Courts with a single judge and no jury, civil or criminal, have always cast doubts on obtaining justice. All members of the judiciary are appointed by political party governments therefore justice can never be untainted by political ideology
By Jeanine Bird, Leeton
When 28,000 farmers take the Uniparty’s1 precious Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) to court, you’ve gotta think there might just be a problem! Just a weeny one!
Readers won’t be surprised to know that the farmers just lost a $1.5b court case, because the MDBA apparently doesn’t hold any duty of care to water licence holders, who actually pay their exorbitant wages.
The trigger was just a small matter of the policy the MDBA have of what they call “over bank watering”. This is running the (Murray) river high enough with “environmental water” so that it floods over the banks to water the River Gums on the way to the Southern Ocean. The gums have survived at least 200+ years without the MDBA, but the UN apparently told them they can mitigate “climate change” if they do that.
In flooding public land though, it floods private (farmers) land out too. It’s not an unintended consequence though – farmers have warned them this would happen often enough, but they persist. Then there’s the small matter of the Barmah Choke – in their initial “climate change modelling” the MDBA said they could run it all the way down to sea in South Australia at a high rate. The problem that all the locals down there knew all along was that it couldn’t possibly fit through the Choke!
It’s like filling a bath-tub with a fire hydrant and expecting the plug-hole to cope. A two-year old could tell you what was going to happen, but in about 20 years of telling the MDBA in their numerous so-called “consultations”, it still didn’t get through. To the MDBA I mean. Neither did it go through the Barmah Choke.
We’ll leave alone the reasons for having to run it out to sea in South Australia – but the argument is as stupid as “there’s a drought in the Southern Ocean so we need to tip a measly bit of river water into it to top it up.”
So, in pushing too much water down the river, those farmers above the Barmah Choke got flooded out with repeated flooding of the Barmah Forest in the 2018 and 2019 summers. They lost livestock and crops, and due to flooding, couldn’t get onto their land to do anything either.
Many farmers below the Choke couldn’t grow a crop because they had zero allocation. Why? Because the river was so full of environmental water there was no room for productive water! (We have genius management, as readers can see!) Farmers argued that the water they wasted watering the forest could have gone to the farmers to produce a crop. It’s so “efficient” too: the MDBA admitted they lose 36-41% of the water volume in over-bank waterings!
However, food security isn’t high on Albo’s2 agenda, nor the MDBA’s because they’re following Agenda 21/30, and WEF3 of course ….. you’ll own nothing and be happy by the time we’ve finished you! We don’t need agriculture, we have zee bugs to eat! Who needs jobs? Klaus Schwab and Yuval Noah Harari of WEF fame would be very proud. They are squashing those resourceful, efficient and innovative farmers at last!
NSW Supreme Court judge Tim Faulkner4 dismissed the 28,000 farmers case. He handed down his judgment where he found the MDBA owed individual water entitlement holders no duty of care whatsoever in terms of their financial/economic loss. Interestingly, he found the MDBA’s role was to manage the wider MDB system and balance competing interests as opposed to owing individual irrigators a legal duty to protect them from financial loss.
In this whole sad and sorry MDBA/Water Act (2007) period of our history, this figures, because they’ve set up a heap of smaller water “authorities”, both State and Federal, and the idea is to be able to pass the buck between them all, so nobody is responsible for anything at the end of the day.
Remember too, that the Water Act which spawned the MDBA was a fraudulent Uniparty Act all along – Malcolm Turnbull5 was the architect of it and Tony Burke6 was all over its implementation. They used the External Affairs power of the Constitution to write in international agreements, Ramsar being the predominant one, thus avoiding a referendum. Since then, the Government told us (2011) that “In summary, the general purposes of the Water Act and the Basin Plan are: To give effect to relevant international agreements”. Therefore, readers will understand that our communities are not a priority – the UN and it’s gobbleopoly mates are (such as Turnbull’s Goldman Sachs mates and others of the same ilk who want control of our water).
They have the unlawful gun, and “Destruction” won.
Sophie Baldwin, CEO of Southern Irrigators said this loss was another kick in the guts for farmers, who were claiming $1.5 billion in losses, damages, costs and interest from the MDBA.
It matters not that the MDBA admitted they didn’t even follow their own system operating rules and hid critical information from the public. Furthermore, the MDBA’s ONLY two people who had the authority to authorise the release of the environmental water, were not involved!!
Apparently though, this incompetence is totally acceptable and to hell with the 28,000 farmers and the communities that rely on them! Big bucks, no responsibility. Oh, for a job like this in the public service!! They wouldn’t survive without income for a year or two like they expect farmers to!
One more thing Sophie Baldwin noted was the class action threw light on the fact that the MDBA’s ONLY “expert” on river operations “was not a river operator, had never been a river operator and did not have the intimate knowledge and expertise of a river operator.”
Readers can see the extremely competent “expert” management that put these farmers at risk. It will give you some understanding of what people living in the MDB and fighting this incompetence for the last 20 years are up against.
It’s no different to our “Fire the Liar” PM. Albo’s so competent he thinks the economy’s going great guns! Housing is unavailable and equity is fast dropping. Our power costs have gone down too! Albo promised a reduction which didn’t happen, but hallelujah, we’re saving with all this ruinaBull energy!
Nevermind energy costs are putting small business out of business quick-smart. Prices just keep going up and up, yet these gobbleopoly EnergyCo’s run over budget as Transgrid has just done, then asks the taxpayer to stump up for $1.2 billion. Or they collapse like globalist Prof. Ross Garnaut’s little energy company, ZenEnergy did, owing $1b. Others get onsold 3-4 times and/or collapse the first one so there’s no liability. Then mug taxpayers via Councils are going to have to clean up the mess. Nobody’s responsible or accountable. But things are going so well. It’s the same playbook everywhere within (Albo’s) Uniparty.
So, Watt’s Murray7 going to do about it? 28,000 farmers Vs one Bully Boy government “authority” that’s never taken notice of anyone out in the bush where all the production happens to fund the bullies, says it all.
If we’re going so well Albo, then you can afford to waive the legal fees and costs that have been awarded against the 28,000 farmers.
You really should waive it Albo, in a nod to the MDBA’s incompetence.
- Uniparty – Labor Party/Greens and the Liberal/National Party on the same page
- Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, MP
- WEF – World Economic Forum
- https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/1a042a43fe69a473dd69b54f
- Malcolm Turnbull – Minister for Environment and Water in (Lib) Howard govt Jan-Dec 2007. Architect of the Water Act (2007). PM Sept 2015-Aug 2018
- Tony Burke, Labor Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Forestry in 1st Rudd govt, 2007-10,. Min for Sustainability, Environment, Water & Population in Gillard govt 2010-13. Oversaw the implementation of (Liberal) Malcolm Turnbull’s Water Act (2007).
- Murray Watt, current Minister for the Environment and Water
