LABOR SHOWS IT IS WEAK AS WATER ON BUYBACKS

Member for Riverina Michael McCormack has lashed out at the Federal Government for its reckless stance on the Murray-Darling Basin plan.

“I moved the motion of disallowance for the Murray-Darling Basin in November 2012 because I did not want to see any more ad hoc and unnecessary buybacks,” Mr McCormack said.

“Our Murray-Darling Basin communities cannot afford more buybacks.

“What this Labor Government wants to do is to rip 450 gigalitres of water from our communities through forced buybacks with reckless abandon to the social and economic mess it will leave in our regional communities.”

The additional 450GL was not part of the original plan but an election ploy aimed at winning votes in South Australia but came with an undertaking that it would have a triple bottom line under it – economic, social and environmental – such that it would not come at the detriment of any river town.

“To now take an extra 450GL out of the productive system would destroy some of those river communities, Mr McCormack said.

“A leopard cannot change its spots and neither can a Labor Government which will always put its own interests above the regions.

“Why should our regional irrigation communities be forced to pay such a high price?

“This is the typical ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ behaviour regional communities have come to expect from Labor governments which never respect or represent our regions’ interests.”

Mr McCormack said it was in everyone’s best interest to look after the Basin’s environment, but it cannot come at a detrimental cost to people, jobs and the production of food in river communities.

“Our farmers are the best environmentalists in the world – they have a vested interest in maintaining a good environment because it is their very livelihoods at stake.

“Farmers and regional communities do not need some autocracy dictating demands from an ivory tower.”