Campaigning for National Parks is Against Australian’s Bush Ethos: Part 1, Buying Back Tooralee
Posted by jennifer, October 22nd, 2008 - under News, Opinion.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change, Food & Farming, Murray River, National Parks
THERE has been much written about Australia’s national character emerging from a bush ethos: the idea that a specifically Australian outlook emerged first amongst workers in the Australian outback. Banjo Paterson, perhaps more than any other writer, created and defined this cultural heritage. His story about the shearer and his sheep (the jumbuck) remains our most popular national song, ‘Waltzing Matilda’. I grew up on ‘The Man from Snowy River’; a poem about a courageous young horseman who out-rides wild brumbies in the High Country.
But few Australians now have anything much to do with the bush. They mostly live in cities, don’t know how to ride a horse and go to the beach for their holidays. They just singing about sheep at sporting events and read poems about mighty rivers and like the idea of saving the outback. And so it seems every new Australia government makes saving the Murray River part of their platform.
The previous Howard government was going to save the Murray from salinity – and achieved this through the construction of salt interception schemes and catchment wide drainage plans all administered by the Murray Darling Basin Commission.
The new Rudd Government wants to save the Murray from climate change. This is a much more ambitious undertaking than saving the Murray from salt.
As part of this campaign the new government has new legislation, The Water Amendment Bill 2008, and it is currently being debated in federal parliament with its second reading beginning last week. A centre piece of the new legislation is the creation of a ‘The Murray Darling Basin Authority’. This new institution is claimed to be needed because the existing Murray Darling Basin Commission doesn’t have enough control over the states, but in reality the new organisation, like the old, will still be subject to state politics. In short, nothing much will change, but it keeps the politicians in politics.
Politician and new Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, plans to relieve the claimed climate change problem by buying up farms; most recently through the purchase of a 91,000 hectare property called Tooralee near Burke in NSW. Tooralee currently grows maize, cotton and beef cattle but following the federal government takeover will be converted to national park.
Internet campaigners ‘GetUp’ helped get the Rudd-government elected, and have recently joined ‘the fray’ on Murray River issues claiming to provide an opportunity for Australians “to keep the rivers flowing” and save “Australia’s food bowl” through a few mouse-clicks. But this new campaign is particularly deceptive as Penny Wong’s policies will actually close-down agriculture in the Murray-Darling Basin i.e. empty the food bowl! Indeed the federal government has something like $3.6 billion to buyback farms like Tooralee.
Furthermore, as some farmers explained on ABC’s TV’s Four Corners program on Tuesday night, you can’t buy back rivers, not even with billions of dollars, because water allocations are just air space until it rains.
But hey, modern Australia’s are now a mostly soft and gullible lot and likely to support this campaign which is essentially a campaign in support of more politics and big government and against bushies because they now know no better. But none of this makes senses in the context of our heritage which was about being practical and a part of the bush – the floods and the droughts and the climate change.
Beyond Burke, May 2005. Photograph by Jennifer Marohasy
Amused, do us all a favour and google National Land & Water Audit, go to the vegetation section and see what portion of each vegetation type is still present in the MDB. Ther you will discover that farmers have cleared much less than 1/3rd of the existing veg.
And if you or Luke had a rudimentary grasp of the salinity issue you would know that more than half of all the saline affected land in the Qld part of the MDB is, and has been all along, mapped as remnant ecosystem. That is, it was saline land prior to european settlement.
Check out the “Yelarbon Desert” on google earth, type “Desert Creek Rd, Yelarbon 4388, Australia” and note that this was included in the official register of remnant ecosystems and accorded the status of “not of concern” on the basis that more than 30% of the original extent remained.
Yes, farming had actually reduced the area of this ecosystem. A reduction in the area of saline degraded land was recorded as a reduction in the area of a natural ecosystem.
So spare us all your 1993 bull$hit predictions. That stuff is all a direct consequence of Rick Farleys gross negligence whilst employed by the NFF. He was a disgrace, a deluded nutter with a messiah complex who completely failed to get a handle on the key elements of the brief.
Well,
when we talk about dryland salinity for example, recharge / discharge comes to mind.
So to recharge we need something that is called rain. So is this “rain” the same across the basin? I wonder how much it “rains” at old “Desert Creek Rd”.
So we live with salt. It’s there. It is not going away (infact 0.5-1 million tonnes added each year in rainfall).
“Accentuation” is what we have to deal with. Look it up in google. And you tell me what it means.
Have we made things better? Yes ofcourse. Gain and Loss. It is a richer landscape thanks to white man, but to ignore the problems inherent!
To one and all,
Wow! We have been getting ourselves in a Tizzie about salt.
Almost enough to give this old Bushey a dose of the Epsom variety, as most comments lack real knowledge.
Just an observation on “amused,” you seem to have entered this debate with NO knowledge of the subject, but to your credit have obviously being doing some resaerch. Long way to go but well done.
As with most science and history, this is a complex subject.
But briefly before I try to return to the original subject.
Salts of various types and in varying quantities are present in all soils.
From this point I will confine my comments to the MDB.
Rivers of the MDB have since their inception and always will carry salts in solution to the sea.
Sturt in his journal when he and Hume discovered the Darling river in 1828 find the water so salty that their very thirsty horses would not drink. It was only after they proceeded downstream and found a backwater that they could fill their water bottles and start the long journey back to Sydney.
The report from Queensland regarding the increases in stream salinity following rainfall is so basic as to be laughable. Any agriculturalist or person who follows the daily stream flow data could have told you this. It has little to do with present land use.
FACTS ARE:
1. It matters not what the history of the landform is, as long as it is correctly managed.
2. While mistakes have been made in both dryland and irrigation farming, these were
recognised long ago and corrected.
3. The methods of agricultural production in the MDB are best in world practice and every
Australian can be proud of the efficiencies achieved in our harsh ebvironment.
4. Recognition of the unsustainability and problems of farming in the MDB was first
recognised in 1938, when the NSW Gov. established the NSW Soil Conservation Service.
Nothing much happened until after the war, when the NSW Forestry Commission began
establishing tree nurseries across the state. Since that time with the help of these two
departments the environment of the MDB has continued to improve.
5. I travel regularly to agricultural regions around the world and fervently believe that
agriculture in the MDB is worlds best practice.
6. There is presently (in spite of contrary claims) NO SALT PROBLEMS IN THE MDB. Nor is
there likely to be regardless of the weather. Salt destroys a farmers livelyhood! It is his
number one enemy over which he has control.
7. I can take you to many areas in the MDB where in the 1950s & 60s land was totally
unproductive. That same land has been reclaimed and is now worth thousands of dollars
per hectare. Farmers are quick to adapt.
8. Stop to think who has most at stake in the healthy flow of the rivers of the MDB?
Surley it is the farmers; who are the major users of the resource. Farmers more than
anyone appreciate that an EC reading of below 700 is vital to their future. For human
consumption the EC can be as high as 900 and to put that in context, the sea around Aus.
is about EC 45,000.
NO ONE IN AUSTRALIA IS MORE CONCERNED WITH THE MAINTENANCE OF A HEALTHY RIVER
SYSTEM THAN THE FARMERS WHO USE THE RESOURCE!
Back to the original topic if Jennifer allows later.
Pikey.
Nice sidestep, Amused. But kindly explain why it might consistently rain on one side of the road on a flat flood plain while consistently not rain on the other side? You are clearly willing to put up just about any stupid line to defend your ignorant preconceptions.
So just once more for the plodoscenti. Half the total area of saline land was mapped as pre-settlement remnant ecosystem. That remaining remnant was less than half of the original area of saline land. Therefore, the only conclusion to be drawn from this is that the total area of saline land is either equal to or less than the original area.
This is the outcome after 150 years of farming. Zero increase in saline lands = zero threat from salinity. Perhaps Gordon Guymer, of the Queensland Herbarium would like to explain why this information was not part of the vegetation/salinity management policy process in Queensland?
“Zero increase in saline lands = zero threat from salinity”
So all those white patches poping up everywhere in the wheat belt….that must be sugar! Of course. I like sugar. How bout you brain rott? Do you like sugar?
I was wrong Amused, you haven’t learnt a thing.
Soil affected by salt rarely appears white.
Further I have $100 for every white patch you can show me in the wheat belt of the MDB.
Providing you pay me $1000 if you are wrong.
A trip into the real world may assist you.
Pikey.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_salination
Here you go Dikey. Rare as rocking horse shit
So the best you can do is a photo of an extreme outbreak of salt in Colorado? Any plans to enter a local orbit, of this planet, any time soon?
Pikey, if this dopey boofhead had bothered to speak to any farmer about rising water tables he would know that the best way to prevent rising water tables is to sink a bore into the GFS (ground water flow system) and intercept the fresh water before it gets to the salt load. Down goes the water table and the irrigated crop pays for itself.
But what do the NRM goons do in response? They look up the data on ground water decline during the previous drought and get the Minister to bring in measures to “prevent ground water depletion”.
Well Amused, you’re so illinfrmed I have dedicated a poem to you.
BLOGED AMUSED.
(With apologies to John O’Brien.)
“Our land is ruined,”bloged Amused,
On Jennifer’s site late one night.
With metro centric ire enthused,
He felt his timing was just right.
We’ve felled our forests, cleared the land,
There’s desolation all around.
With salt rising on our farmland,
Productive fields cannot be found.
Once were forests, but now bare land,
The saltbush plain a scalded scar.
As Squatters pillaged lands so grand;
They’re vandals, that’s what they are.
Farmers dam and pump our rivers dry.
The red gum forests dead and dying.
The Murrays done, it makes me cry.
Our rainfall’s down it’s sure declining.
Our land is ruined, it just can’t cope.
With all this burning oil and coal.
We’ve global warming and no hope;
We’ll end up with a giant dustbowl.
Now Ian Mott from up the coast.
Claimed he was a “bombed out bogan.”
That’s what he said in lucid post.
And that was how the blue began.
An old grey headed farming man
Was browsing through the site.
He had a spread out near Culcain,
Developed it with sweat and mite.
“Well Amused, you’ve had your say,
And cast aspersions on the folk
That toil and strive from break of day.
To them your words are just a joke.
Ive farmed through drought and flood,
He wrote, through mice and rabbit plague.
My families toiled with sweat and blood;
With what I say I’ll not be vague.
I’ve seen the impoverished red soil plains,
Overcropped, with soil erosion rife.
Bleeding soil when ér it blows or rains.
Dust storms were just a part of life.
But that was back around world war two,
Before we farmers with Government aid,
Began to turn things round, to slew,
To care, improve, no more to degrade.
I’ve seen the eroded, ravaged land,
Respond to contour banks and clover.
Trees planted, standing tall and grand,
Across our land a change came over.
Amused, if you will come with me,
I’ll show you River Gums a plenty.
Growing proud, along the Murrumbidgee,
Last flood was eighty-four, their not even thirsty.
But we’ll all be ruined, replied Amused.
With all the trees that you have planted,
The water table will be abused.
You farming folk take things for granted.
Reading through the site on that night
Was “Irrigator Bill” from Tullabageal.
Incensed now and spoiling for a fight,
With words to match this Nutters spiel.
From the comfort of your anonymity,
With spin and claims outrageous.
You know it all, but more’s the pity,
As mosy of what you say is brainless.
I’ll tell you, what my land means to me.
It is my keep, my childrens education.
It is the future for my family,
And my self funded superannuation.
With every breath that I am granted,
And with science, I improvr my lands.
My spirits there in every tree I’ve planted,
And every acre, nurtured by my hands.
As “Motty”knows, I treat it as my body.
To care, improve and nourish.
My husbandry cannot be shoddy,
For if it is we all will famish.
With all this scientific GM farming,
We’ll all be ruined, replied Amused.
Overproduction, that’s what I’m warning,
And for that you’ll all stand accused.
We’ll all be ruined, wrote Amused.
Pikey.
This I adapted from a poem I wrote called “SAID BOB BROWN.”
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