Brian Ramsay writes: The publicity and noise associated with the release of the Guide to the Basin Plan must be kept in perspective. Two million people live in the basin. Not all are farmers, not all farmers are irrigators, not everyone is dependent on farming for their well being, not all regions are equally affected and not all impacts of water reform will be adverse. That said, many people living in the basin and in metropolitan areas will have an affinity with farming and also see benefits in water reform.
It is this affinity that has been heard loudly in the past couple of weeks. As the public narrative about the Guide to the Basin Plan unfolds, it would be easy to draw the conclusion that the concerns of irrigators fully reflect the views of the whole community. It is not so simple.
The independent Basin Pulse survey of almost 500 people from across the basin in June this year sought a balanced perspective of community attitudes. It looked beyond the views of environmentalists and the irrigators to better understand what ordinary Australians living in the basin think is important.
It showed that people in the community are much more informed than they are given credit. 77% said they were aware of the forthcoming Basin Plan and 5% said that they had been involved in the process of developing the plan. These are significant numbers given the size of the population living in the basin.
The survey showed that there was community recognition of the need for change and support for the key reform objective. 80% of people agreed that water allocations should change so enough water is available for the natural environment. There was also a deep sense of urgency for change. 50% said that changes to water allocation should already be underway and a further 24% said it should happen without further delay.
People expressed a realistic grasp of the trade-offs associated with water reform. There was a general sense of too much water going to irrigators, but concern about the economic implications at the regional and personal levels if agriculture had less water. 68% of Basin residents believed that if less water was available to farms, then their region will be worse off.
While people considered water reform as important and urgent, many were sceptical about the likelihood of any changes occurring in the next five years. In fact, they were equally divided on whether anything would actually happen, with 12% being unsure. Of particular interest was the finding that most people see the Federal government as being responsible for taking action. Watch this space. The outcomes achieved with the Basin Plan could confirm or re-shape community attitudes towards the government’s ability to lead meaningful reform.
What hangs in the balance now is not so much the immediate interests of irrigators and environmentalists. It is the interests of current and future generations of Australians and the future of the basin. Tough decisions lie ahead, but that is the role of elected leaders.
Breaking through will require a sophisticated approach in leading the design and implementation of change. Critically, there is already a sense of urgency for change. What is now needed is stronger articulation of the new vision for the basin to get some buy-in. It will require leaders in government, industry and the community to rise above the noise, actively elicit the views of the silent majority and put some faith in the findings of Australia’s best scientists.
Brian Ramsay is Managing Director of Canberra company Inovact Consulting. The company launched Basin Pulse in August, which aims to support reform by better connecting people and decision makers in the Murray-Darling Basin. The next Basin Pulse report will be released in mid-November.
This is part of a Rooted series from different interested parties — farmers, lobby groups, environmentalists, etc — discussing their reactions to the guide of the draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan and the community consultations surrounding it, called Murray Murmurings. If you’d like to contribute your thoughts, email ajamieson@crikey.com.au
25 Comments
All very true. Howeve, in its discussions, the government needs to ensure that the loudest lobbiests from the irrigation industry, who have been granted most of the overallocation in the past 40 years and who still use the most water (dairy, cotton and rice) do not drown out the voices of the small farm horticulture irrigators, who typically use a lot less water a lot more efficiently, employ more people, and produce more food per litre than the big users do.
Given that the essence of this political problem is the costs of protecting the social construct “the environment” what will happen politically when all the dots get connected about all the other costs being incurred or to be incurred to protect the environment eg electricty costs etc etc?
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” Is the silent majority in the Basin being sidelined?”
Absolutely.
Not just ignored, although that is a major element, but also actively and transparently silenced.
It appears so. But we’ve seen this with the miners and, as lindsayb observes, it seems that the big users and big lobby groups are being promoted by media and the opposition. That leaves the small users (and non direct users -ie town businesses and lesser beings) being disregarded or actively sidelined.
I don’t believe the majority is being sidelined. In fact, I think it is the rural communities and particularly those outside of agriculture, that have the most to lose in this debate. Irrigators will sell their water but it is the local businesses who lose their customers that will be the hardest hit as they won’t receive any compensation.
There is, without doubt, a lot of emotion in this debate; not only from farmers and rural communities, but also from environmentalists who want to see the river returned to a healthy state. It is understandable that both sides are passionate, and both agendas are perfectly understandable. But, the reality of this debate, and particularly given the current political reality, is that only a balanced process that clearly defines the environmental AND human impacts of the Basin Plan will be able to provide the outcome needed for this complex issue.
Herein lies the problem, the Water Act is focussed on environmental outcomes; the reasons for this are for another discussion, but it must be noted that this was never the intention of the National Water Initiative of which the Basin Plan was born.
If Tony Burke is genuine about getting a Basin Plan in place during this term of parliament, I believe his only option is to change the Water Act ensure that planning is done on the basis of triple bottom line outcomes. This would remove the irrigation lobby’s ammunition and ensure the best possible outcomes for the Murray Darling Basin and everything that depends on it. To ignore the human impacts of any significant Government planning process is to ignore the responsibilities of Government.
BRIAN: You mention two million people living in the MDB. I would like to jog your memory about the further twenty million people who will have to pay a higher price for imported food. But pay it they will. The farmers are dispensable you know? When you come right down to it the rurals are dispensable!
How about getting that message through to your silent majority? People who remain silent allow the outrage to occur in the first place.
You can’t drink your water and dam it too.
Venise. Do you not understand basic arithmetic? There is currently too much water being taken out of the system, and has been for some time. This is clearly not sustainable. The irrigators use by far the biggest proportion. It is only from them that enough water can come to put back into the system.
If that means we get less food from the Murray-Darling basin (per annum), in order for those remaining farms to become sustainable, then so be it. I do not understand why some think every farm is sacrosanct and must be supported, no matter how unsustainable it is. We cannot exceed the long term carrying capacity of the natural systems, no matter how you slice it.
We, as a country, let too much water get taken out in the first place, and that simply has to stop. No way around that.
Venise
very garbled post; I’m not at all sure which side of the barbed wire fence you’re trying to work.
However:
Why will they? If they haven’t been paying higher prices for imported food over the last ten years, when water allocations were cut by 70%, why would they pay more for imported food in the future, when water allocations are cut by 30%?
Arguably, the government buy back could drive falls in prices for local food and further import replacement, by driving out the inefficient (and therefore expensive) producers and leaving those still there with better security (which drives down prices, as it elimates the need for windfall profits to offset future uncertainty).
If driving down food prices is your aim, then the traditional family farm has to go, to be replaced by more broadacre cropping.
Venice, you said
“You can’t drink your water and dam it too.”
Really? Perhaps you should tell that to the citizens relying on dams on the Yarra, Thompson, Brisbane & Warragamba Rivers. Are you suggesting they walk down to their local babbling brook each morning and scoop up their daily supply in an earthen pot.
“The farmers are dispensable you know”
Are you talking about just MDB farmers or all farmers, everywhere? How are you so confident that all this imported food will be produced with less environmental impact than in Australia?
JUST ME: I’m fully conversant with the fact that the big irrigators are taking out water on an unsupportable level. However, who allowed them to do this? And who did nothing to stop people like Cubbie Station from doing this? Surely you aren’t trying to tell me that the farmers didn’t know these irrigators were so huge, they were inimical to the farmers and existence denying????
For years we have known what happens when huge dams are built, both from the conservation aspect, and from the absolute necessity to work with nature in order to reap any benefits from the land. A point that the rural vote has been wilfully blind to and unaware of, in the main.
We know about the fragility of much of the land. We know that without natural grasses, or indeed crops, the leached-out topsoil of places like the Mallee are periodically blown by the winds to land on cities such as Melbourne and Sydney. For me to belabour the conservation point is aimless, I’ve written ad nauseam about Australia’s appalling track record on conservation.
The people to whom I am bereft of sympathy is the rural vote. Every time the poor darlings meet with the end result of their misusing the land they rush to the media bleating their sodding heads off and screaming rape. They allow-worse, they give shysters like the National Country Party their vote with the knowledge that the NATS will always favour the really big spenders. Why, I hear you ask? Because the National Party/Country Party has always believed in socialism for the farmers. ie: All our taxes and all the rest of the nation’s wealth should go straight to the farmers.
You might even go along with me and my fury at the amazing display by these rural thugs. BECAUSE THEY HAVE STUFFED UP A MAJOR RIVER- knowingly- and they now have to pay the price. The price being they’ll have to regard water as a precious commodity, and to use it with respect and with rationing.
Do the farmers accept the fact they are guilty of reducing a mighty river to being a saline sludge? Not a bit of it. The only thing which has changed in past fifty years as far as the rurals are concerned, is the rise of the huge irrigators. These irrigators are to be condemned utterly and completely. However, I’m saying the farmers knew the big boys were moving in for the kill.
Governments have traditionally had a lasse faire attitude towards the land. But now one government has told the rurals they will have to restrict their water usage in order to save the river. Result? Mayhem.
If you can give me one valid reason for these yokels being continually massaged in the face of disaster, give it to me. Otherwise YOU pass on the message to the farmers. ‘Stop bleating, pull out the finger, stop imagining the rest of the population is as silly as the rurals and do something to conserve the land, not rape it.
Here endeth the lesson.
Venise: That is the most ignorant, baseless and ill-informed dribble I have ever read, and believe me I have read some. I would critique your comments but nothing you have said makes any sense so I wouldn’t even know where to start. What are you doing on Crikey? Is the Telegraph website down?
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Venise Alstergren for providing me with one of the best laughs I had in years. You’re comments are a joke right? Because no intelligent, informed or half-decent person would ever dream to make such bigoted, dogmatic, discriminatory, hateful, intolerant, vile, politically-incorrect and blatantly anti-human comments to any group in society the way you have towards farmers and people living in rural areas of Australia … unless of course, it was a joke.
But I suppose Hitler wasn’t joking (or other extreme groups such as white supremacists who have attempted all manner of “ethnic cleansing”) because that is after all what you’re suggesting: set Australia free from the scourge of the ‘rurals’. Oh…but I am sorry for bringing that up, because your comments are just a joke & to suggest anything else would be ‘taking you completely out of context’.
LOL.
I don’t think I’ve read the Telegraph; are they important?
My comment stands, without equivocation.
Back at comment #3 there was, before I omitted it, a pile of detail about how voices that want change are being sidelined and silenced by the irrigator lobby and their political and media allies.
I’ve been involved in local politics along the Murray for too long and eventually virtually just gave in out of sheer frustration.
I’ve attended too many meetings where the irrigators demanded ‘more water’ without acknowledging that they were the cause of the shortage, that they were receiving water at the expense of others and the river, other users, the urban areas and even other irrigators were suffering because of the greed and selfishness of the irrigator lobby and without stipulating where this extra water was going to come from except it was always the fault of ‘them’ and the ‘government’ in particular.
I saw poor Karlene Maywald, [thats crocodile sympathy just in case you weren't sure] SA Water Minister, lose her state seat in the last election despite giving irrigators more water than was reasonable, the maximum that was available, at no cost, and still get pilloried by the insatiable irrigation lobby and replaced by the head of that lobby.
There are local voices out there trying to get a reasonable long term sustainable solution for the economic and environmental well being of the river but they are being shouted down by the hysterical demands for ‘more water’ of the all powerful irrigation lobby.
Depressing.
I’m interested to hear that you think the irrigation lobby is so powerful. One could argue that they have shown themselves to be in this debate, but I’m not sure that it has been the irrigation lobby as much as the communities in general that have led this debate. At least in terms of achieving any real change.
I’m not disagreeing with you that there is a problem in the Basin and that a plan is not required. The problem I believe is that the current plan is focussed on the environmental needs alone and this is pure folly. The Water Act is flawed it was originally meant to be based primarily on three things- the social, economic and environmental needs of the Basin. The first 65 editions of the Act included this as their overarching premise. It was only when Victoria pulled out of the negotiation and Howard forced Turnbull to find a constitutional means to bring all states back to the table (the international agreements such as RAMSAR) that the intent of the Act changed from being triple bottom line to environmental, with social and economic factors as secondary. This is how it has been explained to me by a number of sources and while I wasn’t involved it certainly explains a lot. It must be noted that he National Water Initiative is the forebear of the Basin Plan, it has triple bottom line outcomes as its absolute objective, and rightly so.
The problem now is that rational Australians want to see a plan put in place but they also value our rural and regional communities and want the social and economic impacts minimised. Unless the Water Act is changed the irrigation lobby will continue to get traction in the media, passions will remain high, and this debate will continue for a long time to come. Particularly given the current parliamentary make up, anything as controversial as this is unlikely to get anywhere in a hurry.
Just to give one narrow dimension of the problem, check this out.
Its the Basin Community Committee of the MDBA.
Its role is to provide the MDBA with community input and persepective.
There are 16 members.
9, at least, are directly linked to the farmer/irrigation industry and lobby groups.
Including the chair.
Sure they use the buzz word ‘sustainable’ a lot and there is conservationist and indigenous representation but I would suggest that, like other such committees in the past at state and basin level, it is ‘stacked’ to give undue prominence to the irrigator/farmer lobby.
Here check it out.
http://www.mdba.gov.au/files/publications/BCC-fact-sheet-4.pdf
RichWidows
Our posts crossed.
Presuming your #14 addresses me at #13 then my #15 was written before I read your #14.
Is that clear [hopefully]?
So without reading your post I answered your first paragraph question by showing that, politically and administratively, the ‘communities’ are dominated by the irrigation lobby.
A continuation of a long tradition.
Your summary, that progress is unlikely, is one with which I fully agree.
That which should not be controversial, is.
Unfortunately.
I’m aware of the BCC and I take your point. But I would also submit that not all irrigators are ‘bad’ and irrigation systems are so complex and diverse across the Basin that you need a broad representation to gain an adequate understanding at the local level.
Regardless, a Basin Plan that truly compares the environmental needs of the Basin with the Human needs and sets out to provide the best possible outcome for both is hard to argue against. At the end of the day, irrigators need a healthy basin more than anyone else does. It is up to the MDBA to draft a Basin Plan that provides the best outcome for everyone in the Basin and then be prepared to stand up and explain why. By continuing to hide behind the Act and releasing outrageous figures like 800 job losses they are only serving to increase emotion and prevent real discussion of the key issues.
Yep, our replies crossed but it seems we are on similar page.
FREDEX: Take a bow. You speak the truth.
RICHWIDOWS: I take it you acquired your money from your husband who was in irrigation in a big way?
“”I don’t believe the majority is being sidelined. In fact, I think it is the rural communities and particularly those outside of agriculture, that have the most to lose in this debate. Irrigators will sell their water but it is the local businesses who lose their…”"
Those three lines you have written should qualify you for a medal for incandescent shame. Also, you write like a politician: all figures and no heart. And if you seek to divert opinion by rubbishing me, you are attacking entirely the wrong foe. However, that’s what you’re paid to do is it not?
All you have to do is ask yourself this “Who stands to gain the most from allowing the river to continue its present course?”
The farmers gain nothing only they are too thick to see it.
Once again “”All you have to do is ask yourself this “Who stands to gain the most from allowing the river to continue its present course?”"
I await your answer with a breathless lack of anticipation.
Errata: Para five should read “”“Who REALLY stands to gain the most from allowing the river to continue its present course?”” Ditto para seven “”“”All you have to do is ask yourself this “Who REALLY stands to gain the most from allowing the river to continue its present course?””
Same page maybe but we disagree on some sentences.
For example I can’t agree at all with your:
” …. irrigation systems are so complex and diverse across the Basin that you need a broad representation to gain an adequate understanding at the local level.” if you wish to use it to validate such having a controlling number on the committeee.
You could make such a statement re several groups who are only given token. if that, acknowledgement re committee membership [eg conservation/indigenous/recreation/tourism/govt services/ retail trade].
For example in my local region, supposedly an irrigation area and promoted as such, teachers alone just about outnumber irrigators.
Add carers, nurses, council workers and the real big employers of recreation and tourism workers and retailers and irrigators and their supposed dominant economic importance becomes minimal and clearly overstated in the media and in the representation of this committee.
There is no way the irrigation lobby should be given majority, note that it is at least a majority, membership of an advisory committee that purports to represent all basin interests.
Its committee stacking of a blatant nature.
And, as I said, continues a long tradition of such.
And thats the mob the irrigation lobby is [indirectly] attacking as anti-irrigator!!!
Its one of the many reasons I am so pessimistic.
ALISON: Your comment has only just made it past the MODERATOR. I wonder why??????
You could learn something from the hold-up. 1) I came down on the farmers and the irrigators, not someone specific. 2) I don’t hide behind an alias. 3) I did NOT rubbish the author.
Now, little girl, why don’t you turn some of your outraged fury into something positive? The rurals-I include irrigators and all people living off the land-have been living a splendid life botting off the various governments-meaning the taxpayer. Whining all the time about every catastrophe that befalls them.
The answer is-if you really mean what you have the courage to write behind-get off your arse and start an online news sheet. It will take you an awful lot of work and would do you a power of good. Always ask questions, although the answers will eventually be the opposite of what you started out thinking. An example….
FARMER: “All the topsoil has blown away!”
YOU: “What caused it to blow away?”
It might take a few days but the answer might be…
YOU: “Umm Joe. I’ve been asking lots of questions and it turns out that no one around here wanted to buy the new seed because the price had gone through the roof. And a mate with the CSIRO was telling me that what with the drought, no seed throwing out roots, and the very high winds we’ve had lately, has all caused the topsoil to blow off.” PAUSE. “Also he told me if you weren’t going to plant seed, why didn’t you leave some of the weeds in the ground; until the time comes when you do want to plant seed?”
This is an example only.
AND SO ON. When you find out the proper answer you can put it all on your news page.
Who knows; they may even learn something from your information?
So run along and so something worthwhile little girl.
The free kick the media give these rural voter morons is beyond belief. And every election, without fail, they vote for tax cuts for the rich, more money for private schools and a host of other policies that really only benefit the rich in the big cities. Voting for their own execution, again and again.
I can still remember the shock of the town I grew up in after they all voted in the Kennett govt in 1992 (they always vote conservative without thinking). Over the next few years he basically gutted the place, removed the trains, shut schools etc etc, but they stoically put up with it because they are so anti labor. When labor got back in they started replacing the services, but, as usual, no acknowledgement from the rural voters.
Turkeys who vote for their own execution every time. And the media love and fawn over them, as usual.
JOHN2066: Not only do they vote the conservatives; they vote for The National/Country Party. A party which is happy to screw them and support the big irrigators. It’s pure SOCIALISM for the FARMERS. Ideally all our taxes and excess wealth should go to support the rurals. How dare urban dwellers not live on the land. The whole rural vote is rigged so that in many cases, the Liberals don’t field a candidate but the Nats do.
Their Lobby groups pump out a relentless churn of negative coverage. The locusts are coming; the drought is appalling; the bush fires cleaned us out; we’ve lost all our topsoil; our water is being taken from us. None of which is our fault. Ha!
But our yeoman farmers keep voting for these tawdry pollies. And I suppose that’s all our fault as well?