Sign this apology and send it on to federal Water Minister Tanya Plibersek, and Water Ministers from SA, NSW and QLD, asking them to hold Victoria to a higher standard.
We’ll cc Victorian Water Minister Harriet Shing in to make sure she gets the message too!
For more than a decade, the Victorian government has undermined the national plan to save Australia’s largest river system – the Murray-Darling Basin.
We think it’s about time they fessed up to this and issued an apology to the other states. So we’ve written it for them.
Could you add your name and send this apology to Water Ministers in other states, asking them to hold Victoria to a higher standard?
This message comes at a critical time. Right now, state and federal governments are negotiating how to deliver water for rivers promised in the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. That water could mean life or death for hundreds of threatened species as Australia enters a dry spell in coming years.
Every time governments have sat down to hash out a deal on this issue in the past, Victoria has acted to reduce the amount of water for the environment. We’ve catalogued this poor past behaviour in a new report, Debasing the Basin Plan, released this week.
From holding the country ransom over the Commonwealth Water Act to instigating an unworkable ‘test’ that makes it impossible to return water to the environment, Victoria has sabotaged efforts to save rivers – and it’s gone on long enough.
By calling out these tactics, we hope they won’t be repeated this time around because other states will be able to recognise them and push back. Please sign this tongue-in-cheek confession about Victoria’s past misdeeds and send it to federal and state water ministers today.
Or read the full report here >>