers’ money.
Dams that will catch even more water, leaving those of us downstream even worse off.
How can this be allowed? It may not be illegal, but it should be.
This is why we need a federal Royal Commission. Those who have been having a lend of the taxpayer at the expense of farmers, rural communities and the environment need to be held to account.
We also need an immediate freeze on money flowing out of Commonwealth accounts while we call in the Auditor-General to investigate where the money has been spent and how much water has actually been recovered.
Not one more dollar should end up in the hands of corporate giants, foreign companies or offshore tax havens while the river dries up. This is a problem for all of us.
With thanks,
Sarah
PS. Join us and help make sure those responsible for the state of the River are held to account.
PPS. Check out my opinion piece in the Advertiser here - https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/sarah-hansonyoung-with-most-of-the-13-billion-allocated-to-the-plan-spent-the-river-is-still-sick/news-story/239efbebf0150f285e7ada3d7ba5abec?fbclid=IwAR0RG_tgKqFP_SIcffSem_jtSQg2aFqu48TseHYAE25D9DxSbfVETElXsSw