Michael Moore’s Capitalism. Muddied low-brow critique or seminal turning point in the popular appreciation of a system past decay? The IPA’s Chris Berg and Overland editor Jeff Sparrow weigh in.
Plenty of water for Murray Darling, just no political will
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Getting some water to the Coorong and Lower Lakes is, it seems, all too hard for Penny Wong. Her department’s report on options for addressing the crisis is an extended explanation of why, gee, much as it hurts us to say it, nothing can be done. The report — a submission to the Senate inquiry into water management of the Lower Lakes and Coorong — canvasses a number of options for addressing acidification in the area. Pumping is currently underway from Lake Alexandrina to Lake Albert and can be extended because of recent rainfall. That can continue until late summer, according to the report. But that’s about it for the “good news”. The other options are:
All very grim – but there are a couple of options that the report — inexplicably — doesn’t consider. One is to purchase water in the northern Basin and use it to replenish the Menindee Lakes while they are used to supply some of the water necessary for the Coorong and Lower Lakes. This would cut down on the amount of water lost in evaporation (which gets worse the longer we wait and warmer it gets) in transit, and ensure the Menindee Lakes water can remain available for critical human needs. The other is to remove the 4% trading cap immediately and start buying some of the water in the southern Basin that is available for purchase right now but which can’t be because of John Brumby’s desire to look after irrigators and water traders. The claim that purchasing water would result in $1b worth of damage to the horticulture industry got a good headline in The Australian. But the report offers no evidence or rationale for the figure. Nor does it make sense – none of the options proposed relate to compulsory acquisition of water rights, so the only acquisitions would be from willing sellers, presumably on the basis that their production has become unviable. Despite these flaws, the report enables Wong to explain, in her Valium-like monotone, that as much as she’d love to do something about the Lower Lakes and Coorong, there’s not enough water. There is enough water in the Murray-Darling system. She and her bureaucrats just lack the will to obtain it, or at least fight to get it. |
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7 Comments
The reason many people voted for the Rudd government was to reassure them that they could implement their rhetoric and, with all other Labor Governments address the problems of the RMDB. Widespread community support should give them the will to cut through the gordian knot surrounding action on this national issue. If John Howard can send troops to Iraq, then Ken Rudd can surely unleash a community based effort to put the environmental conditions right for the Basin and then rebuild the food production of the area. Spend the money, buy out big cotton and rice growers, change water allocations from %ages to specific quantities below over-allocation and based only on future availability, and do it. If we can’t handle this problem as a nation then peak oil and climate change action will never occur - until it’s too late of course.
No! Wally is w-ong……
Garnaut in his address to the Press Club introducing his report said more than any politician of the importance to the people of Australia of the Murray-Darling culturally, environmentally and agriculturally.
That in itself is an indictment.
Bracks and Rudd should be roasting over hot coals because of their financially wasteful deceit.
There is no will only torpor.
Interesting that Rudd uses Nelson’s correct identification of the essence of the problem on Monday night’s Lateline program to lambast him in parliament the following day.
It suits Rudd to have “climate change” blamed for the imminent catatrophe facing the lower lakes.
It may also suggests an alterior motive for the inaction. That may be overly cynical. I hope not.
The CSIRO reports alluded to by the PM have been widely discredited. Nelson was quite correct. The greatest devaluers of AGW are the language and silliness of champion proponents such as Hansen and our own dud Flannery and pollies with axes to grind and no particular clue of the nature of the debate such as Rudd.
One of our greatest natural environmental resources is going down the toilet because there is no genuine desire to rescue it. The question is why?
Well done Bernard Keane for continuing to write in some detail on this issue!
Wong is right! Keane is off. Remove the artificial barrier to the sea and place it across the entrance to Lake Alexandrina below Wellington and live with it.
No Wally, you go and live with it. Most Australians (unless they are irrigators and farmers) actually do care about the dying Murray Darling Basin, and its death.
Keane is a master of this wonkish tedium, but is that really what Crikey is about? Or, at least, is that what the Canberra correspondent’s role is about?
Well said Bernard Keane! At last there is some understanding appearing that the trite words and non-action of the boring Penny Wong, and her leader show their gutless intention to do nothing - not even try!!
There has to be a will to act, and hopefully achieve something - even a little bit of success.
Poor old Dr. Nelson really did get it right when he said that this crisis is nothing to do with climate change - it’s all about a 1 in a 100 year drought, and 100 years of selfish mismanagement.
The blame game has to stop and the action has to start. The “I’m alright Jack” syndrome espoused by Bracks and Brumby must be overturned by a Prime Minister with guts and the determination to get on with solutions. Don’t just do one thing - do ten things now!. Then if five prove wrong, at least the other five might work.
Unfortunately we don’t have that strength of leadership do we?