MEDIA RELEASE

Yesterday’s statement by National Water Commission CEO, Ken Matthews, that water desalination has a major role to play in Australia’s water future, raises more questions about the priorities of our peak water body. In issuing his media release, Mr Matthews appears to be endorsing a process which has yet to be proven environmentally-benign under Australian conditions, whilst his Commission fails to address two of the most pressing threats to Australia’s water security, namely the devious and constitutionally dodgy hyper-allocation and de-facto privatisation of Murray-Darling water.

Despite concerns raised by Fair Water Use two months ago, the NWC has yet to state a clear policy for putting an end to this endemic abuse of the nation’s water resources, inconsistent with its major responsibility under the terms of the National Water Plan, for “driving progress towards the sustainable management and use of Australia's water resources”.

Rather than advocating the reining-in of water speculators and the decommissioning of the Sydney Harbour-scale water storages constructed by ecologically-negligent agribusinesses, Mr Matthews appears to be proposing that we ignore or yield to these insatiably thirsty elephants-in-the-room and attempt to desalinate our way out of the water crisis through the widespread implementation of a technology known to have the potential to create its very own array of problems.

Fair Water Use urges the Federal Water Minister to heed the increasingly loud calls for declaration of a State of Emergency, which would enable her to equip the NWC with the administrative teeth it desperately requires if it is to drive efficient and reasonable water-use, rather than support the production of “new” water by a process whose impacts on Australia’s unique and sensitive coastal ecosystems remain largely unknown.