Environment Victoria expressed its disappointment today that the latest iteration of the Basin Plan still fails the environment and criticized the State Government for its efforts to weaken the Plan further.
Environment Victoria CEO Kelly O’Shanassy said today:
“The MDBA has received thousands of submissions calling for better environmental outcomes from the Basin Plan yet is has not paid attention to them. This new draft still does not do enough to protect our precious rivers and wetlands and environmental condition right across the Basin will continue to decline, particularly when we face our next drought.
“The Murray-Darling Basin Plan is supposed to guarantee the long term future of our rivers and wetlands, and the communities that depend on them. The MDBA is still refusing to take the opportunity to halt the ecological decline of our river systems and to put northern Victorian agriculture on sustainable foundations.
“It’s time for federal Water Minister Tony Burke to step in and give some direction to the MDBA about the kind of Plan our rivers need. Critics like the Victorian Government who say the Plan will ruin agricultural communities need to take a step back and realize that without healthy rivers there will be no irrigated agriculture, especially in a drier future.
“The new proposals on future groundwater allocation are an improvement on the previous draft but still carry a high level of risk. We just can‘t go on gambling with the future of our rivers, wetlands and aquifers and the prosperity of the communities that rely on them”.
For comment
Environment Victoria Healthy Rivers Campaigner Juliet Le Feuvre 0428 770 019