IRRIGATORS should take action to protest at the sacking of the Pyramid Boort Water Services Committee, says ANDREW CHRISTIAN
Northern Victorian irrigators face massive challenges in the next 12 months.
Our biggest challenge will be to obtain some semblance of real representation within our sector while trying to protect our livelihood.
The north-south pipeline will be turned on to run water supposedly saved from a seemingly rushed and poorly planned patch-up job called the Northern Victorian Irrigation Renewal Project.
It is acknowledged by almost all irrigators - and particularly the Federal Government through the National Water Commission - that these inflated savings are extremely questionable.
All this while our water authority can only deliver 50 per cent of our entitlement, even when we have paid for a full allocation.
Could any Australian possibly think this fair?
This band-aid resolution, known as NVIRP, will only cater for 40 per cent of current irrigators, leaving 60 per cent in a seemingly untenable situation.
This bloody-mindedness by Premier John Brumby and Water Minister Tim Holding is purely an expedient political exercise to bluff the Victorian public into believing the Government is actually doing something about Victoria's water shortage problems.
The viability of irrigation in Northern Victoria is being questioned by those who are best positioned to do so - the irrigators.
We are the ones who continually pay for a commodity we don't receive.
We are being encouraged to take over the ongoing administrative and maintenance costs of infrastructure once provided by Goulburn Murray Water.
We face the doubling of our water bills in the not too distant future.
This frightening fact is substantiated by the National Water Commission in a recent report to the Federal Government.
The NWC also states that "water users should be fully informed ... and engaged in the decision-making process".
The recently sacked Pyramid-Boort Water Services Committee was truly representative of irrigators' concerns across the entire Goulburn Murray Irrigation District.
The Victorian Government effectively took away what little voice we had.
It is now imperative for all other water services committees to show some leadership on behalf of all irrigators and stand down until the Pyramid Boort committee is reinstated.
Only then would we begin to show some semblance of courage and vision ourselves.
As irrigators we owe it to our forefathers to be passionate about our rights and our livelihood, to stand up and be counted and fight Victorian Government water policies that will render us unviable.
- Andrew Christian is an irrigator at Kotta, south of Echuca.
