Murray River people skeptical of royal commission into water usage but still want it to go ahead

THE odd thing about the reaction of River Murray people to the State Government’s royal commission is that many seem to think it will be both powerless and a waste of money — but they still want it to proceed. What do you think - VOTE NOW

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THE odd thing about the reaction of River Murray people to the State Government’s royal commission is that many seem to think it will be both powerless and a waste of money — but they still want it to proceed.

After Premier Jay Weatherill’s royal commission plans were revealed by the Sunday Mail last weekend, The Advertiser has this week been talking to South Australians from the Riverland to Lake Alexandrina and, while opinions on river management, water politics and the hard-won Murray-Darling Basin Plan varied, a common sentiment emerged.

If we don’t make a noise, who will?

The Weatherill decision was no political bombshell. Suggestions of a royal commission surfaced as soon as allegations of water theft and blatant noncompliance in northern cotton-growing districts became public several months ago and the Premier’s own water minister, Ian Hunter, had already hinted at its likelihood. It had also been called for by the SA Murray Irrigators group, even though its members don’t expect it to achieve much, at least not on its own. As SAMI chair Caren Martin says, “it will be a big waste of money and time”. “But we need a judicial body now to step outside of politics, step outside of the governments, the ministers and the bureaucracies to assess it. Who did stick to the rules ... and which laws have been broken and why?”

Riverland farmer and SAMI chair Caren Martin at Waikerie. Picture: Tricia Watkinson

She and husband Drew grow almonds near Renmark, and he emphasises that irrigators at this end empathise with those trying to make a living upstream on smaller rivers and under less rainfall.

“They are some of the most efficient irrigators you’d ever meet,” he said. “Most people up there are just the same as us down here. They’re just doing it slightly differently.”

And neither are irrigators at odds with conservationists, although Ms Martin says politicians have driven a political wedge between them. “They’ve pitched us against each other and that never used to be the case,” she said.

Waikerie orange grower Mark Doeke agrees, saying environmental flows had been stolen from the river by the regulation of the water market.

“Back in the day before water trade, if I didn’t use all my 200 megs (allocation of 200 megalitres), maybe 50 of them went down the river. Nowadays, I trade it because I can. Every drop of water we’ve got now we’ll lease out, whereas before it just went down the river.”

He’s also tired of hearing SA politicians gloss over issues at this end of the river by pointing fingers upstream.

Sunrise at Waikerie on the Murray River. Picture: Bernard Humphreys

“What’s South Australia’s first response to anything? It’s their fault. It’s the channels, it’s the cotton growers. It’s all we ever hear,” he said.

He accepts that a royal commission will put pressure on plan compliance across the river system, but doesn’t know why that is needed. He believes the real reason behind the royal commission is to get the government re-elected. “To me it’s blatantly obvious. Save the Murray from what? Idiot bureaucrats,” he said.

Ms Martin said that SA irrigators had already capped water use before the plan’s introduction and were “complianced to death” but had agreed to the Murray plan for the sake of having a solid national system.

“We went into the basin plan in good faith, thinking that those who did the wrong thing would be held to account by an independent adjudicator, and to come out the other end of that and not have that means the whole point of why we came into this thing in the first place is just not there,” she said.

“The leadership should have come from the Federal Government in the first place. It shouldn’t have needed South Australia to go rogue and call their own royal commission. “What they’ve got here is a massive cash cow (the Murray-Darling Basin Authority) that employs bureaucrats, but what they don’t employ is water jockeys (inspectors). A car and a sat phone and off you go.”

Sunrise at Waikerie on the Murray River. Picture: Bernard Humphreys

Downstream near Nildottie, Mark and Lynne Legg are conservationists, but Ms Legg stresses that “we are lucky that we don’t have to make a living from the river and so we can afford to have a green view”.

The retired educators, who have lived for 18 years in the home they built on a cliff above the river, are glad to see a light shone on water use upstream, but they also think Jay Weatherill’s government is hypocritical.

“Over the years, I have been shocked at how the state government has allowed water licences for land that was declared marginal. And they’ve allowed water licences way off the river and they’ve actually taken water away from people who live on the river,” Ms Legg said.

Mr Legg said the royal commission call was political and “it’s typical Weatherill whatever”, but that “as a state, I think we have every right to complain if we’re seeing things being done that shouldn’t be done”.