THE Citizens Electoral Council of Australia has accused the Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) and Federal Water Minister Tony Burke of holding closed door meetings throughout the basin to “coerce” communities to accept their plan for the Murray.
CEC chairman Ann Lawler said the authority’s “tactic” was “underhanded and downright deceitful”.
“They are determined to steamroll all opposition to ram it through, but they fear the unified strength of the Basin’s communities expressed in the public meetings last year, so their new tactic is to pick off the community leaders first,” she said.
However, National Irrigator’s Council chief executive Tom Chesson suggests irrigators shouldn’t be too alarmed as the authority made a commitment at the beginning of the 20-week consultation period that they would meet with every individual who wanted to discuss the plan with them.
“We need public meetings because everyone should be able to have their say and we strongly recommend that communities, no matter how big or how small, contact the MDBA and request one of three things – either a public meeting, a technical meeting or an individual meeting,” he said.
“It is important everyone should ask the question and everyone who wants to should have access to consultation, because it affects everyone in the community and the communities are the ones who are going to get nailed.”
Victorian Farmers Federation Water Council chairman Richard Anderson said private stakeholder meetings was Craig Knowles and the MDBA’s style of engagement – for better or worse.
“The major stakeholder meetings they have held offer an opportunity for the MDBA to explain how they have gone about forming the plan and give an opportunity for those stakeholders to raise concerns with parts they want more clarity around or don’t necessarily agree with – at least there is a consultation process,” Mr Anderson said. “The disappointing part is that they haven’t held any more public meetings this year and with such a short consultation time, it is crucial they get back into it.”
Mr Anderson said the VFF aimed to hold consultation meetings with members prior to MDBA meetings, but were unable to because the government had yet to set dates. “We have been trying to hold our meetings around the MDBA consultations, but unfortunately they haven’t been releasing any information about when theirs will be, so we have gone ahead and set [our] dates,” he said.
The authority said it has been holding ‘technical consultations’ with key stakeholders within basin communities since the draft plan was released last year. It refused to comment on CEC Australia’s claims, but did say the smaller meetings were an important part of the consultation process.
“The MDBA is having a range of consultations – the bigger public meetings are usually as a result of communities asking to be consulted that way, while the smaller private meetings have been organised by stakeholder groups and they have asked for the to be that way,” a MDBA spokesperson said.
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