Liberal Sturt MP James Stevens warns political parties and ABC are putting Murray-Darling Basin Plan at risk
SA’s newest Federal MP will make his first speech today, warning that the Murray-Darling Basin Plan is being undermined by various parties – and some elements upstream would rejoice at its collapse.
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The plan to save the River Murray is at risk of being completely blown apart by a coalition of forces including the ABC and rival political parties, says newly installed federal Liberal MP James Stevens.
In his maiden speech to be delivered on Tuesday, he accuses the ABC of seeking to undermine the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, along with Labor, Centre Alliance and the Greens.
Mr Stevens, the former chief of staff to Premier Steven Marshall who took over from Christopher Pyne in the eastern Adelaide seat of Sturt at May’s election, also delivers a veiled attack on elements within the Liberals’ Coalition partners, the Nationals.
In draft notes supplied to The Advertiser, Mr Stevens declares that “some elements of upstream communities would probably rejoice at the plan’s collapse”.
“What concerns me greatly is the recent development of a culture of undermining the plan from amongst those who I would have thought should be dedicated to the plan’s success,” he says.
“Having spent more than 10 years getting to where we are today, there should be a unity around focusing on implementation of what has been a herculean task to achieve a fragile consensus. Not so it seems for South Australian Labor, Green and Centre Alliance politicians and the ABC. They have joined a coalition of forces that would seek to undermine the plan and thus potentially see it completely blown apart.”
Mr Stevens says various calls from some of these groups for further royal commissions, inquiries and suspension of the plan’s implementation are “a recipe for undermining a process that will genuinely lead to a secure future for the river”.
“ … I have often heard community and political leaders from east of the South Australian border deride the fact that a single drop of water crosses into my state at all,” he says.
“This is, for the most part, in jest, but it demonstrates that undercurrent of an attitude prevalent with some that the paramount environmental objectives of the plan should be called into question.”
Mr Stevens’ comments will heighten pressure ahead of a water ministers’ meeting in Cairns next week.
His former boss, Mr Marshall, last week urged strong national leadership to deliver all aspects of the plan, under which an extra 3200 gigalitres of Murray flows is promised by 2024.
AFour Corners episode this month aired claims that taxpayers were paying too much for water saved under the plan and millions of dollars was being handed out to big business in secret deals.
The National Farmers Federation was among the groups to condemn the report as misleading.