She slammed Water Minister Tanya Plibersek for being “prepared to tear up the (socio-economic) protections, abandon communities and not even have the courage to front them”.
She reminded those present on Tuesday that at a previous local rally more than a decade ago, then Water Minister Tony Burke fronted a crowd of thousands and promised mechanisms to protect communities from impacts of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
But Minister Plibersek “doesn’t understand, or doesn’t care, that buybacks hurt communities”.
Mrs Scoullar said the government’s own data showed more than 3200 job losses attributed to previous water recovery in the Southern Basin.
“Plibersek wants to barge ahead with buybacks, yet lacks the courage to face communities which will be sacrificed in the process. For political gain, she is prepared to tear up bipartisan agreement and undermine protective mechanisms agreed upon by her colleagues.
“At the same time, the Minister has lacked the courage to stand up to South Australia, who can solve problems at the end of the system through localised projects, and failed to highlight that recovering water from the New South Wales Murray and northern Victoria will not create flows needed in the Darling/Baaka River to prevent fish kills.”
Mrs Scoullar told the rally there are numerous problems with the Basin Plan and they can all be solved with leadership that has the courage to accept mistakes of the past and work with communities to protect them. Quite simply, there are better options than buybacks.
The environment already has more than 4,600GL of water, which cannot be delivered down the system due to physical river constraints.
After the rally, Mrs Scoullar thanked the numerous organisations who had worked collaboratively in a short space of time to give people a chance to express their views on buybacks before the Water Minister’s disastrous legislation is debated in the Senate.
“Despite all the efforts to destroy our communities by city-based politicians who take advice from city-based advisors and academics who have no lived experience in the Basin environment, and no care factor for those who do, we will not give up the fight.
“We value our environment and the lifestyle it allows us to have. We refuse to be the collateral damage for the political gain of our Water Minister and her party,” Mrs Scoullar said.
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