Greens Mislead Public On Murray Darling
A statement to the Senate today from the Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young that ‘ environmental flows are lower than previously ‘ reveals the lengths of deceit the Greens will go to, to destroy the Basin Plan for their own political ends.
CEO of the National Irrigators council Steve Whan said “Senator Hanson-Young’s statement can be very easily disproved. It is entirely false – as frankly are many of her other statements.
“The public doesn’t have to take my word for it, they can look at the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder’s web site which shows in black and white how Commonwealth water holdings have grown from 65GL in 2008- 09 to 2,670GL now.
“You would think from the Greens’ disgraceful propaganda that irrigators are taking all the Murray Darling water. The truth is that in an average year 32,500GL goes into the system and under the basin plan 2/3 cannot be extracted.
“It should be clear to everyone including the Labor party that the Greens are intent on sinking the Murray Darling Basin plan. They never supported the plan and they see a political benefit for them in blowing it up.
“This is a repeat of their 2007 rejection of emissions trading. Politics before the environment.
“Unfortunately Senator Hanson Young has form on this. Last year she demonstrated a complete lack of knowledge of the basin plan by saying the MDBA had ‘lost’ 605GL of water. Complete rubbish again!
“The Murray Darling Basin plan was a massive achievement for the Gillard Government in 2012. It did what very few people thought would be possible, brought to an end a century of argument with a bipartisan agreement, kicked off by John Howard and Malcolm Turnbull and completed by Tony Burke and Julia Gillard.
“It would be a very sad day for Australia if Labor goes along with the selfish Greens and destroys the basin plan and their own legacy.”
Media Contact : Steve Whan 0429 780 883
Wednesday 7 February 2018