Political problem
John Johnson, on behalf of MurrayDarling Basin Citizens’ Association
While the productive use of river water is portrayed as an environmental problem, the underlying reality is that it is actually a political problem.
To solve the water problem, we need to solve the underlying political problem.
The political problem is that politicians are generally unwilling to legislate improvements to law relating to water.
To solve the political problem, we need to elect politicians who are actually willing to legislate improvements.
The biggest impediment to solving the political problem is the lack of political competition for the rural vote.
Every three years federally and four years state-wise, Australians participate in elections — in the NSW federal seat of Farrer Sussan Ley wins for the Liberal Party, and in the Victorian federal seat of Mallee Andrew Broad wins for the National Party.
This return of sitting members is replicated in federal and state elections across virtually all regional seats in NSW and Victoria.
The National and Liberal parties have actually established a political cartel where they have both agreed to not compete against each other where one party has a sitting member.
This leaves the sitting member virtually certain to be re-elected.
The problem for the constituents of these electorates is that these politicians no longer have to compete for their vote, and no longer have to achieve results, and in fact spend more time and effort courting Labor and Green voters. Hence the Water Act, Murray-Darling Basin Plan, so called ‘‘Safe Schools’’ and a multitude of national parks.