WHILE the major problem affecting our Murray-Darling Basin waterways, communities and irrigators is a lack of water due to the drought, it seems a severe shortage of trust is also continuing to take a toll.
Time and time again I have written about how a lack of trust between MDB stakeholders is as toxic to successful water reform as a blue green algae bloom is to our native fish populations.
Perhaps I’m being pessimistic, but the old adage ‘one step forward, two steps back’ seems to be ringing true. Just when we appear to have a more unified approach, serious local issues rear their head and the deep divide across the basin becomes clear once more.
Take what’s happened in the past month or so as an example. At the basin water ministers meeting in December, SA Water and Environment Minister David Speirs stood shoulder-to-shoulder with his federal, Vic and NSW counterparts as they signed a deal to concerning water recovery for the environment. Unlike past gatherings of water ministers, it finally seemed as though all governments were satisfied with the situation.
Just a few weeks later, the death of a million fish at Menindee, NSW, has thrust the Basin Plan and the MDB Authority back into the headlines as debate rages stronger than ever.
There are as many opinions on the best way to solve the issue as there are dead fish. Accusations of mismanagement are being levelled at water authorities, while plans to re-engineer Menindee Lakes are also being questioned. Calls for new inquiries or a Royal Commission are being made every day, although each stakeholder seems to want a different approach.
I’m increasingly losing hope that we can ever have a truly unified approach to managing our most valuable resource. The divide runs deeper than an underground aquifer, and the huge range of competing interests makes satisfying everyone impossible.
So few people trust in the plan and its administrators to get it right. It seems all across the basin, people are worried they’ll be the ones left high and dry when times get tough. They feel they have to fight to have their interests protected.
This lack of trust and air of suspicion only serves to pit northern irrigator against southern irrigator, farmer against farmer. If this continues to happen, we all lose.
