On Wednesday about 10.30am on Hare St, I observed a parking officer writing out a parking ticket for a large 4WD, very well outfitted for camping, with Cairns registration plates.
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I asked to the officer if he realised these tourists chose to visit our town and the council's thanks was a fine.
“Water off a duck's back.”
Perhaps the council should consider giving discretion for vehicles carrying South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania plates, as they are obviously here to contribute to much-needed tourism income.
Michael Davidson, Echuca Village
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In 2015, three years after the start of implementing the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, a senate inquiry was held amid concerns about the manner in which this ‘plan’ was being rolled out.
Senators conducted an extensive inquiry and toured the basin, listening to how the plan was failing communities and the environment.
It was obvious, even at this point, that we had developed a dud.
The inquiry made 31 recommendations, none of which has been implemented.
Fast forward six years and we have had more than 100 reports and the theme has been constant — there are massive problems with a basin plan that was built on poor modelling and selective science, is having a greater impact on communities than was intended and, coupled with other water management changes, is hurting our agriculture sector.
Unfortunately, this has largely occurred because the plan was politically rather than environmentally motivated.
Now, even the plan’s instigator, former Prime Minister John Howard, is lamenting its failure, this week describing the plan as a “tragedy”.
So with all this evidence, one would expect decisive action to get to the bottom of the problem and do something to rectify it.
Instead, we get nothing.
While the National Party threatens to cross the floor over climate change, its parliamentarians — supposedly at the insistence of leader Michael McCormack — allow the plan to proceed unchecked.
They do nothing to protect vast sections of rural Australia that report after report shows are suffering, from a plan that is not working.
We get constant concerns about environmental damage highlighted by locals along the Murray River and its tributaries, who can see that pouring huge quantities of water downstream as required under the Basin Plan is wrecking the very environment it is supposed to protect.
But Environment Minister Sussan Ley, who presides over much of this damage in her electorate of Farrer, does nothing — presumably at the insistence of Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
I do not know what it will take for this farce they call a plan to be abandoned, or at least something done to correct the damage it is causing. My greatest wish is that something happens before this damage is irreversible.
Unfortunately, with the lack of political courage, mixed with a bureaucracy that can see nothing but ways to dine out on the $13 billion of taxpayer funding, my optimism is low.
Stuart Hipwell, Wunghnu
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WHERE are we headed?
You know I decided for the good of my mental health that I would sell up and live on the road in my caravan, something quite easy to do in this day and age.
I used to run a Facebook page “Murray Darling Basin Connection” which had a reach peak of nearly 700,000 during the ‘Can the Plan’ rally to Canberra in 2019.
I feel a bit lucky I am in the latter phase of my life when I see the complete lunacy being wrought upon us by mainstream bureaucrats and politicians.
The latest load of some bureaucrat’s vivid and idiotic imagination is that a sand slug helped create the Barmah Choke.
This kind of total BS makes my blood boil and I bet it does many others’ as well.
We and our many ancestors, along with the indigenous people, know the Barmah Choke is a natural limitation of the Murray River.
The Murray Darling Basin and its rivers has been shrunk, disfigured and pretty well ruined and will continue to be so by these so-called leaders and their powerful mates.
I have got a fair idea what my great-grandfather would have thought would happen to Australia when he settled at Katamatite in 1876.
See he was an initial shire councillor who helped settle our area, his memories and those memories of our other forefathers have been passed on through the generations — that knowledge beats science hands down.
I am glad I don’t have to keep seeing the decimation of irrigation and our rivers all the time like until recently.
Hang your heads in shame you bureaucrats, scientists and mainstream politicians. You have wrought the worst economic and environmental disaster on Australia.
Peter Gilmour, on the road, Gladstone, Queensland
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WE HAVE seen a changing of the guard at the Echuca RSL.
At the annual meeting, it was voted for a younger and more progressive committee, with ex-Navy Denis Shanahan elected as branch president and John Stephenson as assistant secretary.
They will be mentored by the experienced Fred Clark as vice president, Marg Martin as secretary and Peter Martin as treasurer.
Committee will consist of Ron Wood, Roy Boyer, Bill McKee, Tony Deenen, Helen Young and John Westwood.
Margaret Martin, secretary