20 April 2007

The federal Government has warned that farmers from the Murray-Darling Basin will have their water rights taken away and that there will be significant vegetable and fruit price rises if it does not rain heavily soon.

The 60, 000 farmers from the Murray-Darling Basin contribute 40 per cent to the nation’s agriculture industry.

There is disagreement, however, between Prime Minister John Howard and Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull over the $10 billion national water plan.

Howard contradicted his environment minister, declaring that a national water plan cannot work without Victoria.

According to Turnbull, the Government will go ahead with the plan if Victoria refuses to sign-up, even though it may not work as well.

In this case Victoria will not get any of the $10 billion funding.

"It will be a very bitter blow to Victorian irrigators to see so much investment on the other side of the border." he said.

Scientists and farmers are critical of the recent media attention on the Murray-Darling Basin, claiming that government authorities have known for 20 years about the serious water problems facing its farmers but have done little to prevent it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

maybe a leadership takeover is in the pipeline - government ministers know from internal polling that howard is a gonna in the next election

Anonymous said...

So can we blame the inevitable rise in interest rates on the drought as well?

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.