Murray Darling Basin Plan

Letter Published in "The Land" of 25h November,2010

I think we can all agree with Tony Windsor (Letters, 18th November) that "we have a problem". But, I'm not sure we would agree on what the problem actually is. As I and many others see it, the problem is the dominance of dark green ideology, and classifying the natural results of an extreme dry period (and mis-management of the Lower Lakes), as river ill-health. First, let's scientifically examine the symptoms one by one and see if the rivers really are "unhealthy" or simply water deprived. Second, let us examine the hard numbers, (not the loose meaningless averages thrown around by the MDBA), for run-off, river flows and extractions, to determine whether these low river flows are really the result of excessive extractions.

The MDBA quote the annual average surface water extraction limit at 13,700 GL. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics the total extractions for the last three years all added together are only 11,092 GL and for 2008/09 alone, only 3,492 GL. The seasonal allocation system would appear to be working well!

Tony Windsor is in a wonderful position to help get some truth and common sense into the debate. There is no better place to start than correctly defining the problem.
David Boyd

Murray Darling Basin Plan

In my view the key characteristic of inland Australia is its massive rainfall variability. It really is a nonsense to talk about averages for flows, extractions etc. when there is such a huge spread around the average. According to the ABS, actual total extractions in the whole Basin were 3,142GL in 07/08 and 3,492GL in 08/09. In other words about the same as the 3/4000 GL they want to claw back! These figures compare with the average surface extractions of 13,700GL which they keep talking about.

The three conclusions I take from this are 1) We should be focusing on the highly variable Allocations not Licenses/Entitlements. 2)The seasonal allocation methodolgy seems to be working well-bugger all water/bugger all allocations. 3) It is a nonsense to talk in terms of absolute numbers in something which has such massive variability.