It's all the fault of Cubbie Station

There is noise being made once again about the gummint buying Cubbie Station, or at least it's water rights. Fuckwits. Barnaby Joyce has said, quite rightly, that it makes more sense to buy properties which are already on the market, such as Clyde and Ballandool (Find yer own links). That is, it makes more sense if you are after some property.

Neither suggestion makes more sense if you are trying to alleviate this - or future droughts. Although there is an argument to be made about the environmental health of the system. More of that later, if I could be bothered. Do you know how much more water would be available to people downstream if Cubbie Station had closed down last Christmas?

The correct answer is none. Ditto Clyde and Ballandool. Despite the compulsory comparison between Cubbie's storage capacity and Sydney Harbour, they have no more right to pump water than anybody else.

As certified nob-jockey and chairman of Darling River Food and Fibre (Not to mention irrigator), Ian Cole points out, the Condamine-Balonne system is often dry, the Darling isn't, but the water allocation here is six times the water allocation there.

Using the same deceptive methods which have been used against the cotton industry for twenty years, he leaves the reader to assume that this occurs every year.

Bull fucking shit.

No water has been taken out of this system by irrigators in this district in this calendar year. At all. When this system flows, it really flows. When the system is in flood we will sometimes get 100% allocation. It has happened once in the last six years. Ian Cole is being misleading to the point of being dishonest and as an irrigator he should know better. The people around the Sunraysia will be looking at him and thinking "If it's good enough for him..."

I gotta go to work.

Fuggit.