Water politics will destroy rivers

The Albanese Government has been trying to ram through its controversial legislation to tear up the Basin Plan, and in so doing, the deal it did with communities over a decade ago.

This is all about politics, not the health of the river, and it will be in the pursuit of politics that Senators could finally find themselves unstuck in the eyes of the public.

We know there are smarter ways to achieve better environmental outcomes than through the sledgehammer of water buybacks. We know directly investing in the health of our wetlands and aquatic ecosystems are proven pathways, developed by experts and people with firsthand knowledge of the river.

But rather than working with local knowledge-holders, this Government is trying to bulldoze through with a plan that will shut down farms, destroy jobs and communities, while increasing the price of food.

For the majority of voters who live in our big cities, disconnected from the realities of food and fibre production, the idea of protecting rivers by putting more water into them sounds like a good thing.

What they don't see are the once-thriving, hundreds of years old gumtrees falling into our rivers because of constant flooding. They are unaware of the environmental devastation caused by running Australian rivers full as though they were European rivers.

If they really knew, only the most hard-nosed politico would pursue such an expensive, destructive agenda.

Senators are free from the shackles of direct representation, having no one to really answer to other than faceless party apparatchiks and the vagaries of quota-based appointment. This is the point former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating made back in 1992, when he called Senators "unrepresentative swill".

Ironic then that the very confirmation of this undesirable reputation should come as the result of the current Labor Government's desire for an easy political win.