Senator Bob Brown’s, Leader of the Greens’ statement that the recent floods were caused by, and should be paid by, the coal industry, or to use his terminology “coal barons” is an absurd provocative, clumsy and factually incorrect statement. It is obviously made as an incendiary call to arms for what he believes his followers wish to hear. Why the coal industry? Well I guess we can thank small graces that he did not blame it on people with large forearms or people of Welsh descent.
If the coal industry caused the current floods, then I presume we will put the1841 floods down to gold mining, the 1893 floods to tin mining and I don’t know who we will blame the 1974 floods on but I reckon the Bay City Rollers are as good as any.
We currently have the continued deliberations over the Murray Darling Basin and, as absurd as it is, with the amount of water around, we are still heading down a path that is going to shut regional towns down by shutting off their water. This of course will put up the price of food as we become more reliant on overseas imports, reduce exports and be yet another disincentive for living in regional Australia.
The reality is this – if we do not change the Act, that is the Water Act, we will not change the outcome. If you end up with an outcome that does not comply with the Act then that outcome can be taken to the High Court where they will obviously state that the outcome is incongruous to the Act and therefore the outcome has to be thrown out.
Although I have given my best endeavours to get the Labor party, the Greens, and the Independents to investigate this, they refuse to. This obviously makes me doubt their sincerity in wanting a different outcome.