Susan Ley Tackles The Big Issue At Bush Summit

Susan Ley, Member for Farrer said that, though the skills shortage, training, rural health and education were all important, the main issue for Griffith or in the southern Murray Darling Basin was water.

“I represent almost all of the irrigators in the Southern Basin in New South Wales,” Ms Ley said.

“We are very, very concerned about the future of water for our growing of food and fibre, the productive capacity that underpins this community and every other.

“A lot of the people who come to Griffith that haven’t been here before, and they look at the main street and they talk to the locals, and they go to a restaurant, and they feel the vibrancy and the rich texture of generations of people who’ve built their lives here.

“But it is all built on water.

“And I am concerned because I’ve heard the incoming government making some quite alarming statements about the future of the reliability of water for this district and our people.”

The Hon Tanya Plibersek, MP Minister for Water and Environment did not rule out buybacks to recover 450 gigalitres of water during her short visit to Griffith last Friday, and that rang alarm bells for Ms Ley, who was part of the incoming government back in 2013 who legislated to rule out buybacks due to the pain and harm they had caused previously.

“We can’t go there again,” Ms Ley said.

“We need to know that this government has our back.

“We heard Anthony Albanese talk about having our back this morning, and it’s easy to make top-line, broad messages that sound positive, but, I’m sorry, we need some detail.

“We need to know, and if that 450 is brought back or the socio-economic considerations that we carefully put around its recovery are removed, then that is a kick in the guts to every single farmer and every single community member in these communities of the Riverina and also in the Murray and it should sound real alarm bells.

• Topics:

• Community
• Employment & Training
• Local Economy / Business
• Agriculture & Farming
• Politics