NO ANNOUNCEMENTS YET REGARDING 2012 BASIN PLAN MEETINGS

24^th January 2012

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

NO ANNOUNCEMENTS YET REGARDING 2012 BASIN PLAN MEETINGS

Happy new year to everyone.

Here we are 8 weeks in to the 20 week MDBA basin plan consultation process, we have only had one round of public meetings in very few places across the murray darling basin and as yet have had no announcements when the next ones will be.

Following is an excerpt from Barnaby Joyce’s latest press release and he sums it up perfectly:

“This is ridiculous .There are now only 12 weeks left for consultation on the draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan and we still don’t have a release of the public consultation dates. What is the point of a public consultation period if you don’t use that time to consult the public?

It’s well and truly time for the Murray Darling Basin Authority to come clean with the communities along the Basin and release the public consultation dates for 2012.”

Indeed it is time for the MDBA to come clean to the 2.1 million people living in the murray darling basin. This plan will directly have a devastatingly adverse effect on them and their communities and that will then affect all of the Australians and communities relying on them and their income along with their supply of well priced, safe, clean food. Because if you reckon this ill researched and biased plan will not have an effect on you and your hip pocket then I suggest you need to have a major re-think.

It has always been my belief that all water required for environmental flows plus much more can be achieved with infrastructure spending, what we need is vision, commitment and investment. Unfortunately we are not seeing much of that with this plan.

Through my Facebook page “Save Murray Darling Basin communities” I stay in contact with numerous people from right across the basin along with keeping it updated daily with as much information as I can find.

We need as much support as we can possibly get.

Yours Faithfully,

Peter Gilmour