A REGIONAL politician has kept her promise of opposing the Murray-Darling Basin Plan's adoption to law, going against the views of her political party to support the community's concerns.
Dr Stone, a former Minister in the Howard Government, seconded a motion - moved during the final parliamentary sitting for 2012 - disallowing the plan that advocates the reallocation of 2750 gigalitres of water annually from community and agricultural use for environmental needs."This plan is cynical, it is crude, it is unscientific, it is just a political instrument," Federal Member for Murray, Sharman Stone told the House of Representatives.
Dr Stone, alongside Coalition colleagues Michael McCormack and Alby Schultz, went against their political peers to oppose the plan.
"The does not address the social, economic and environmental outcomes that are needed - and that was not so hard to do," she said in parliament.
Although receiving the support of Greens representative, Adam Bandt and Independent member Bob Katter, the motion was defeated 95-5.
"I am not going to be silent. With the member for Riverina (Mr McCormack) I am going to speak up for my electorate," Dr Stone said.
"I know this vote will be lost, but I am going to take a stand, a principled stand, because I am the member for Murray and - in the tradition of my predecessor the great Sir John McEwen, who would have said the same things at similar times; he was a great country man - I am going to stand up and say 'no', and I am going to try, having said 'no', when we are in government, to start again."
During a 15-minute speech outlining her views on the issue, Dr Stone said the plan was developed following negotiations between Labor and the Greens to ensure the formation of the minority government in 2010.
"Let us get sensible and real about this plan. This plan is not about rescuing environmental flows to match the circumstances of the entire Murray-Darling Basin. This plan is about is taking water from the food producers and fibre producers in the biggest fertile crescent in Australia - after all, let us face it: they are all coalition seats, and putting it into this very big Environmental Water Holder bucket and then boasting about it in metropolitan Australia," she said.
"Don't worry about the fact that you do not have any environmental watering plans, you do not know exactly when and how the water will be used and there is no actual statement in the plan which acknowledges that this is not just about adding water and standing back
"This plan is cynical, it is crude, it is unscientific, it is just a political instrument and I am not going to simply wave it past. I am not going to just stay silent and say, 'Well, I really hope the Coalition wins the next election because then we can do something about it,' because my electorate is suffering right now. We actually have stranded assets right now. We have people with dried-off farms who cannot sell their dried-off farms who are in despair. We have those who are paying more for their water because they are the only ones who are left. We have lost factories. We have lost jobs."
The National Irrigators' Council welcomed the move by Dr Stone and other politicians to oppose the plan in parliament.Federal Member for Mallee, John Forrest was not in the chamber when voting occurred.
"The river doesn't care how water is recovered and capping water buy-backs in legislation will go a long way to delivering a better basin plan," NIC chief executive officer, Tom Chesson said prior to the vote occurring last week.
The plan is still to pass through the Senate, with a second reading scheduled when parliament resumes in February.
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