Steady trickle of fibs on ABC’s Four Corners

The Murray River in Tocumwal, NSW. Picture: Hollie Adams

On Monday we saw yet another ABC program with academics and so-called experts sitting on a riverbank talking up the shortcomings of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. They were speaking to Four Corners. This was another line-up of specialists who, by and large, immediately head back to the comforts of a lifestyle that does not depend on a healthy river system. We heard very little from people who depend on a strong Murray-Darling plan for their livelihood and for the future of their community.

The voices of the people who do were largely ignored. The farmers in the program were presented in a series of juvenile “gotcha” moments as scheming to rort the taxpayer out of self-interest. The opposite is true.

For 45 minutes, Four Corners sought to discredit the plan’s irrigation efficiency program, which supports farmers to improve their water use efficiency, grow more and ultimately return more water to the environment. How scandalous! The project (which has concluded) required farmers to release portions of water to the government (the river system) in exchange for funds to invest in infrastructure such as better dams and more sophisticated irrigation pivots.

Over its duration, the initiative led to an additional 700 billion litres being returned to the environment, contributing to the total 2100 billion litres of reclaimed water since 2012, an outcome that should be celebrated or at least presented to viewers.

But no, the ABC decided these facts were not worth including. A core tenet of the show was that farmers, through the efficiency program, had scammed taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars, and that the biggest beneficiary was “fat cat” corporate agriculture. In fact, more than 70 per cent of recipients were family farmers carrying out works costing, on average, $152,000. No mention was made of the tough scrutiny that applications to access the programs were subject to, or the rigorous milestone-reporting and random spot checks carried out by the Australian National Audit Office.

Four Corners did the broadcaster proud by demonising its old foe, big business. Complete with sinister music, the program sought to raise questions about the expansion of cotton and the development of horticulture industries in the basin. These businesses, contrary to the impression given by the ABC, are not the recipients of new water allocations. New allocations do not exist. When new dams are built or crops planted, water is sourced from the existing water market — from other farmers. It is up to the people building the dams and planting the crops to determine whether their endeavours will be viable. It’s called free enterprise.

And, by the way, large parts of the catchment are in drought, so there are no allocations, for agriculture or the environment.

This is not the first time the National Farmers Federation has had cause to take issue with the ABC’s interpretation of issues involving agriculture and water. The MDBP is complex, and at first it was reasonable to put inaccurate reporting down to a lack of understanding. But the plan is also intrinsic to this nation and intelligent discussion of its operation is vital. It has become clear there is a greater motive driving the ABC. Perhaps the idea is to unravel the plan or to provoke a royal commission.

That is where the irony of the alleged wastage of taxpayers’ money becomes so hard to swallow. With each story, the peddling of mistruths and misrepresentations pushes farmers, communities and the environment closer to a royal commission. Now who wants to talk about wasting the taxpayers’ money?

Fiona Simson is president of the National Farmers Federation.