Media Release – Senator Barnaby Joyce, 29 November 2011:
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Murray-Darling basin results in the answer of 2750 gigalitres, and all grief can be alleviated with a consultant. Of course! What the people of Griffith need at this time of crisis is for someone from Pitt Street in Sydney to come out and tell them how to adapt.
A form of Darwinian enforcement from an opulent airy spire from somewhere in Martin Place.
I must say the crowd in Griffith was really happy when they found out they were going to send out a consultant. They were really worried for a while that the Labor party was going to stuff this up again. Like the crisis budget from this crisis government. Like the $219 billion in gross debt they have left us.
Minister Crean, when you say something like that I get a sinking feeling that you really do not have a clue.
It’s some perverse form of logic that you have never ever understood the realities of an area and that is why this is turning into a debacle. And when you really need to understand this issue you send out a consultant instead of doing your homework and understanding the issue.
Minister Crean said in a media release issued today that, ‘regional experts would work across the Murray, Murrumbidgee, Goulburn-Broken and Condamine-Balonne catchments to help communities adapt to a future with less water.’*
Minister Crean has announced that he will be using more of your money borrowed from overseas to pay inner city experts to tell people in the regions how to run their lives.
Farmers aren’t mugs Mr Crean, neither are people who live in the regions. They run their businesses and households just like any other Australian, they have to account for every dollar they earn and penny they spend.
Which is more than can be said for this government. They have already spent over $10 million on consultants to deliver a plan that does not even say how they are going to use that water.
The bush doesn’t need more consultants, the government needs to do its homework.
More information – Matthew Canavan 0262773244
*http://www.minister.regional.gov.au/sc/releases/2011/november/sc140_2011.aspx
Barnaby Is Right 
Think I could be a consultant!!! 60 years ago I drove to Adelaide via the inland route and then back along the Coorong. The Murray and Murray Mouth were in pristine condition – beautiful and no problems. About 10 years later visited Adelaide again and went on a cruise from Goolwa to Hindmarsh Island and to the Murray Mouth. Still in pristine condition and no problems. My next visit was to Wagga Wagga where my father was born. The Murray River was pristine, full and fast flowing. Then a couple of years ago visited the Riverina with friends. The rivers were high and canals were full, the landscape was beautiful and green with grapevines and crops. Then drought came and water had not been dammed or piped ready for droughts. Now we have rain and floods again but all the floodwaater goes through the drains into the sea. Surely governments should have had the insight to do someting to contain flood waters. When the Adelaide/Darwin rail was built surely it would have been wise to put in pipes to harvest water while digging up the ground. Of course the Greens will not let dams to be built and so millions of litres of flood water this year and now in Northern NSW could have been harvested to water the groound. Even the Moche people of Peru build mudbrick dams, pipes and channels in the rainy period to water the crops (their lifeblood) in the dry. Yet Australia with all the modern technology it has cannot even think of ways of harvesting water. Surely this smacks of crashing our economy which it appears the Green and Labor are endeavouring to do.
Usually in a regression in a business or whatever, the principle of “last in, first out” usually applies. Why should 60 year old irrigation be destroyed equally along with 6 year old irrigation? Most people think the greens are crazy for stopping dams being built, but don’t realise they want to stop even small farm dams from being built. They want pristine wilderness everywhere, so all farmers are their enemy. I know who the good guys are and it ain’t them.
TBI, you may wish to read today’s rubbish Gittins article criticizing farmers at http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/farmers-fall-silent-while-food-brings-home-bacon-20111129-1o4zo.html
He cops a much deserved shellacking for his complaint about farmers “doing it good” for a change. He had the temerity to say months ago that he is “apolitical”. A political left-wing nutter, more like it.
Thanks Twodogs … just for you, on this one occasion I forced myself to read his column 😉