A RESEARCH report that found there was insufficient water to make northern Australia a food bowl for the nation did not consider building dams because it was against Labor policy.
The Australian reports that the Northern Australia Land and Water Taskforce relied heavily on the work done by the CSIRO's Northern Australia Sustainable Yields project, whose scientists were told not to worry about investigating dams.The CSIRO's Richard Cresswell said: "At the time of the study, all jurisdictions (the West Australian, Queensland and NT governments) had a no-dams policy, and therefore we did not investigate the opportunities for dams in the north.
"We weren't asked not to investigate them, but we were told it wasn't necessary to investigate them," Dr Cresswell said.
During the course of the project, the West Australian government changed from Labor to a Liberal-Nationals alliance, "and the prospect of putting dams on some of the rivers was put back on the table", Dr Cresswell said.
The Coalition yesterday accused the Rudd Government of stacking the taskforce and effectively creating the agricultural equivalent of the wartime Brisbane line.
One of the key taskforce members, Stuart Blanch, an environmentalist based in the Northern Territory, is a long-time opponent of Top End food bowls.
Several years ago as a World Wildlife Fund manager, he played a major role in forcing the Northern Territory government to drop plans to turn 110,000ha near the Daly River into agricultural land.
Read more on The Australian online.
