MEDIA RELEASE

Twelve months ago, John Corboy, co-convenor of Foodbowl Unlimited, ex-Chairman of SPC and strong proponent of the Victoria?s north-south pipeline, went on record as stating that the future for agriculture in the Goulburn Valley was ?not all gloom and doom? as Australian farmers stand to benefit from the impact of two ecological time-bombs: the impending collapse of the largely ground-water irrigated agricultural sector in Northern China, home to around half of the country?s population of 1.3 billion, and the ever-worsening degradation and pollution of river systems in India and China.

MEDIA RELEASE 

Sadly, the recent statement by Clyde Agriculture?s managing director, that Toorale Station will be sold to the highest bidder, comes as no surprise. Clyde Agriculture is a subsidiary of the massive UK-based, transnational corporation, the Swire Group, whose holdings include Cathay Pacific Airways.

Fair Water Use notes that the following statement appears on the Swire Group web-site:

?Swire takes its environmental responsibilities very seriously. As a major diversified business group, we are very conscious of the impact our activities may have on the environment. As a responsible corporate citizen, we recognise that we have a duty to our customers, our staff and shareholders, and to the communities in which we do business, to continually strive to lessen that effect.?

MEDIA RELEASE:  9th July 2008

In a recent interview with Australian Cotton Outlook (3rd July 2008), managing director of the Cubbie Group, John Grabbe, indicated that the group is actively promoting its value to potential Chinese and European investors on the basis of its current water allocations; rights which they acquired and hold at virtually no cost: ?What we do know is there is an enormous amount of interest out of Europe in agriculture, in particular water and agriculture," he said.

This statement comes at a time when south of Cubbie, despite the vast majority of the upper Darling catchment having received ABOVE AVERAGE or VERY MUCH ABOVE AVERAGE rainfall over the last nine months (Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology), the Darling River has all but ceased to flow once again.

Fair Water Use condemns this desperate attempt to ?export? the ever-dwindling resource that is Murray-Darling water and views Mr Grabbe?s statement as a strong indication that Cubbie will continue to extend and tighten the tourniquet it has placed on the upper reaches of the Darling catchment.

The Foreign Investment Review Board must block this proposal which, if successful, would only worsen the long-term prognosis for the Murray-Darling.

Fair Water Use repeats its call to Prime Minister Rudd to grasp the opportunity to purchase the ailing white-elephant enterprise and its vast and questionable water rights: with one stroke of his pen, Mr Rudd could provide invaluable emergency and long term support for the struggling river system.

MEDIA RELEASE

 In the course of a recent ABC interview (28th June 2008),  involving Keith De Lacy (Chairman of the Cubbie Group) and Dr Ian Douglas of Fair Water Use, Mr De Lacy stated that his group is responsible for the extraction of only 0.2 % of Murray-Darling flow. This paltry amount does not sit too well with the well-known fact that Cubbie?s combined water storages have a capacity in excess of 500 gigalitres: more than one third of that required to revive the entire system.

Fair Water Use is privy to information which questions whether Mr De Lacy?s comments are in fact an accurate assessment of the impact of the Cubbie Group, inasmuch as the 0.2% figure may only factor-in water that is extracted directly from the river system itself.  We are informed that the vast majority of the water they impound has been prevented from entering the system by massive earthworks that they have undertaken, and continue to develop, on the flood plains, now acting as a tourniquet on flows into the headwaters of the Darling.

Even if run-off volumes are excluded, there is still much doubt about the accuracy of the percentage directly extracted by the Cubbie Group from the Condamine and Balonne Rivers of the northern Darling, as their figure is based on ?average? flows, with no indication of the actual period over which this was calculated. The Murray itself is experiencing record-breaking drought in terms of both severity and duration, whilst rainfall in the upper Darling catchment has been average or above average in recent years.

If this is indeed the case, it is totally inappropriate for Mr De Lacy and his board to state that Cubbie has an ?almost negligible? impact on the Murray-Darling system and to continue their arrogant rejection of the increasing body of opinion which condemns their untenable exploitation of the nation?s water resources, virtually donated to the group less than a decade ago.

Fair Water Use urges the Cubbie Group to clarify this issue prior to the upcoming COAG meeting: Australians deserve no less.