Saffin sends a message to the Two Tonys -Not A Drop!

From A Clarence Valley Protest on 19 October 2010:

A Message to the Two Tonys - Not A Drop!

The Federal Labor Member for Page Janelle Saffin taking the Clarence Valley's message to Water Minister Tony Burke and New England Independent Tony Windsor on 18 October 2010, according to the Commonwealth Hansard:

Page Electorate: Clarence River
Ms SAFFIN (Page) (10.57 am)—I have a message on behalf of my community in Page that I want to give to the parliament and everybody who is going to be involved in the Murray-Darling Basin plan and debate. The message from my community, which is home to the Clarence River—and a lot of people seem to be talking about wanting to get their hands on it and are looking at it for diversion—is this: not a drop. Right across my electorate thousands of cars have that on their bumper stickers: not a drop. In effect it is saying hands off the Clarence River.
The idea that the Clarence River can be diverted is one of those issues that have been around for quite some time.
Everybody has raised this issue at different times. In particular, there was some engineering plan that it could be done. My message to the two Tonys is: not one drop will be taken out of the Clarence River. I have also been told, and I do not want to verbal the honourable member for Kennedy, that on the member’s website he talks about those not in favour of looking at some sort of diversion as being political pygmies. While I am not going to comment about my size and whether that is correct, I would say to the honourable member that the people in the Clarence Valley and in Page are certainly not political pygmies. The catchment area of the Clarence River falls within 100 kilometres of the New South Wales coastal strip. Our industries are fishing—we have a huge commercial fishing industry—and agriculture, and the economy is heavily underpinned by that commercial fishing. There is also forestry and tourism. It is all worth a lot to us. This debate is one of those debates that come up every now and then. Engineering wise, we can do anything—we can do marvels—but in terms of the environment and also the viability of the Clarence it would be a disaster. They can look all they like but—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. Peter Slipper)—Order! In accordance with standing order 193, the time for members’ constituency statements has expired.

The nature of poverty on the NSW North Coast in 2010

The Salvation Army commissioned Roy Morgan Research to conduct a CATIBus national telephone survey which formed the basis of the recently released Perception of Poverty: An Insight into the Nature and Impact of Poverty in Australia. This report can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

ABC News 18 October 2010:

The Salvation Army says that many families in the Northern Rivers are living below the poverty line. A report released today by The Salvation Army says that low income earners are now known as the "working poor".

A new report released by The Salvation Army called "Perceptions of Poverty" shows there are 2 million Australians living in poverty. Doug Barber is the Northern Region Community support coordinator for The Salvation Army. He says that on the north coast many low income families are living below the poverty line and they are seeing a greater call for people seeking material aid through neighbourhood centres, The Salvation Army and other centres."That is a trend that has been reported to us in the past 3 years, so pre-dated financial crisis. [There is an] increasing number of families and older people, the type of people who wouldn't normally have access to support services, coming for assistance", he said.Mr Barber says that some of the factors contributing to people living in poverty on the north coast are long term unemployment, intergenerational unemployment and high housing costs.
"The housing costs here are relatively high relative to income that essentially keeps people in poverty. People are trapped in a cycle of low income and essentially having to commit a large proportion of their income to maintaining a roof over their heads", Mr Barber said. Nationally the report said that there are 80,000 new clients for the Salvation Army last year and are part of the new working poor, people who have full time jobs but just can not make ends meet. The Salvation Army says housing and rental costs in the Northern Rivers are extremely high and people are paying between $300 and $450 per week in rent and their income across a fortnight is around $1000-$1200 per fortnight and people are struggling to make ends meet.......

Windsor confirms he's an environmental & economic eejit

Does a pollie come any greedier or dumber than this?
Did he not take any notice of evidence given at the 2007 Australian Senate inquiry which looked at the Clarence River?
Has he not noticed that the Snowy River is seriously f**ked?
This is the Member for New England and chair of the latest parliamentary water inquiry, Tony Windsor, yesterday:
FEDERAL independent Member for New England Tony Windsor says diverting water from the Clarence River is an option to revive the Murray Darling basin.
Mr Windsor, whose electorate shares a border with Page, said diversion of east coast rivers, including the Clarence, would be looked at by a parliamentary inquiry, of which he was a member, into the impact of Murray Darling Basin Plan.
“Diverting water into the Murray Darling system to avert the effects of climate change is a possibility,” he said.
“But where it comes from is an issue I don't want to get into debate about right now. There are a lot of options out there to be looked at yet.”
Mr Windsor, who previously flagged the idea of diverting the Clarence in 2007, said sending water west was possible.
“It's technically possible to bring eastern flowing water to the west as we have done with the snowy mountains scheme,” he said.

Saffin tells Parliament 'Not a drop' from the Clarence River

Bravo to Federal Labor’s Janelle Saffin who really is in tune with her electorate in this 18 October 2010 media release.

Saffin tells Parliament -- ‘Not a drop’

PAGE MP Janelle Saffin made it clear on the first day of the Parliamentary session that she would be vigilant on protecting the Clarence River against water raiders.

Ms Saffin today told Parliament that a lot of people are talking about wanting to get their hands on water from the Clarence River.

But she said the message from the local community in response to those looking at river diversion under the Murray-Darling Basin plan is this – “Not a drop”.

“Engineering-wise, we can do anything -- we can do marvels -- but in terms of the environment and also the viability of the Clarence, it would be a disaster.

“The catchment area of the Clarence River falls within 100 kilometres of the New South Wales coastal strip.

“Our industries are fishing -- we have a huge commercial fishing industry -- and agriculture, and the economy is heavily underpinned by that commercial fishing.

“There is also forestry and tourism. It is all worth a lot to us.

“This debate is one of those debates that come up ever now and then.”

Ms Saffin said that right across her electorate thousands of cars display the ‘not a drop’ bumper stickers, part of a Daily Examiner campaign against Coalition water policy in 2007.

Following her statement in the House, Ms Saffin said she did not want to alarm people but she wanted to be up front on the first sitting day on this important issue.

“I also want to thank the local people who sent me good information on the issue this morning,” Ms Saffin said.

“The idea of diverting the Clarence River inland won’t stand up to closer public scrutiny.”