Shadow Minister for Environment and Water Tony Burke just can’t let go of his 450 gigalitre eleventh hour promise to South Australia. It might have clinched the deal so far as getting SA on board with the plan in 2012, but to keep flogging it while disregarding the social and environmental damage is counterproductive.
Let the 450GL gather dust while the immediate delivery, environment and economic issues are sorted. Given the fish kills, bank erosion, farm flooding and job losses already happening, there just isn’t room right now for more water to be flushing downstream.
Communities are hurting. The environment is too. Repairing the Murray-Darling Basin is not going to happen from hitting some arbitrary water-flow target.
The system doesn’t have huge swathes of reed beds, swamps and marshes that once pulled the energy from high flows and kept the water oxygenated as it went. We need sensible targets that recognise the river has changed and that healthy communities also have a role to play in healthy rivers.
The high flows, whether from environmental releases or natural events, have been damaging river banks, riparian and farming areas.
Fish kills, trees toppling into rivers and expanding river bank erosion, not to mention regular flooding of otherwise productive farm land and infrastructure, demonstrate a gap between the ideals and reality of chasing that elusive water target versus working on actual river health initiatives.
Socioeconomic and river health issues continue to take a back seat in Labor’s, and South Australia’s agendas.
Given the findings of the Northern Basin Review, which have been clear on the high potential for economic damage, surely it’s a good time to ease off the pressure for the extra 450GL.
With submissions due in tomorrow for the Northern Basin Review and submissions due on March 31 for the House of Representatives investigation into agriculture and water resources, communities in the Murray-Darling Basin should be seizing the opportunity to highlight that river and community health hasn’t reached a point yet where an extra 450GL can be sustainably flushed downstream.
Mr Burke needs to take a good look at the bigger goal here. Non-flow measures must play a bigger part and until that happens there isn’t room for SA’s 450GL.