Farmers have been given the rough end of the pineapple by media over the last two months allowing the main problem to flow under the bridge and the public need to shine the spotlight on State and Federal Governments administration of water.
The Queensland and NSW Governments have been abysmal as evidenced by the recent Mathews inquiry in NSW and the ABC Lateline program exposing the Queensland Government but the sleeping elephant is the Murray Darling Basin Authorities either naivety or gross negligence.
The catalyst for the Basin plan was public pressure on the Howard Government and that pressure will return if the billions of taxpayers’ money doesn't show results and people will want scalps.
Many farmers are substantially worse off because of the Basin plan with reduced stock and domestic flows, some with blocked access to irrigation water and some flooded with illegal construction of banks and more importantly the communities that rely on water.
The ABC Four Corners program was the catalyst to the Mathews inquiry in NSW that resulted in the Head of NSW water resigning and a major reform of administration. ICAC has ongoing investigating that will hopefully expose suspect politicians.The Queensland Government situation is no better requiring a major inquiry with theft, banks built without control and creeks and rivers blocked off to create overland flows rendering purchased environmental water as a bit of an expensive joke.
By far the biggest problem is the MDBA who have either turned a blind eye to problems or are incompetent. The MDBA have failed to deliver cap reports as they are required to do under their legislation for the last five years even though their predecessor organisation did so year after year from 1995.
These cap reports would report where all the water was going which is what the PM has asked them to do. By what magical process does he think they will deliver what they have been unable to do for five years. The great fear is they have not delivered the reports because it will show their modelling is woefully wrong and the water flowing down the Barwon darling is hugely reduced since the Basin plan.
A practical bloke who understands the system calculated from gauge readings and the 2012 Barwon Darling water sharing plan that there would be no water below Bourke one in three years. The MDBA reckon it will be okay because the cap over the 118 year average will be met but this is meaningless because if you remove the few huge floods from those 118 years people will only have water one in three years. Another deficiency is they used the 2009 WSP not the highly modified 2012 in their modelling. Governments can kid themselves they are going to issue manage each of these problems with narrow scope weak inquires.
A royal commission is inevitable.