WE are eight weeks into the 20-week Murray-Darling Basin Authority basin plan consultation process and we have only had one round of public meetings in very few places across the basin and as yet have had no announcements when the next ones will be.
Following is an excerpt from Barnaby Joyce’s latest press release and he sums it up perfectly: “This is ridiculous. There are now only 12 weeks left for consultation on the draft Murray-Darling basin plan and we still don’t have a release of the public consultation dates. What is the point of a public consultation period if you don’t use that time to consult the public?
“It’s well and truly time for the authority to come clean with the communities along the basin and release the public consultation dates for 2012.”
Indeed it is time for the authoritty to come clean to the 2.1 million people living in the basin.
This plan will directly have a devastatingly adverse effect on them and their communities and that will then affect all of the Australians and communities relying on them and their income along with their supply of well-priced, safe, clean food.
It has always been my belief that all water required for environmental flows plus much more can be achieved with infrastructure spending.
What we need is vision, commitment and investment.
Unfortunately we are not seeing much of that with this plan.
— PETER GILMOUR,
Save Murray Darling Basin Communities, Cobram
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