Let’s keep Queensland water raiders proposed Kia Ora Dam and pipeline a figment of their fevered imagination

If ever their was an example of a shared delusional disorder it is the belief that the Clarence River system has spare capacity to sustainably water share with the Murray-Darling Basin......

The Chronicle, 4 September 2019, p.16, excerpt: 

Southern Downs: The Southern Downs Regional Council has endorsed and will submit to Infrastructure Australia a list of five key infrastructure projects which support the future infrastructure challenges and opportunities facing the Southern Downs. 

The council resolved at the August general meeting to submit the following projects for consideration: 

Pipeline diversion of water from the Clarence River in NSW to Tenterfield, Southern Downs, Western Downs and Toowoomba...... [my yellow highlighting]

The Chronicle, 3 September 2019, p.5, excerpt: 

It comes as the council [Toowoomba Regional Council] starts confidential discussions around long-term water strategies, which could include new pipelines from northern New South Wales or even a new dam within the region. 

Water and waste chair Cr Nancy Sommerfield said she had been in constant discussions with Water Resources Minister David Littleproud about a new pipeline from the Clarence River in NSW. 

“The Clarence River is something I’m looking to talk about – there’s been a lot of work done on that, and I’m going to Canberra to speak with the minister soon,” she said. 

“I really do like the idea of getting water from the Clarence, because it also solves issues for the Southern Downs.”  [my yellow highlighting]

The Daily Examiner, letter to the editor, 4 September 2019:

Let’s keep Kia Ora Dam a figment of imagination

It comes as no surprise that all four councils currently calling for the damming and diversion of water from the Clarence River system at Maryland River are themselves part of the Murray-Darling Basin group of councils.

It also comes as no surprise that three of these councils are in southern Queensland.

Just like Clarence Valley Council and its predecessors, these four councils have known for decades that they faced a future where diminishing regional water resources and increasing demand would make reliable water supply an issue for local governments.

However, unlike Clarence Valley Council and its local communities, these councils did not attempt to future proof their water supplies until it became a matter of urgency for their own communities.

One could almost feel sorry for them until one realises that at least one of the Queensland councils has started to explore new dam and pipeline options in its own backyard.

So why this push to dam and divert water from the Clarence River system? Well, it seems the best option in the Southern Downs region is considered way too expensive by the council there.

One has to suspect that some bright spark on this council decided that if all three Queensland councils joined forces and included a NSW council for good measure they could get Commonwealth and NSW state funding for a dam twice the size with minimum cost to their own coffers.

In 2017 Southern Downs Regional Council even published the name of this proposed 20,000-30,000 megalitre dam to be sited in the Upper Clarence catchment – it’s called the “Kia Ora” dam.

To date these wannabee water raiders have apparently not even undertaken an up-to-date desktop study on the feasibility of this dam and pipeline proposal.

Yet still they call for a dam which has the potential to reduce the Maryland River below the dam wall to a trickle even after it recovers from the present drought, and the potential to place the Upper Clarence water supply and environmental water flows at greater risk.

It is interesting to note the Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Emu Swamp Dam in southern Queensland mentions previous consideration of “Kia Ora” by Sinclair Knight Merz:

“The Kia Ora dam site on the Maryland River in NSW has been investigated (SKM 1997b, 2007c) but it is not considered to be a viable option. A preliminary analysis suggests that, at full development, the site might be able to provide the required water supplies.

However, more detailed yield assessments for other dam sites in the area have shown that these preliminary assessments have all over-estimated the available yield. It is likely that further work would demonstrate that even the indicated yield is not available.

This site also carries risks arising from the reliability of information that was available to be used in the assessment; the unknown foundations; the high dam wall; the unknown side-spillway foundations; cross-border water transfers and delays and costs arising from the inability of the SSC to use its legislated powers (eg for compulsory land acquisition) in NSW.”

It seems these four councils are not facing the reality of their situation as well as failing to recognise that the Clarence Valley already shares water with a much larger regional population to the south of its own borders and cannot safely increase its water sharing arrangements.

Judith M Melville,Yamba

The Daily Examiner, 3 September 2019, p.11: 

OUR SAY 

BILL NORTH Editor 

For communities such as Tenterfield Shire, whose very survival is quite possibly on the brink without a long-term water plan, tapping into nearby available resources could be what is required to keep crops in the ground and families from moving away. 

The difference between life and death. For the Toowoomba, Western Downs and Southern Downs councils in the northeastern pocket of the failing Murray-Darling Basin, growing populations coupled with water scarcity is a worrying conundrum. 

The headwaters of the Condamine River, which forms part of Australia’s longest river system with the Murray and Darling rivers, rise on Mt Superbus east of Warwick. Less than 50km away as the crow flies is the proposed Maryland Dam site on the Clarence River earmarked by the mayors of those four council areas as top priority in a list of projects to be presented to Infrastructure Australia. 

But as one reader exclaimed when they told me they saw the plans on Southern Downs Regional Council’s Facebook page yesterday morning: “You’ve got to be kidding me. It’s like going to the bank and saying ‘We’re going to rob your bank, watch out’.” 

Any plan to divert water from one system to another leaves a deficit – environmental and economic – where it came from in the first place. 

The Daily Examiner, letter to the editor, 3 September 2019, p.11, excerpt: 

Pipe Dream 

 I have just read this article with great concern and I hope Mayor Simmons and CVC are not waiting for these other councils to get in touch with them before they do something about their proposal to divert our precious Clarence River. 

No offence, but I think this decision is above your tier of government, so I would strongly advise that you take a more proactive stance on this issue. 

We have seen already the damage done by misguided water allocations in the past, (think Murray-Darling as an obvious example), probably half the reason these electorates are running out of water. 

 As I’m sure you are aware, we are in the midst of a severe drought, so this apparently small percentage of fresh water that we take out of the Clarence catchment would in real terms be most of the water currently going in, leaving very little to actually continue on to the sea. What a lot of people fail to realise is the Clarence is tidal to above Grafton. 

This excess fresh water, that we apparently have, mixes with salt water from the Pacific Ocean to form what is known as brackish water and is responsible for its own, very diverse, lifeforms. Ribbon grass, other plants, fish and a great deal of other lifeforms rely on this brackish water. It also carries sediment and nutrients vital to the bottom end of the river and the ocean to sustain life the whole way down.......

As a 55-year-old, third-generation born and bred Clarence Valley local, a surfer, fisherman and son of a professional fisherman, I have had a great love and association with the Clarence and the ocean and would hate to see it destroyed by narrow-minded bureaucrats. 

It would be nice to think it will continue in its present form for my children and theirs. 

Leigh Johnson, Tullymorgan

NSW irrigators still have their heads buried deep in the sand of dry river beds

Ahead of the NSW Local Government Annual Conference to be held from 14-16 October 2019 irrigators' demands are becoming evermore unrealistic in the face of growing surface water shortages due to drought and climate change.

And once again damming and diverting water from the Clarence River system is mentioned.

One has to wonder if the irrigators in the article below realise that, at the point where all the main river tributaries have contributed to the Clarence River flow, water height was only 0.89 metres or slightly less than 3 feet on 28 August 2019, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology which publishes recorded river heights for NSW Northern Rivers.

Water NSW graphs

Further upriver at Tabulum water height was recorded as only -0.04 metres.

The wide full river that these irrigators see on the Internet only runs from Grafton to the sea (approx. 52 kms as the crow flies) and all that way it is saline because the lower river is tidal and that additional undrinkable water volume comes from the ocean.

The Irrigator, Leeton NSW, 27 August 2019, p.5: 

Community leaders agreed to work together to "claw back" water from the NSW government at a Build More Dams meeting recently. 

The meeting attendees agreed to lobby the state government to return "voluntary contributions" of water, which have been siphoned from MIA irrigators since 2002. 

Irrigators had been giving up five per cent of their high security allocations and 15 per cent of their general security allocations, which translates to billions of dollars worth of water - and magnitudes more in today's water prices. Griffith City Council and Leeton Shire Council's mayors also agreed to support the lobbying efforts and urge other councils within the Murray Darling Association to join suit. 

Leeton's mayor Paul Maytom was present at the meeting. 

The committee also agreed to lobby the state government for a feasibility study into the Clarence River diversion scheme that was suggested by engineer David Coffey. 

The scheme would capture Clarence River water in dams and pump it into the Murray Darling system. 

The third and final motion agreed upon by the committee was to take an official stance and throw their support behind a royal commission into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. 

The committee will be joining the ranks of the NSW Farmers Griffith branch, which has also recently thrown their support behind a royal commission.

Queensland water raiders turn their eyes to the Clarence River once more

Calls to dam and divert water from the Clarence River system resurfaced last year.

ABC News, 25 April 2018:

It is an idea that just keeps bubbling to the surface — pumping water inland from the Clarence River in northern New South Wales. 

The latest group to float the proposal is the Toowoomba Regional Council in south-east Queensland. Toowoomba Mayor Paul Antonio said it would be in the national interest to seriously investigate the plan. 

"I think the Clarence has a fair bit of water in it," Councillor Antonio said. 

"I think a very, very small percentage of the Clarence water would make an immense difference to the parched, dry areas of the Darling Downs. 

"One of the things we have on the Darling Downs, I think we've got some of the best soils that you would find anywhere. 

"As a farmer from this particular region, I think they're the best soils that are available for agriculture in Australia. 

"What they lack is reliable water," he said. A similar idea was successfully put forward by the Griffith City Council, in the New South Wales Riverina, at last year's National General Assembly of Councils.

It called for federal funding of a feasibility study to explore the practicalities of diverting water inland from the Clarence River. 

But Page MP Kevin Hogan, whose federal electorate takes in much of the Clarence Valley, said he would never support the proposal. 

"There's water piped all over the country and there are pipelines that go for hundreds of kilometres, but I don't think for cost or for environmental reasons it's feasible," he said. 

"I have heard many proposals over many decades about this. 

"I think for people out west it will never end. 

"I think they will always flag this idea, but they've been flagging it for multiple decades. 

"It hasn't happened and I don't believe it ever will. 

"There's always if there's a will there's a way, but I don't believe there's a will for that to happen in Canberra. 

Clarence Valley Mayor Jim Simmons said there was no support for the move at a local level either. 

"I can't see the current councillors supporting the diversion of water to Toowoomba or anywhere else from the Clarence River," he said. 

"It's a natural resource for the Clarence Valley, fishermen depend on it, farmers depend on it.".....

Then the wannabee raiders began again this year.

Southern Free Times, Warwick, 16 May 2019: 

Mayor Tracy Dobie addressed the media today, Thursday 16 May, during a meeting in Warwick with Toowoomba Mayor Paul Antonio, Western Downs Mayor Paul McVeigh and representatives of Tenterfield Shire. 

The meeting of mayors was to discuss future water supply security for the Darling Downs and Tenterfield regions, including a plan to pipe water from the Clarence River system in New South Wales which has been talked about for decades.

The Daily Examiner, 19 August 2019, p.1: 

With water supplies dwindling across Tenterfield, Toowoomba, and the Southern and Western Downs, councils across southeast Queensland and western NSW have blown dust off their plans to dam the Clarence River. 
However, Clarence Valley Council Mayor Jim Simmons has said they had not been involved in any of these discussions. 

At a Southern Downs Regional Council Q&A session last week, the Mayor Tracy Dobie said her council was looking into securing a diversion of the Clarence River in the upper catchment. 

Cr Dobie said the four councils of Tenterfield, Toowoomba, Western Downs and Southern Downs were working together on the proposal to receive an allocation of the river. 

“If you look at Toowoomba, they’re going to run out of water in 30 years, they need supplementary water, that’s why we’re looking at the diversion of the Clarence, where only seven per cent of that water is allocated at the moment,” Cr Dobie said. 

While this idea has been raised since the 1980s, Cr Simmons said Clarence Valley Council had not been involved in any discussions to dam the Clarence River. 

“These councils have not involved Clarence Valley Council in any discussions, and we’ve had no input into these discussions,” 

Cr Simmons said. “If they’re looking at it seriously, they need to seriously get the people that it affects involved in their discussions and we’ve not been approached to date, and the Clarence Valley would very much be affected by it. 

“The message we’ve got in the past is that people are opposed to any proposal to dam or divert the Clarence River, it’s a pretty big subject so I would like to see some more details if this is something these councils are seriously looking at.” 

In May this year, the Warwick Daily News reported Cr Dobie joined Toowoomba Mayor Paul Antonio, Western Downs Mayor Paul McVeigh and Tenterfield Shire councillor Gary Verri in Warwick to discuss a plan to secure an allocation from the Clarence River. 

Cr Dobie said a pipeline would be used to move the water to Queensland using gravity. “If you look at the Clarence there’s only a small percentage that is allocated out for urban and industrial use and the rest goes out to sea,” she said. 

Water security in southeast Queensland is a major issue, with many councils enforcing severe water restrictions.

The Daily Examiner, 20 August 2019, p.11: 

OUR SAY 
TIM HOWARD 
Chief of staff  

Calls to redirect Clarence River water inland to save drought-stricken farmers is another example of emotion trumping logic. 

Plans to divert coastal river water inland have been around at least since 1938, when Dr John Bradfield came up with a scheme to drought-proof western Queensland and South Australia by sending the waters of the Tully, Herbert and Burdekin rivers inland. 

The benefits were enormous. Massive areas in Queensland could be farmed under irrigation, it could produce massive amounts of hydro-electricity and cut erosion problems in central Queensland.

It would create beneficial change in central Australia as the cooling effects of a permanently filled Lake Eyre brought higher rainfall and vegetation growth. 

Except none of this would happen because just about everything in the planning was wrong. 

Bradfield’s estimate of the amount of water needed was more twice what the rivers could supply, the evaporation rate was likely to exceed water flows. 

Most damning was the damage the loss of the water would cause to the existing eco-systems, including the Great Barrier Reef. 

The mighty Clarence produces nothing like the flows of those tropical northern rivers. It shows there are many simple answers to complex problems and they’re invariably wrong.

Is it any wonder that local communities are against damming and diverting water from the Clarence River system?

Partly by happy historical accident and partly by good management strategies, the Clarence River system is relatively healthy and its water a sustainable resource for the est. 128,196-strong combined population in the Clarence Valley and Coffs Harbour City local government areas, along with businesses in the 19 industry sectors identified as supplying employment across the two regional economies with a combined worth of est. $5.58 billion in a wider Northern Rivers regional economy worth in excess of $15.64 billion annually.

Clarence Valley communities have a right to feel that they have already done their bit for state water sustainability by supplying water to the Coffs Habour region which is outside the Clarence River catchment area.

The Valley does this in times of high rainfall and in times of drought, such as now  in late August 2019 when roughly half the Clarence Valley land area is officially listed as "Drought Affected" and the other half listed as a mixture "Drought" and "Severe Drought".

Any further water diversion has the potential to place Clarence River water sustainability and water quality at risk, thereby affecting the aesthetic, environmental, cultural, social and economic amenity of local urban and rural communities.

It should also be noted that Native Title exists over the lower Clarence River and estuary and it seems the wannabe water raiders, besides not consulting Clarence Valley Council, haven't thought to approach the traditional owners either. 

First global assessment of the ecological health of the world's "wild" rivers has found only about one third of the longest rivers are still free-flowing

As the Queensland flood waters finally make it down the Dimantina and Georgina rivers and Cooper's Creek and spread out over the Eyre Basin and into Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, it is well to remember three things.

The first is that; The Lake Eyre Basin is one of the largest and most pristine desert river systems on the planet, supporting 60,000 people and a wealth of wildlife.

The second is the fact that the Morrison Government has a stated policy to dam and divert more water from Australia's river systems if it is re-elected. 

The third is that water sustainability into the future is dependent on wild rivers running free.

ABC Radio,“RN”, 9 May 2019:

The first global assessment of the ecological health of the world's "wild" rivers has found only about one third of the longest rivers are still free-flowing.

The report warns the disruption is harming ecosystems, with 3,700 new large dams either under construction, or planned.

Listen to interview with Dr. Gunter Gill here https://abcmedia.akamaized.net/rn/podcast/2019/05/bst_20190509_0635.mp3

Nature, 8 May 2019:

Gill,Gunter et al, (2019) Mapping the world’s free-flowing rivers

ABSTRACT

Free-flowing rivers (FFRs) support diverse, complex and dynamic ecosystems globally, providing important societal and economic services. Infrastructure development threatens the ecosystem processes, biodiversity and services that these rivers support. Here we assess the connectivity status of 12 million kilometres of rivers globally and identify those that remain free-flowing in their entire length. Only 37 per cent of rivers longer than 1,000 kilometres remain free-flowing over their entire length and 23 per cent flow uninterrupted to the ocean. Very long FFRs are largely restricted to remote regions of the Arctic and of the Amazon and Congo basins. In densely populated areas only few very long rivers remain free-flowing, such as the Irrawaddy and Salween. Dams and reservoirs and their up- and downstream propagation of fragmentation and flow regulation are the leading contributors to the loss of river connectivity. By applying a new method to quantify riverine connectivity and map FFRs, we provide a foundation for concerted global and national strategies to maintain or restore them.

The Trouble with Water: National Party conflicts of interest and the rising odour of corruption

The Saturday Paper, 27 April 2019:

Former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty is examining links between political donations and the issuing and buyback of agricultural water licences, amid concerns that undeclared conflicts of interest could be fuelling corruption.

Keelty told The Saturday Paper this week he is concerned about the extent of undeclared conflicts of interest among politicians, lobby groups and businesses operating in the water market.

“I’m interested to see how conflicted politicians are declaring their conflicts of interest when decisions are made about water policy,” he said.

“Where you get those conflicts of interest and they’re not addressed, that’s ripe for corruption.”

His comments come as the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder confirmed to The Saturday Paper that two contentious water licences for which the federal government paid $79 million have returned next to no water to the environment since they were purchased two years ago.

Keelty is conducting inquiries in his capacity as the Northern Basin commissioner for the Murray–Darling Basin, a position to which the federal agriculture minister, David Littleproud, appointed him in August last year with the support of the Labor opposition.

On the issue of water licences, he draws a direct comparison with the management of development applications by local government, where conflicts of interest are required to be declared.

“We’re not seeing it in water, and it should be there,” he said.

Keelty, who was also the inaugural chair of the Australian Crime Commission, is not categorical about what exposing such conflicts might reveal, though he suggests they are widespread.

“I’m not saying it’s corruption; I’m saying it’s conflict of interest,” he said. “But you could draw a conclusion that if conflicts of interest aren’t transparent, it could lead to corruption … Water is now the value of gold. If you have corruption in other elements of society, if you have corruption in other areas of business, why wouldn’t you have it here, when water is the same price as gold?”

“IT IS NOT AS TRANSPARENT AS I FIRST THOUGHT AND IT IS MUDDIED BY IN-KIND DONATIONS AND THIRD-PARTY COMPANIES OR ENTITIES THAT ARE CREATED TO OBSCURE WHO THE REAL DONORS ARE.”

Over the past decade, Keelty has undertaken inquiries and investigations for various governments on issues relating to integrity in government policy, especially in emergency management.

Now turning his attention to the struggling river system, he is aiming to improve transparency in the management of the northern Murray–Darling Basin, which has a far worse compliance record than the river system’s southern half.

His task is to ensure that water gets back to the river system where it is needed and that those who rely on this water, and should have rights for its use, are not being ripped off, especially disenfranchised Indigenous communities and others living downstream.

Keelty argues that excessive numbers of water licences have been issued – sometimes on questionable grounds – and are seriously damaging the river.

“When you look at it strategically, there are too many licences having been allocated for the amount of water that is available,” he told The Saturday Paper.

“Nobody is addressing that, that I can see.”

Keelty also believes the system is too dependent on property owners acting within the law and reporting their own activities.

“The system relies on honesty and integrity but if you look at the number of prosecutions and infringement notices issued in New South Wales in the last 12 months, the pillar of honesty doesn’t appear to be that strong,” he said.

“I can understand the suspicion and the frustration in the southern basin states because they are directly impacted by the efficiency of the systems in the northern basin.”

Keelty is currently examining the Australian Electoral Commission records of political donations, checking links between donors, decision-makers and recipients of water licences or sales contracts.

“Clearly the National Party is probably, I guess, a glaring example of where politicians could be conflicted because their constituency are the very people who are using the water and the very people who are lobbying about water policy,” he said.

But he is examining links to other parties as well. “It’s not just the National Party. Different governments will make decisions about water policy that presumably benefit their state and their constituents.”

Keelty has concerns about the system of political donations more broadly.

“It is not as transparent as I first thought and it is muddied by in-kind donations and third-party companies or entities that are created to obscure who the real donors are,” he said. “I’ve found it more difficult and less transparent than what most of us probably think it is.”

The former police chief is also arguing for proceeds-of-crime legislation to be more clearly linked to offences in the water market because he believes the risk of losing a farming property would be a significant deterrent.

“Where you can prosecute criminal charges for offending, it makes sense to have parallel action in proceeds of crime because that will have more of an impact than perhaps some of the civil charges that are being used to remedy the situation to date,” he said.

Read the full article here

More fish kills predicted along the Darling/Barka River

The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 March 2019:

Residents at Menindee are bracing for a fourth mass fish kill in the Darling River in about three months, as a new paper finds water savings in the Murray Darling Basin may be just one-tenth the amount modelled.

The NSW Department of Primary Industries has warned the arrival of a cold front after another heatwave in the region this week posed a "high risk" of another bout of widespread fish deaths.

Possibly millions of fish, mostly bony herring but also endangered perch and Murray cod, were killed in the three previous events. A sudden drop in dissolved oxygen levels - as blue-green algae died and began decaying - was the prompt for the previous fish kills.

"They're super-stressed. It takes less [to kill the fish]," Graeme McCrabb, a Menindee resident, said on Tuesday. "The numbers of golden and silver perch and the cods got less [during each die-off]."

Separately, a report published in the Australasian Journal of Water Resources by John Williams and Quentin Grafton from the Australian National University found the $3.5 billion spent on water-saving infrastructure - such as concrete canals - may have saved 70 billion litres a year compared with the federal government's estimate of more than 10 times that figure.

Professor Grafton said their analysis showed the average cost of water recovery could be as much as $50,000 per megalitre returned to the Murray-Darling Basin every year, or about 25 times more expensive than buying the water back from willing sellers.

The key issue is the failure to measure and account for so-called return flows - the leakage of water into aquifer that ceases when irrigation becomes more efficient.

"It's a travesty for all Australians," he said. "You've spent billions of dollars and you've not measured what you've got."….

How the National Party of Australia attempted to ruin Australia’s largest river system

IMAGE: Murray Darling Wetlands Working Group Ltd.

Former Accountant and banker, Nationals MP for New England (NSW) Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce was deputy Prime Minister of Australia from 18.2.2016 to 27.10.2017 and again from 6.12.2017 to 26.2.2018.  He was also Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources from 21.9.2015 to 27.10.2017 and returned as minister once more from 21.9.2015 to 27.10.2017.

This particular politician is likely to go down in history as one of the worst leaders that the National Party of Australia ever had.

The Northern Daily Leader, 9 February 2019:

BARNABY Joyce’s actions as water minister have been singled out and savaged in the royal commission into the Murray Darling Basin Authority, the report suggesting he ignored the law.

The report pointed to an “ill-informed letter” from Mr Joyce to the South Australian water minister, as testament to the government’s lack of “any genuine commitment” to the goal of recovering 450 gigalitres of water for the environment.

The Leader has contacted Mr Joyce for an interview and is awaiting a response.

In the letter, Mr Joyce said he couldn’t see the water being recovered without “causing negative social and economic impacts to South Australian communities”.

“I cannot foresee [the other state governments] agreeing that the additional 450GL of water can be delivered without significant social and economic detriment,” he wrote.

The report said there was “no reliable evidence” to support Mr Joyce’s claim.

This is what the South Australian  Murray-Darling Basin Royal Commission Report’s  Final Report (released on 29 January 2019) stated in part:

For a number of years neither the Commonwealth Government, nor New South Wales or Victoria, have had any genuine commitment to recovering the so-called 450 GL of upwater for enhanced environmental outcomes. The ill-informed letter from Mr Barnaby Joyce when he was Water Minister to his South Australian counterpart dated 17 November 2016 — written as though the actual definition of socio-economic impact in the Basin Plan did not exist — is testament to this…..

On commercial radio on 29 August 2018, Mr Joyce, the Commonwealth Government’s Special Drought Envoy — not a member of the Executive Council or a Minister of the State under either secs 62 or 64 of the Constitution respectively — suggested that environmental water held by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder (CEWH) should be used to ‘grow the fodder to keep the cattle alive’ during the course of the drought. He suggested that if this was not lawful, then the relevant legislation should be changed. This suggestion is not in the interests of the people who live and work in the Basin, nor in the interests of the broader Australian public, or that of the environment. It is contrary to the objects and purposes of the Water Act and Basin Plan. It is against the national interest. It has been rightly rejected by, amongst others, the MDBA and the CEWH. Adaptation to the challenges of a warmer and drier climate will require a vastly more sophisticated approach. That approach must be based on proper scientific research and analysis, as well as a basic level of common sense.

For example, in a letter dated 17 November 2016 from the then Commonwealth Minister for Agriculture and Water, Mr Barnaby Joyce, to the then South Australian Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Mr Ian Hunter, Minister Joyce said:

 If it was genuinely possible to put an additional 450 GL down the river without hurting people, then none of us would have a problem with it. The reality is that it will. South Australia’s default share of the 450 GL target is 36 GL. Does the South Australian Government have a plan for where this water would come from without causing negative social and economic impacts to South Australian communities? I believe that we are heading into an unprotracted (sic) and unsolvable stalemate, where the funding will stay on the books for a recovery that will be impossible to make in accordance with the legislative requirements — that the recovery must has (sic) positive or neutral social and economic outcomes

… My main concern is this — just as you have an understandable desire for one outcome, your colleagues in other states have an equally understandable desire for another regardless of what side of the political fence they are on. I cannot foresee them agreeing that the additional 450 GL of water can be delivered without significant social and economic detriment. The hard conversation has to happen about how we resolve this stalemate. I look forward to discussing it with you more at the Ministerial Council.

There is no reliable evidence before the Commission that would support the assertion in that letter that recovery of an additional 450 GL of water would have negative social and economic impacts, or that its consequence would be ‘hurting people’ either economically, socially, or otherwise. Minister Joyce offered no such evidence. Leaving that aside, Minister Joyce’s letter ignores the test of social and economic neutrality in sec 7.17(2)(b) of the Basin Plan. That is no trifling thing, as that section was (and still currently is) the law. The test is satisfied by participation, not the concept of ‘hurting people’. Leaving this also aside, the gist of the letter was such that the Commonwealth’s then position seemed to be that the recovery of 450 GL of upwater for South Australia’s environmental assets was unlikely….

Mr Hooper spoke of a shift in attitude, upon the appointment of the former Minister, Mr Barnaby Joyce, to the water portfolio, away from a holistic, whole of Basin approach to a focus on specific sites, namely Dirranbandi, St George, and Warren, and the economics of irrigated agriculture in those towns.

Mr Hooper recalled asking the MDBA for a socio-economic assessment of Aboriginal people in the Northern Basin to which the MDBA responded by offering to provide a more limited socio-cultural survey.182 Despite meeting with the MDBA, NBAN was unaware of the intention to reduce water recovery in the Northern Basin, which was only revealed once the proposed amendments were publicly released.183 Mr Hooper could not recall any explanation of how the toolkit measures could substitute for water so as to justify the 70 GL reduction in water to be recovered…..

In an interview with 2GB radio, the Commonwealth Government’s Special Drought Envoy and former Water Resources Minister, Mr Barnaby Joyce, said:

a national emergency requires emergency power. We have a large water resource owned by the government. It’s called the Commonwealth Environmental Water holder and it’s used to water environmental assets. In a national emergency, which is this drought, surely that water should be used to grow the fodder to keep the cattle alive to keep the cash flow in the town. When people say, ‘Oh well, the legislation won’t allow you to do that’. Well, change the legislation, that’s what we have a parliament for.

National Party once again proving that it is the party representing mining interests

Climate change denialism is alive and well in the National Party.....

The Sydney Morning Herald, 9 February 2019:

A Nationals MP's claim that the Land and Environment Court's decision to block a coal mine in his electorate reflected an "ideological position" and "smacked of judicial activism" has prompted a rival MP to accuse him of contempt of court.

After the court on Friday rejected Gloucester Resources' bid to open the Rocky Hill mine on the Mid North Coast because of "climate change impacts", Nationals MP for the Upper Hunter Michael Johnsen hopped on 2GB to vent his fury.

The show's host Chris Kenny said: "Here you have a judge in a NSW land and environment court saying that he's protecting the planet from global warming, from climate change".

Mr Johnsen replied: "They are taking an ideological position, again it smacks of judicial activism, and it has nothing to do with the merits of the proposal itself and I’m very, very disappointed."