I am writing this letter in regard to Peter Walsh’s comment that it was not Liberal Party policy that a royal commission be formed to investigate the Murray-Darling Basin Plan (Country News, March 24).
As far as the Liberal Victorian Division is concern, this is not the case.
At the last state conference in October 2019 at Ballarat, a resolution was unanimously passed without one objection.
This conference included such members as the state Liberal senators and included politicians such as Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
The resolution called for:
● An examination of the true, measurable environmental objectives of the plan.
● Objectively reviewing the performance of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority in observing S3(c) of the Water Act 2007 requiring “the use and management of the basin water resources in a way that optimises economic, social and environmental outcomes”, and S3(e) requiring MDBA "to improve water security for all uses of the basin water resource”.
● Determining how to prevent illegal water theft and un-metered floodplain harvesting.
● Review of science and modelling underpinning the plan, including disputed evidence of the historical levels of salinity in the South Australia’s Lower Lakes.
The fact is, GMID (Goulburn Murray Irrigation District) irrigators have suffered enough, and only a broad-based royal commission will indicate how we have been “dudded”.
Many country and metropolitan delegates showed great interest in what has happened to Victorian water and the way the plan has been implemented.
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