Fix the Basin Plan rally: First stop Tocumwal, next stop Canberra

It’s time to take the Basin Plan fight to Canberra, irrigators have been told, as they run on empty — while the river runs a “banker”.

Irrigator action: Irrigators prepare to march across the Murray at their Tocumwal rally. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

THE call to “get down and dirty with those bastards” in Canberra went out to 3000 irrigators and their supporters yesterday, who rallied on the banks of the Murray River to demand a pause in the Basin Plan that has stripped 25 per cent of the water from their communities.

Rally organiser Jan Beer told farmers it was time to take their fight to the nation’s politicians who were refusing to listen to the irrigators in the nation’s largest food bowl on the failings of the Murray Darling Basin Plan.

“The Basin Plan has failed dismally on every front, economically, socially and environmentally and will continue to fail because it is based on fundamentally flawed science, flawed modelling and outdated data, along with appalling mismanagement by the MDBA on a basin-wide scale,” Ms Beer said.

Just how bad that mismanagement has become could be seen by every member of the crowd, as they looked across at the river, which was running close to capacity, or “at a banker” as irrigators say, as the MDB Authority pushed water through the rapidly eroding Barmah Choke to meet environmental and South Australia’s needs.

It was a painful backdrop for NSW Murray irrigators in the crowd, who face their second start to the season without water, while other southern basin irrigators face unaffordable allocation prices of $700-$800 a megalitre.

Ms Beer said Federal Water Minister David Littleproud had failed northern Victoria’s and southern NSW irrigation communities and put a motion to the rally calling for the Nationals MP to be stripped of his portfolio.

A wave of arms hit the air in support of the motion, with a roar of jeers and “throw him out” rippling through the crowd.

But Mr Littleproud has refused to respond to recent calls for the plan to be paused, reviewed or revised — repeatedly stating: “This is the best plan we have and we can’t afford to blow it up”.

The crowd responded to Mr Littleproud’s inaction by stuffing an effigy of him down a toilet and throwing it into the river, with Ms Beer declaring: “We want to see if he makes it to South Australia”.

But it was not all poltical theatre, with documentary maker Topher Field opening the rally with a call for a minute’s silence to honour those farmers and others who had taken their lives in the battle to survive the loss of water from their communities and skyrocketing water prices.

Blighty dairy farmer Lachlan Marshall told the crowd “We’ve all bled, sweated and fought to build what we’ve built, but we’ve hit a real roadblock — (that being) our PM, environment minister and water minister.”

Mr Marshall drew applause and peals of laughter as he compared the Federal Coalition’s ministers to a series of failed super heroes, following Prime Minister Scott Morrison declaration this week that his favourite childhood super hero was Aquaman.

He compared local Federal Member Susan Ley to the comic book character Sue Storm — the invisible woman.

“She’s silent, (while) … her own community is in turmoil,” Mr Marshall said. “We are the collateral damage for potential endgame.”

LISTEN TO LACHLAN MARSHALL’S SPEECH HERE

Deputy Southern Riverina Irrigators deputy chairman Darcy Hare highlighted the failure of the MDBA and governments to meet the eight principles of the Basin Plan, focusing on

Mr Hare highlighted growing evidence that the basin plan was based on flawed science on keeping the Lower Lakes fresh – declaring “diatoms don’t lie, unlike politicians”.

SA RESEARCHERS CHANGED MURRAY DARLING BASIN PLAN SCIENCE

He also highlighted the inequity of NSW and Victorian irrigators bearing the cost of delivering most of the environmental water, with thousands of hectares, that were once irrigated, now abandoned.

LISTEN TO DARCY HARE’S SPEECH HERE

Barooga irrigator Chris Brooks then updated the crowd on the class $750 million class action he and other irrigators are taking against the MDBA for “gross negligence” in wasting 850,000 megalitres of water last season.

LISTEN TO CHRIS BROOKS’ SPEECH HERE

Other motions unanimously passed by the rally, were to:

CALL on the Victorian and NSW governments to withdraw from the current implementation of the basin plan;

CALL on the Federal Government to immediately pause, review and revise the basin plan;

IMMEDIATELY allocate 1000 gigalitres of the conveyance water to southern basin irrigators to provide immediate relief, particularly to those on their second consecutive year of zero allocations.

LISTEN TO TOPHER FIELD’S AND JAN BEER’S SPEECHES