Communities have watched the Goulburn and Murray valleys go from being like the Garden of Eden to Death Valley. My grandkids who visit say “living here is like being in an old black and white movie”.

You cannot farm in this area without water and farming enterprises built up over generations will fail unless there is a change; that means a water allocation.

Water is the cure to all mental stress.  

In the past, with current availability there would have had a substantial allocation, but the rules have been changed and the goalposts moved.

Irrigators believe they have been treated unreasonably and without respect. They hear they are unlikely to get an allocation next year.

They know they are being shafted and their elected representatives are completely ineffective. Sound, reasoned argument from local leaders has been completely ignored. Apart from local people, nobody cares. After constant repetition, South Australia’s three big lies are accepted as the truth.

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These are:

(1) The Coorong is in bad health and it’s caused by lack of flow in the Murray. In fact, drainage schemes divert water out to sea – water which previously fed the Coorong.

(2) Lake Alexandrina was always fresh. Captain Sturt in 1830 recorded that the lake was undrinkable and new scientific evidence proves a history of a mostly saline state for 50,000 years.

(3) Salt in the Murray comes from the upstream states. The truth is, salinity levels at Morgan have been falling for 30 years even though permanent plantings alongside the Murray in SA are leaching salt back into the river.

These three big lies are the excuse South Australia has used to get a disproportionate share of a limited resource.

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The NSW Liberal National Government must be held accountable for allowing this mess to happen. They have been completely outplayed by South Australia. They didn’t know, didn’t care.

As Marvin Heemeyer wrote: “Treat reasonable people unreasonably, reasonable people can do unreasonable things.”

There’s talk of a royal commission into the basin plan. My advice to the powers that be is to set up a royal commission with sufficient scope to get to the bottom of this mess. Do it before somebody in authority is treated unreasonably.

As the Burrumbuttock Hay Runners complete their fourteenth journey to supply hay and other equipment to struggling drought-affected farmers, perhaps it’s time to start thinking about how sustainable this is.

If you accept the federal government line that this is just another drought, perhaps there’s a case for emergency measures like using a convoy of trucks to shift hay from fertile areas to infertile areas.

Alternatively though, if you accept the warnings of thousands of scientists that this is the new climate, it seems rather pointless to continue to attempt to farm in areas where farming is clearly not sustainable.