The Murray Darling Basin Plan will cost Australian Taxpayers $13 billion. In one hundreds years of record taking there have never been recorded fish kills like the ones we are seeing now. Not only are we seeing fish deaths in the Darling of global significance, but since the 2009 and the introduction of the 2007 Water Act there have been 4 hypoxic blackwater events in the Edward/Wakool system, which spread into the Murray and Murrumbidgee systems killing hundreds of thousands of native fish.

Currently poor water management and policy is causing horrific fish deaths along the Darling, it is also causing river bank erosion and slumping in the Murray system due to the unsustainable high flows been pushed through. The flooding of forests along the Murray in order to get water to South Australia in the middle of a drought highlights the flawed assumptions used to model the Murray Darling Basin Plan. The significant flooding has resulted in the deaths of many animals, including natives because flooding has depleted food supplies.

Government and large corporations have been complicit in dividing communities and have failed rural communities and family farmers who have the capacity to ensure the environment is sustainably managed for the next generation.

Environment and agricultural policy must go hand in hand, one does not need to be in competition with the other.

As a nation we need to respond, the management of our most precious resource is embarrassing, irresponsible and lacks transparency. Please sign and share this petition and encourage others to insist that our national leaders call those responsible for water management to account.

We call on all governments to put politics aside and start governing for the whole Basin by treating rural communities, family farms and the environment with respect and on an equal footing.

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