Basin royal commission call a distraction – environmentalist

MEMBER for Murray Helen Dalton’s tabling of a petition calling on the NSW Government to demand a federal royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan (MDBP) is a “distraction from the real issue”, it has been claimed.

South-West Water Users Group chair Howard Jones said the petition – as well as ongoing calls to pause or scrap the MDBP – were misguided.

“It’s distracting from what is the real issue and the real issue is that it hasn’t rained,” he said.

Mrs Dalton, who represents the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (SFF) party, will present a petition with more than 10,000 signatures calling on the NSW Government to request a federal royal commission into the MDBP and Murray-Darling Basin Authority as well as establishing a public national water register to increase the transparency of water ownership across the basin.

“Because the petition reached 10,000 signatures, NSW Parliament is obliged to debate and vote on the petition motion,” Mrs Dalton said.

“If Australia’s biggest state supports a federal royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, it’s going to be very difficult for the Commonwealth Government to keep saying no.”

The NSW SFF’s water policy includes a five-year pause of the MDBP and a “pause on all environmental watering”.

Mrs Dalton was an active campaigner in Canberra protests last year over the MDBP and water policy.

Mr Jones said the MDBP was “about the health of the rivers in a broad sense”.

“If anyone who goes out there at the moment can’t see that there’s need for a significant drawback in the northern part of the system — that’s as plain as the nose on your face,” he said.

“And the Murray system is sitting in a fairly precarious (position) overall, health-wise.

“You’ve only got to look at the amount of times that we have, within a month or so after a flood, we’ve got blue-green algae back in again.

“So it means the system isn’t as good as it ought to be and the reason why is because we are taking too much water out of the system.

“We’re running it back to front.”