Here we go again. Yet another taxpayer funded junket has been completed looking at unachievable Basin Plan water delivery targets through the eyes of an Emperor - this time by the Independent Advisory Panel for Constraints Relaxation.
Neither this, nor any of the other previously commissioned junkets, has ever made any effort to determine if any of the flow targets proposed by the Basin Plan are physically achievable.
This is despite DEECA (Victorian government) and the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s own modelling showing any additional water added to the Murray and Goulburn River systems under maximum proposed constraint relaxation conditions, is all gone by Torrumbarry.
How is it possible that all these people are prepared to continue to spend billions of our dollars on a Basin Plan that has set itself operational targets that cannot be met?
It wouldn’t happen in private enterprise, and if it did those responsible wouldn’t have a job for long.
Politicians and government agencies think there are votes and their personal job security in perpetuating the myth that even the illusion of adding more water to our rivers will turn them into enlightened visionaries, and city dwellers who know no better are falling for this rhetoric.
The advisory panel says it proposes a framework for governments to establish a clear direction and then move forward progressively, learning through delivery and adapting as experience is gained, and, the panel’s findings are directed toward the main barriers that have limited progress: insufficient social licence, weak accountability for delivery, and misalignment between governments.
What the hell does any of that mean?
It sounds to me like the MDBA is content to just keep kicking the can down the road, and their political masters are happy for that to continue.
I will be blunt. The aspirational assumptions that are legislated as the enhanced environmental outcomes in the Basin Plan for the delivery of end of system flows cannot be achieved.
Anyone that understands water delivery issues know this, but maybe we need a six year-old child to stand up and say it, like in the Emperor with no Clothes, for anyone to actually listen.
Yours etc.
Richard Sargood
Chairman, Murray River Action Group
10°C