Reports of exploding bird numbers, and wetlands which haven‟t had water for over one hundred years miraculously springing back to life in the Murray Darling Basin highlights the esilience of our environment, the CEO of the National Irrigators‟ Council, Tom Chesson said today.
“Whilst hell would have to freeze over before green groups and other so called ‘experts’ apologised for slandering communities reliant on water in the Murray Darling Basin, he said the cold start to summer showed anything was possible.
“Mr Chesson said an independent audit was needed to ensure funding wasn‟t being siphoned off and wasted by organisations that continually make spurious claims.
“My members are sick and tired of the histrionic merchants in the green and scientific pheres talking rubbish in order to scare the public, politicians and bureaucrats into funding their spawning empires.
“Anyone, be it a farmer, scientist, politician, environmentalist or member of the public who tells you they can accurately and routinely second guess nature is full of it.
“The worst drought in Australia‟s recorded history was not caused by irrigators, as recently claimed by the Australian Wetlands and Rivers Centre Director, Professor Richard Kingsford.
“It is absolute bollocks for Professor Kingsford to publically claim ‘chronic water over-extraction’ was to blame for the ‘crisis’ in the Murray Darling Basin.
“The flooding rains which began in the Northern Basin in 2009 followed the worst drought in Nations’ history, proving exactly what is meant by a boom and bust environment.”
Mr Chesson said that simply taking water off irrigators would not have stopped the massive decline in wetland size and bird numbers during the drought.
“During the darkest days of the drought irrigators had no water allocated to them and as we always said, it would take rain and lots of it to make the country boom again and we were right.
“The fact that wetlands and bird numbers can bounce back so quickly to near record levels makes the claims made by some scientific “experts‟ and repeated ad nauseam by green groups often chasing donations sound as hollow as a dairy farmers bank account after a ten year drought.
“People like the Mr Kingsford have repeatedly made claims that have been proven to be false.
“Only last week Professor Kingsford, was caught out at a meeting in Dubbo for ‘gilding the lily’ in the media in relation to a report he co-authored (published in the journal of Environmental Management) which made claims based on the wrong information.
Mr Chesson said far too many green groups and scientific organisations have a symbiotic relationship, yet time and time again all they proved is they don‟t need a long neck to be a goose.
Media Contact: Tom Chesson 0418 415597