To form government in Australia, whether it is a Labor or Liberal/National Coalition, these parties must have candidates elected in South Australia in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate.
In the Federal Parliament there are 10 members of the House of Representatives and 12 senators from South Australia.
South Australian politicians are determined to what they call ‘save the environment’, and are consequently implacably opposed to water being removed in irrigation quantities from the Murray River and its tributaries upstream of South Australia.
Neither the Labor Party or the Liberal/National Coalition will ever form government without the support of these South Australians.
They will not have the support of these members unless they remove water from the irrigation areas in NSW and Victoria.
In addition, within NSW and Victoria there is great electoral support among their urban populations to also ‘save the environment’.
This support is most obviously personified by supporters of parties such as The Greens and Sustainable Australia, who oppose all irrigation water use.
There are also many Labor and Liberal party voters that will otherwise vote for The Greens, etcetera, if the Labor and Liberal parties do not also act to ‘save the environment’.
Any urban politician who declares that he or she will ‘save the irrigation communities’ by removing water from the Murray River for irrigation purposes, rather than ‘saving the ‘environment’ by leaving the water in it, will lose so many votes that he or she will endanger his or her very election.
The belief that removing water from irrigation use is ‘saving the environment’ is factually disprovable, but the politics demanding this removal is not.
Politicians and their parties must do what they are doing to be elected and to form government, and they are.
The politics underpinning the destruction of the livelihoods of the people in these irrigation areas can only be countered by the formation of a Riverina State (including northern Victoria), and the authority that this state will assume.
Even then, the people in this state will need to act in a most determined manner.
To preserve the prosperity of the people in these areas, the formation of this Riverina state is essential.
Yours etc.
David Landini
Wakool
20°C