Confrontation and misleading statements seem to be the weapons of choice for irrigators responding to the Murray-Darling Draft Plan.
The NSW Irrigators Council's October newsletter makes this clear. It says that last year they managed to raise the ire of the public against the guidelines that preceded the Plan, even leading to public burnings of the guide. It suggests that a similar negative strategy will be required this time.
On ABC radio, CEO of the National Irrigators Council Tom Chessan made spurious suggestions about building more dams and the like. On another program, Riverina farmer Michael Kettlewell claimed 'the environment will always survive. It has been doing so for millions of years. It dries up, dies and then gets reborn. Communities and towns do not ... once they die, they're gone.'
The truth is that without protecting the ecological health of rivers, communities will not survive. That is the proper order. Caring for communities means caring for the land and water on which they depend.
The tactics of irrigator councils play on people's fears. Members of these organisations need to select leaders who are more balanced in what they say and do. Distorting the truth to favour one's own group is to act with bias or even duplicity. This can pit irrigator farmers' rights against fellow farmers' rights, as happened with floodplain farmers and those in the Macquarie marshes.
Getting the facts right is a pathway to making good choices and acting with integrity. Getting ecological facts right is also fundamental to understanding the history of river systems and the varied forms of life they support. Ignorance is not bliss.
The 2004 statement 'The Gift of Water', by the Catholic Church's 11 bishops with dioceses in the river catchments, is instructive. Parish priests in the Basin might make copies so that their parishioners are not misled by the hype promoted by some irrigator lobbyists and financial manipulators. Schools can prepare their students to deal with the bias and misinformation they might hear.
On a recent trip to north western NSW I was impressed by the evolving way in which farmers are going about their business. Ecological awareness has led them to adopt low impact tilling and reduce fertiliser loads. They have decided