MEDIA RELEASE

Data provided by the MDBC yesterday (7th August 2008) with respect to Murray-Darling water reserves cannot be accepted at face value as it is largely a combination of indicative figures and estimates provided by the very bodies that are the root cause of the current crisis: State Governments and private, and not uncommonly foreign-funded, agribusiness enterprises.

An accurate and independent audit of all water reserves, public and private, legal and illegal, is urgently required.

Australians truly concerned about the demise of the Murray-Darling as a whole, and especially the ecological devastation of its lower reaches, should reject as irresponsibly premature the statement by the Water Minister that there is not enough water in storage to enable the Federal Government to make a reasonable effort to revive the system, especially as it comes only a week after the NSW Government dramatically increased allocations to its irrigators, and at a time when storages in the upper Murray catchment are rising.

Fair Water Use refutes the Minister?s assertion as it is based on collective ?guess-timates? provided by those with clearly vested interests in the retention rather than the release of water. The significant doubts about the validity of the information provided to her Department do not permit the Minister to bring the axe down on the lower Murray, its communities and internationally recognised wet-lands.

The world is watching.