The Murray-Darling Basin Authority has still not got the science right less than a month before the release of the Murray-Darling Basin draft plan.

The Labor-Green-Independent alliance, who is responsible for government, couldn’t hit a dartboard if it was strapped to their face. If they are not changing the temperature of the globe, they are changing how much it rains by altering the amount of litres that a water licence can deliver.

It is starting to sound a lot like a very cunning plan. If you can just wheelbarrow this rubbish out the door before Christmas, while everybody is away, you might just get a way with it all.

In today’s communiqué released by the MDBA this afternoon the Authority says:

Ministers noted the Authority would make available more detailed information about the science underpinning the proposed water recovery targets and sustainable diversion limits at the time the draft Basin Plan is released.

We are heading towards the same mistakes as last time, foisting an unprepared and unrealistic plan on the 2.1 million people who live in the Basin. Labor did such a stellar job with pink batts, school halls, live cattle exports and QANTAS, they are now going to re-engineer the nation’s foodbowl.

Today’s communiqué also showed that water savings from the Menindee Lakes remains more of a dream than a reality. There is no mention of the Menindee Lakes in today’s communiqué despite Tony Burke saying in a speech this week that:

Because we've also got to add in there - sorry, I didn't mention Menindee. We have the Menindee project with New South Wales where they at the moment have unilaterally terminated the money which is on the table for the commonwealth for them, but we're now re-scoping it with officials, but it's believed you can get up to 200 gigalitres out of that as well.

Four year’s ago, in the 2007 election, Labor put as their “top priority” in the Murray-Darling  investment in the Menindee Lakes to reduce evaporation.* They have spent over $20 million on consultants but no water has been saved. Back then they were bone dry now we have waited so long, God has filled them up again.

Labor are doing nothing to restore the trust they squandered in the Basin last year.

* Labor’s national plan to tackle the water crisis, http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/library/partypol/170P6/upload_binary/170p62.pdf;fileType%3Dapplication%2Fpdf, p. 12