Water and
Labor do not mix
Julia Gillard
and Tony Abbott have united to gut Australia’s food bowl. Tony Burke’s
Murray-Darling Basin Plan will strip farmers and irrigators of a huge percentage
of their water entitlement, undermining existing production and indeed the
ideal of any increase to safe guard our nation’s ability to feed itself.
On
average, the Murray-Darling Basin has 32,800 gigalitres (Gl) of annual surface
water inflows. Until this MDB Plan, in a good season farmers used 13,680 Gl, or
around 42 per cent, during many seasons they used far less.
Labors
finalised plan permanently holds back a combined 3,200 Gl of water out of
productive farming, to add to the more than 19,000 Gl of untouched surface
water that is already left to evaporation and to run off to the sea.
Compare
Australia’s lack of foresight to China’s current project to guarantee its
future food security, not only are China here buying up our water entitlements
and primary land holdings, they also have a massive project on the go, to
divert water from the south, where it is plentiful, to its grain belt in the
dry north.
I have
written a few articles over the years on ways we could “grow forward”,
Professor Endersbee’s conception of the Clarence River scheme, an extension to
the Bradfield Scheme for north Queensland, storm water harvesting, aquifer
storage, dam extensions, government subsidised loans for infrastructure
upgrades and the like.
What we
see is a government being stood over by this whole new green/environmentalism
that ignores the fact that in lowering our primary production, without addressing
population growth and the risks associated with our nation becoming reliant on
imported food, is a very dangerous move.
“China is
showing that water issues can be solved”, yet it appears our supposed leaders are
not only are looking the other way, but appear to be undermining our food
industry by letting short sighted environmentalists and free trade shut down
our existing primary production industries and family farms, rather than
pushing for innovated ways forward.
Add to
this the massive array of federal, state and local government red tape, imports
that avoid the heavy scrutiny placed on our producers, foreign government farm
gate subsidies, and the overwhelming damage done by allowing the grocery
Industry to be manipulated by 2 major players, favouring their own corporate
self interest, and the future indeed leaves a lot to be desired.
Allowing the sale of our prime land and our dwindling water entitlements into foreign government hands, is akin to treason, and not supported by the people at any level, and does nothing more than prove the governments agenda is no longer about securing our future.
If the
Labor government wish to continue to be the “Robin Hood” of the world, buying
favour with our hard earned taxes, by donating millions to other nations, one
would think if they have so much of our money to play with, they could throw
Australians a slice, by doing what they are elected to do, and protecting and
securing our future, and that starts our most basic essentials “Food and Water”
It appears that if we vote for either of the major parties, it will be a vote towards the sale of our once fine nation, the destruction of our food security, that leads us as a country to a place that will be very hard to get back from.
Mark
Aldridge
Independent
Candidate
WATER IN AUSTRALIA, WATER, POWER, CHINA AND WATER, MARK ALDRIDGE, ENDERSBEE, CEC, AQUIFERS AUSTRLIA, CANDIDATES 2013 FEDERAL ELECTION, INDEPENDENT CANDIDATES, SOUTH AUSTRALIA AND WATER, WAKEFIELD ELECTORATE