50% Reduction in NSW and Victorian Irrigation Water Use Since 1997-8
Lloyd Polkinghorne, Editor of The Koondrook and Barham Bridge newspaper, writes that there has been a 50% decline in irrigation water use in NSW and Victoria since 1997-8. This is the cause of an ongoing economic and financial disaster for the vast majority of people in these areas.
Lloyd is one of the most consistent advocates for the people in the irrigation areas of NSW and Victoria. This automatically makes him one of the most consistent critics of the Murray Darling Basin Authority and its Basin Plan.
Among multiple points in the article, Lloyd quotes section 100 of the Australian Constitution, which prohibits the Commonwealth from overriding the States regarding water use. The Commonwealth has been able to achieve the management of water use by gaining the consent of these States to do so. The Commonwealth has gained this consent by, in the words of a NSW Minister in 2017, giving the States “a lot of money”.
The States of NSW and Victoria have sold the people in the irrigation areas in NSW and Victoria out to the Commonwealth government.
The Commonwealth government and the States of NSW and Victoria are equally responsible for removing irrigation water from these areas, and are equally complicit in the consequent economic, financial, and social disaster.
Only the formation of a Riverina State, which will assume the responsibility for water as authorized in the Australian Constitution, will secure and preserve the prosperity of the people in these areas.
David Landini
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