Scrap Basin Plan And Adopt Political Will And Commonsense !

Jeanine McRae ( Griffith ).

Whoopsie. It's not the whole truth and nothing but the truth we're being told here. The only reason the Murray Darling Basin Plan ( MDBP ) referred to just the "environment", and excluded the social and environmental impacts, is because they simply didn't have to under legislation which invoked the act.

Yes, that's right-we are dispensable, our area is dispensable, food security is dispensable, everything is dispensable in favour of "the environment", which can be construed ( or not ) in very broad terms.

When we became party to international/UN agreements, conventions, treaties etc, then that treaty allows the federal government to override state law because the Australian federal government signed the treaties under the external affairs power [ i ] of the Australian constitution.

Thus, the federal government, supported by a High Court ruling can now legislate to enforce any international agreement by invoking the external affairs power. It is my understanding they did so in order to get the states to agree to "water reform".

Therefore, the Ramsar Convention with its wetlands environmental thrust can override our law here, and that is why the MDBA did not legally have any need to refer to any social or economic outcomes, even though the agreement on reform between the states alludes to it. And why don't they legally stick to this ? Because the international convention overrides everything else.

Regardless of any lip-service where they promise to look at it, or indeed, if they do take it into consideration initially, are we able to trust that it won't be changed in 10 or 20 years time ? Therefore, we should immediately insist that the proposed basin plan ( MDBP ) is struck from the legislation. Wiped. Zeroed. Destroyed.

Any future legislation should not refer to any international conventions that can override what we do here. If agreement can't be reached by the states, then we should have no agreement. The money we have spent already on this debacle could probably build an "environmental" dam or dams just for the frogs, birds, Adelaide, and the Lower Lakes.

This year, and last year, would have filled it/them, and for many years there would be an environmental flow that wouldn't need to impact on our already impacted community. Instead of un-dammed lies and stacked statistics, we could have dammed water to flow.

It's a myth that water is scarce in Australia. We have plenty-it just goes out to sea without us catching it. If it makes sense to catch the rainwater off our rooves, then why doesn't it make sense to fill up dams in the good years. Millions of megs of water could be captured if we had the political will to do so.

So, go build an environmental dam for Ramsar. Leave our water and food security alone. This madness is totally unnecessary and easily fixed with some commonsense and political will.