Bart Irwin opinion: Repair costs best spent on what’s not broken

Too often in Australia we spend exorbitant amounts of taxpayer dollars to find out what we already know, just to prove to those that will never be appeased that it is true, writes Bart Irwin.

NT Field and Game’s Bart Irwin. Picture: Che Chorley

The overwhelming result of the referendum showed me that Australians are sick and tired of minority issues triggering bigger than required attention by government.

Australia has an Indigenous population of just 3 per cent, but all of voting age had to put their hand to a question as divisive as we have seen in generations.

We spent 10 months being fed one line or another and $364m to $450m was wasted in the process.

Victoria has 28,000 duck hunters and the Building Industry Group unions representing 85,000 members support native bird hunting.

But the Victorian government proceeded to hold a $2m-plus inquiry into duck hunting.

That $364m spent on a referendum could have built at least 364 houses in remote Australian communities.

That $2m spent on a duck inquiry could have provided 2500 megalitres of environmental flow water to provide habitat that ducks, and every other swamp ecology, need to survive and thrive.

Too often in Australia we spend exorbitant amounts of taxpayer dollars to find out what we already know, just to prove to those that will never be appeased that it is true.

The Pepper inquiry into fracking was just that – drawing the same conclusion as the three previous inquiries: fracking is safe.

But sadly, we lost all those Inpex workers who moved here with their families when there was no continuation of big projects.

That’s what the Gunner years of moratorium cost us: families that were going to make the Territory better.

I doubt we will be able to convince another workforce on that scale to move to the NT for a generation, such has our reputation been sullied.

It is cheaper to repair something like Aboriginal disadvantage than it has been to buy a new model that will probably perform just the same.

The NT Field and Game hold clay target practice at the Mickett Creek Shooting Complex range from 4pm every Friday and today from 9am till noon. All are welcome to join in the fun.

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