A flood of water hypocrisy

On matters of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan and irrigation water in northern Victoria, the hypocrisy of the VFF and the National Party is pure.

While the purchase of more water rights for the rivers by the government is stupid and unnecessary, at least this is what you would expect from the Labor government.

The VFF and National Party on the one hand rightly are critical of this water right purchase, on the other they support a 100 per cent carryover system in Victoria, which has taken 700,000 megalitres of water allocations from farmers each year apart from flood years.

This water now remains in storages with water traders and the environmental water holder’s name on it.

This system was signed off by Water Minister Peter Walsh of the National Party in 2012.

This policy leads to larger and more frequent floods as storages remain too full.

I believe forcing farmers to buy water allocations on water rights they own and pay fees for has done more harm to the dairy industry in northern Victoria than the basin plan itself.

I asked the ACCC: how could the purchase of the right to 1 Ml turn into 2 Ml of storage space be legal?

Will the VFF and the National Party start to support farmers getting allocations on the water rights they own? They have not in 13 years.

– John Brian, Tongala.

Long-term solutions needed

So, the Albanese Government intends to develop a new national food security strategy called Feeding Australia. That would be an about face for them.

They could look at spending more on regional roads and upgrading bridges. They could reinstate the fruit fly control program and expand fire ant controls.

We can do with more agricultural research, since pests and diseases seem to be able to adapt more quickly than our farmers.

Irrigation farmers need to keep what water they still have left. Supermarkets have proven that they require constant scrutiny.

Our national parks and Crown land need much better control measures, either against weeds or deer or pigs or dogs.

Farmers’ problems have been brewing for years and are never going to go away. We need to legislate some long-term measures.

Intermittently throwing taxpayer money at these things, then sitting back and pretending what wonderful progress is being made, won’t create certainty for food producers.

We have seen what that approach did in the childcare industry. Thank you to Four Corners!

– Chris Dwyer, Kyabram.

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Friday, 13th December 2024

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