Unfortunately, the MDB plan is not a plan: it is a political document. The MDBA CEO seems to think that science and any other opinion, whether informed or not, have equal worth in considering the future of the Murray-Darling systems. The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists point out the fatal flaws in the failure of the Authority to incorporate scientific research - some of it CSIRO research specifically commissioned by the Federal Government [c. $5 million] and basically by-passed in the MDBA "plan". At last, the Wentworth Group have added their weight to critiques of the Government's clear intentions to placate the rent-a-crowd book burners. Craig Knowles has released a political document and what he has managed to do is to unite diverse groups of interests into the Voices for the Murray-Darling and the Lifeblood Alliance. He and the Minister might re-consider the central moral, environmental, social, economic, scientific and logical principal that ought to govern any decisions about the vast, complex and vital Murray-Darling Basin: if the rivers are not healthy, food production, community prosperity, the landscape, wildlife and plant species all die. Stop the goddam nonsense and get on with acting responsibly and with a long-term vision.

Why is the Murray still a problem. Wasn't it established rather clearly that it is the cotton industry that was the cause of the state of the river ? Stop the cotton industry & we can stop talking & concentrate on other important issues. I have no doubt that the entrepreneurs would find a profitable alternative to the cotton industry. Let the entrepreneurs run the show & all will be better.

Cotton should never have been allowed there in the first place. The ord river is the place for cotton.
A total waste is grape crops because of oversupply get tipped on the ground.
mulit national supermarkets, building their own dams, to guard against water shortages, along the murray.
Unused water licenses, being kept as superannuation.
Maybe we need to render all licenses invalid, and reallocate as necessary.
There is more allocations, than there is water.
The ultimate would be directing water from the north, as said.

Perhaps if our pollies had not bought half a dozen votes by diverting far too much water back to the Snowy, there would be a bit more for the Murray.

I always believed that in a democracy you do the most good for the largest number possible. What rot.

So now a few can now enjoy a huge waste of water, watching the Snowy rush down hill, to waste itself in the Pacific, & thousands suffer down the length of the Murray.

Of course a couple of pollise also picked up a couple of ratbag votes. I hope those votes chocked them.

I am so sick of the idiots who run this country. In my district in behind the Gold Coast we have quite a few little mountain streams, running in behind the mountain ranges, before they get through to the sea. Even in dry times a thunderstorm can have a torrent 10 meters deep, & a hundred wide, running down the headwaters of these streams for a few hours.

Many farmers have large pumps to harvest a little of this water, pumping it into their dams before it's gone. Our so cleaver regulators have decreed that they can't pump any of this water, until the down stream weir for town water supply, just before the salt starts, is overtopped by the minor flood.

Of course the fact that it takes a day & a half to get there, & by then our farmers headwaters are back to a few centimeters deep appears to be beyond their ability to understand.

Thus this waters only use is to carry silt & logs into Morton Bay, spoiling the view with brown water, & wrecking boats.

It takes a 4 year degree for these people to get this smart.

I have no problem with the basic message that management of the Murray-Darling basin should be consistant, long term and aim at conservation..

But less water? I was under the impression that the upper reaches for the Murray Darling had flooded for two years straight and most dams were at capacity. South Australia may be different but to suggest there is an overall shortage in the basin is a bit odd.. Did the author really mean to say this? Um.. does someone have an explanation?

This flooding has occured, mind you, despite the best scientific advice of a few years back that the dry times would continue. Now ther is good reason to believe the Murray-Darling flow is in fact linked to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (global warming, if it exists, would be an effect on top of the PDO). In that case the flows should revert to the better times of the 1940s to 1970s, albeit with considerably more strain on the system.

The current policy response is, in fact, a reaction to the drought. It is good that the policy response should continue, as the system is used a lot, but less water??

Until the Murray Darling Basin is put under the contol of an independent body similar to the Reserve Bank Board completely void of politics this battle will rage on.
The Basin is too impotant to be influenced by the Federal or any State Government.

I would rather see a co operative of all irrigators, to elect their own board. No one knows the river like the irrigators.
There was something like 35 locks planned for the murray, but only about 12 were ever built.
Every lock is its own reservoir, backing up water for 50 or 60 kms or more.

Don't be so silly 56flood. The reserve bank is under bad management right now, & is doing almost as much harm to Oz, as is the government.
All to often those boards become the province of academics & or bureaucrats, who have less idea of what they are doing, than their office cleaner.

Haven't you noticed than when ever any of these government appointed bodies are required to do their job, particularly in an emergence, they invariably fail dramatically. Think bush fires & floods recently.

579 great to be able to agree with you on something.

I am secretary of an irrigation committee, although it is some years since I have pumped out of the river. We are the bottom of a system. In the same way as SA, our water comes from up stream. There are 4 other committees up stream of us, 2 on our river, & 2 on major tributary creeks.

As the last fresh water before the salt, we have as part of our charter a requirement to allow some fresh flow into the salt, when ever there is fresh water flow in the river. We set restrictions on extraction, [rubber stamped by water resources] on ourselves to achieve this.

After years of negations our system is that all above us comply with our restrictions. This does not apply when sudden storms may greatly augment supply in some headwaters for a couple of days, or when some headwaters may be dry. If the flow through our area increases, we increase extraction limits for all.

It took a while to get to this level of cooperation, but for years now it takes only 20 or so phone calls when necessary to arrange equity for all.

When are Australian going to stop blaming the cotton industry ie, Individual and 579, it certainly is not established, “Wasn't it established rather clearly that it is the cotton industry that was the cause of the state of the river? Stopping the cotton industry will solve nothing except un-employ thousands and cause hardship, Australia is in the top cotton exporting countries in the World. And Has been are the Reserve Band Board as bad as the MDBA it is about the terms of reference.

The logic of blaming cotton for the ills of the Murray escapes me. Irrigators who grow cotton presumably do so to get the best return they can for the water they use. If their allocation is say 500ML, and water is the key driver of their business, isn't it likely that any alternative crop will utilise that same 500ML simply by adjusting the area grown.

It would seem pointless to me to grow something of lesser return with that water. That would be a waste.

I'm a fan of Everald's especially his work on trying to kill age discrimination. But re the Murray, it's about to flood. We should be building dams. Good luck with that.