Victoria `holding NSW farmers to ransom': [1 All-round Country Edition]
Stapleton, John. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 24 May 2007: 4.
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Abstract
"We are running on empty," Mr [Doug Miell] said. "We have as bad a problem as has ever been confronted in the [Murray-Darling], and we've got Stephen Bracks playing politics."
"The drought has highlighted the over-allocation of water in the river system and shown how much we need a unified scheme to fix the problems," Mr O'[Connor] said. "I am disappointed that what seems like a good long-term solution proposed by the federal Government is going to be chopped off by thebloody-mindedness of the Victorian Government."
PETER O'Connor wants to send Victorian Premier Steve Bracks a clear message: stop holding him and hundreds of other irrigators to ransom for the sake of politics.
Mr O'Connor, 50, farms two blocks in the Coleambally district in the NSW Riverina and faces the prospect of no water allocations for the coming season.
With his income depleted by the five years of drought, he now looks out to 1.5m-deep cracks across his paddocks.
"The drought has highlighted the over-allocation of water in the river system and shown how much we need a unified scheme to fix the problems," Mr O'Connor said. "I am disappointed that what seems like a good long-term solution proposed by the federal Government is going to be chopped off by the bloody-mindedness of the Victorian Government."
He accused Mr Bracks of acting parochially at the expense of others in the Murray-Darling Basin. "If you have got the Queensland, South Australian, Victorian and NSW governments all looking after their own, you can't have a solution to a national problem," he said.
"The Victorian Government has spat the dummy ... because they can't get exactly what they want. Everyone else in the basin is going to have to bear the pain."
Mr O'Connor grows a mix of wheat, barley, hay and fat lambs, and said that although there had been good rains in the past month, he needed water to finish off the wheat and barley crops he had just planted.
"In the last 12 months our income was down to around 40 per cent of normal because of the lack of water to produce crops," he said. "I have increased my overdraft each year for the past three years just to stay in business. There are 400 irrigators in Coleambally alone who should be generating hundreds of millions for the national economy."
Mr O'Connor said the Victorian irrigation systems, owned and run by the Victorian Government, had been neglected and were in disrepair. "If the Victorians won't come to the party, the federal Government should fix what it can," he said.
NSW Irrigators Council chief executive Doug Miell said major irrigators in NSW were disappointed at the obstructionist approach of the Victorian Government.
"We are running on empty," Mr Miell said. "We have as bad a problem as has ever been confronted in the Murray-Darling, and we've got Stephen Bracks playing politics."
Mr Miell said their question to the Prime Minister was: "How much longer are you going to allow Victoria to rule the roost?"
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