Reports today suggest that Tony Windsor is now claiming that the proposed cuts in water usage in the Murray-Darling Basin is 2000 GL, not the 3000 GL to 4000 GL proposed by the Murray-Darling Basin Authority in the Guide to the proposed Basin Plan released last October.
Mr Windsor has been quoted by the ABC, stating this morning “If you assume that the 3,000 number has some sort of scientific validity ... there is question marks about that and even the authority is revisiting some of those as well but if you assume that was the number, that number is now 2,000.”*
“Mr Windsor’s comments today that the proposed water cuts are now only at 2000 GL are extremely important to clarify,” said Senator Barnaby Joyce today.
“The Chair of the Regional Australia Committee is a Labor party appointment and Tony Windsor holds that chair. It is vitally important now that the Labor party through Minister Burke confirms that eitherhis views conform with Mr Windsor’s views or they don’t.
“If the Minister fails to clarify this statement then he is doing a fundamental disservice to the people that rely on such statements to make investments in the Basin and progress their lives in the Basin.
“Quite obviously I support anything that makes up for the lack of attention given to socio-economic foundations so far.
“However, I am concerned that we will get to a position where everyone nods but nothing gets done. That is why I remain very focused on an investigation of the Act to remove in legislative form any ambiguity that the outcome must consider the economic future, the social structure and the environmental assets in equivalence.”