CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Australia’s regional towns that aren’t owned by giant Chinese textile companies have today been extended a lifeline by the federal government, who have vowed to supply them with plastic bags of Murray-Darling water that hasn’t already been harvested by giant Chinese textile-owned irrigators.
Independent, family-owned farming operations and 60,000 year-old Indigenous communities have today been assured that they can continue depending on the river system, but they shouldn’t expect any water to actually flow to them.
“Basically, you can have access to the water, but it’s going to be sold to you in the store” said Josh Frydenberg MP who seems to have more clout on this issue than the Deputy Prime Minister.
“It’s going to be similar to the basic card system for the blackfellas. We give you a card and you grab what you need from the store, at cost price, I think, or whatever the fuck they want to charge you”
This comes after last year’s Four Corners revealed that billions of litres of water purchased by taxpayers to save Australia’s inland rivers are instead being harvested by some irrigators to boost cotton-growing operations, in a policy failure that threatens to undermine the $13 billion Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
“It’s alright I spose” said one Willcannia resident, Billy.
“But it’d be just great if we could actually get the river water from the river, instead of having it trucked from 2000 kilometres down stream”
“What’s the point of all these bridges and jetties anyway?”
The government would not clarify today if the water was actually being sold back to farmers from the Chinese irrigators, and quite frankly told us that it is none of our business.
