Always remember that the Nationals are, foundationally, not a political party, but a conspiracy to rort taxpayers. And that will always come through in whatever they do.
This week the Murray-Darling Basin Plan erupted as the first battlefront of Barnaby Joyce’s return to the leadership, with the Nationals moving amendments in the Senate to the Water Legislation Amendment (Inspector-General of Water Compliance and Other Measures) Bill 2021. That’s the bill belatedly providing some teeth so that the hitherto feeble sinecure of the Inspector-General of Water Compliance got some powers to address rampant water theft by irrigators, especially in NSW.
The Nationals’ amendments in the Senate were defeated when the government itself voted them down, but because the bill got amended elsewhere by the government, and by One Nation, it returned to the House for consideration yesterday. So the Nats decided to move the amendments again in the lower house, knowing full well they’d go down.
That prompted the bizarre sight of leader of the House Peter Dutton trying to shut down Nationals colleague Damian Drum, who was moving the amendments, on a technicality that Drum couldn’t move amendments unrelated to the amendments to the bill made by the Senate.
But what were the amendments? Here’s where the Nationals’ obsession with pork-barreling shines through. One amendment would have removed altogether from the Murray-Darling Basin legislative framework a requirement to return 450 gigalitres of water for environmental purposes via efficiency measures. Another would have prevented future water buybacks, and a third would have ensured that when the Plan is reviewed in 2024, it could only be reviewed downward, with no increase in environmental flows.
But the fourth related to what are called “605 projects”. See, the Nationals have been undermining the Plan for years by stopping water buybacks and diverting money into often spurious “irrigation efficiency” projects that hand free infrastructure upgrades to irrigators. But there is also a cheat mechanism whereby 605 gigalitres of water can be double-counted against the total return to the environment across the basin while remaining “available for industry and communities, while still achieving the same or better environmental outcomes.”
The government is throwing over $100 million at these “605 projects”. But the Nationals think the definition of the projects is too narrow because they’re supposed to achieve “water savings”. Instead the Nats want such money to be able to go to anything that “is a measure that operates to improve environmental outcomes in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin”.
Which could, of course, be anything. That’s the point. “The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has them so wrapped tight in a quite legalistic interpretation of the plan that there is none of the flexibility required now that we have more science and more data,” incompetent rorter Bridget McKenzie — allegedly angling for the water portfolio herself — told the Senate about the amendment.
Imagine Bridget McKenzie being given charge of a $120 million program with a remit like “improve environmental outcomes in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin”.
It was a rort too far even for the most corrupt government in Commonwealth history. And that’s saying something.
I read elsewhere today that Cubbie Station is owned by Chinese interests, including a Chinese Govt-owned enterprise, which I confirmed by an internet search and found in the AFR 30 Oct 2019.
Why am I not hearing our anti-Chinese sabre-rattlers like Defence Dutton warning about how Chinese Govt money is destroying our environment and the security of our vulnerable waterways?
From memory, when it came up for sale during the. Howard years, there could have been the option of closing Cubbie down and returning the water to where it belongs but instead the sale to China went ahead.
Our very own version of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze, or the Myitsone Dam on the Irrawaddy in Kachin State, or the Dachaosan Dam in Yunnan Province, and another 11 dams on the Mekong that is affecting downstream communities in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
Who knew that Barnaby was a Beijing sleeper?
Our very own Manchurian candidate, perhaps.
If he does not have Mongolian in him I am a monkey’s uncle – the looks and the approach of Genghis Khan
I’m pretty sure that Swannie had the opportunity to buy it out, and should have, but you can imagine the Murdoch media going to town with cries of socialism. I think the asking price was not much more than they would have had to pay for the water rights alone. A big miss, that one.
Alan Kohler had them dead to rights yesterday. They are a party of and for freeloaders.
I really don’t understand the water issue as well as I would like. But what I do know leads inexorably to the conclusion that the National’s Bill was solely directed towards perpetuating the corruption inherent in water allocation and water use – and those two things aren’t the same, As far as I can see, the corruption largely starts with Nationals. Some privileged users appear to have been happily stealing water with the Nationals turning a blind eye (at least until the ABC made some of these water thefts public) and others have been granted water to the detriment of downstream users. There is the Barnyard Beetrooter sign-off on an $80 million payment for an unspecified amount of water at a valuation way, way over the valuation to family of Angus Taylor. I believe that some upstream irrigators have been allowed to store massive amounts of water on their properties, thereby taking that water out of the system – and invariably, it seems to be Nationals (in NSW and Federal Nationals) behind all of these decisions. When we ask ourselves the question “how low have we sunk?”, this really tells you the answer. We now have blundering boofheads who think they are brilliant political strategists as PM and Deputy PM. And both enjoy substantial voter support. And both are heads of parties infected with corruption and intellectual mediocrity. Those who do have high intellect (e.g., Porter and Taylor) are also smug, privileged, silver-tongued ponces, both drunk on their self-proclaimed superiority to everyone else who think they can do what they like and later lie, or cry crocodile tear, when caught out.
Last sentence worth today’s subscription.
Always remember that the Nationals are, foundationally, not a political party, but a conspiracy to rort taxpayers.
That’s a big call. Even it is/was true.
And calling the right of centre right wingers, conservatives, is intellectual and moral fraud.
When has the media called out that one big truism?
There is nothing conservative about conservatism.
What does political conservatism even mean any more?
Resist change?
A group for slow, simple minded, authoritarian, incapable of change, rednecks?
Here’s a few conservative processes:
Conservative agriculture:
The nationals are responsible for a few billion tonnes of top soil ending up as sediment in rivers and oceans through land clearing while not improving grazing and pasture management practices.
Hardly conservative.
Conservative education:
Forcing children to sit on their bums for 6 hours a day is child abuse. Plain and simple.
Conservative social policy:
Townsville has been the youth crime capital of Queensland for 30 years at least.Throwing more money at policing and incarceration doesn’t work. Diversionary programs are unfunded or left to community. Have the conservatives changed their get tough on crime policy even after 30 years of failure? FAIL
Conservative economic management:
Who else is still waiting for a trickle from the trickle down model?
What about the debt?
What about the tax dodging?
The Nationals exist so stupid people have a political entity to identify with.
So who do we sue?
Who are the “we” doing the complainant litigating?
What is/are the charge/s?
Who are the respondents?
Who is paying legal fees and how?
Who is the lead?
And even if we cut the head off the medusa what about the unwashed masses? Who will they follow once they and their leadership are labelled criminals/traitors/idiots/mental cases?
Like to see Labor channel a bit of this rage Billy camp oven; the floor of the House doesn’t work, maybe a few stump speeches?
Labor channel something other than themselves?
New Yorker’s Nancy MacLean of Dark Money fame describes how a broad coalition of voters including ageing white Christians, evangelicals, anti-abortion, anti-immigration, NRA/pro gun, white nationalists, alt/far right etc. has been formed and tagged as ‘conservative’ to then quietly allow radical right libertarian policies to be enacted.
‘Conservative’ has been overused and under defined; Republican reptile PJ O’Rourke goes for the more literal and practical definition i.e. preservation of one’s family, friends, community, livelihood etc. but that would be too inclusive and socialist for crusty old autocrats……
Nancy McLean’s book “Democracy in Chains” is worth reading, about the rise of the Right wing libertarians in the US, which originally was based on “States Rights”, which was a euphimism for Jim Crow laws ie racism. Check out James McGill Buchanan on Wikipedia – one of the antecedents of the Koch Brothers.
Yes I have read McLean’s work whose credibility was enhanced further by the fact that she only stumbled across Buchanan et al. via unrelated history research in Virginia, hence, the full title ‘The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America’.
Buchanan was always in the shadows behind more public Friedman, Rand et al. (tho’ Brit Adam Curtis interviewed him for a doco); described as the ‘most influential unknown man in America’ while he probably crossed paths with another ‘most influential unknown man in America’ the now deceased John Tanton, at ALEC (where eugenics, bigotry, Christianity and libertarianism cross pollinate).
Tanton was an anti-semitic white nationalist, proponent of ‘passive eugenics’, admirer of the white Australia policy and founder with Paul ‘Population Bomb’ Ehrlich of ZPG Zero Population Growth supported by fossil fuels and auto; Tanton’s network of think tanks informed the immigration policy i.e. restrictions, hostile environment etc., for Trump White House while he was a muse for Bannon, Miller et al. Influenced also the UK and Australia…..
Forgot to add Christopher Leonard’s ‘Kochland’, while he, Mayer and MacLean have very good presentations inc. audience Q&A online, as does Katherine Stewart author of ‘The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism’; none of it is new but simply repackaged for new recruits…..
Whoops ‘New Yorker’s Nancy MacLean’ should be New Yorker’s Jane Mayer.
PJ used to be such a witty reptile. All conservatives turn into socialists as they age. Someone has to pay for the pharmaceuticals….
Is the “605” referred to the Canberra Parliamentary Triangle bus route passing Treasury and its portal to the national coffers?