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.