RUDD GOVT BLACKMAILS US OVER PIPELINE WATER: MIRABELLA

22-October-2009

Water Minister Penny Wong is playing politics over water management by using $1 billion in promised water infrastructure funding to help the Victorian Brumby Government get its way, Sophie Mirabella, Federal Member for Indi said today.

 “Senator Wong is holding the Victorian Parliament to ransom,” Mrs Mirabella said.

 The Rudd Government committed $1 billion to Stage 2 of the Northern Victoria Irrigation Renewal Project, which is planned to generate water savings to be shared between environmental flows and irrigators.  Earlier, unrelated Stage 1 works were to generate water savings to service the pipeline to Melbourne.

 Senator Wong revealed in a Budget Estimates hearing this week that she has written to the Victorian Water Minister Tim Holding advising the federal money can’t be committed while non-Labor Upper House MPs block a water allocation to the controversial Sugarloaf or ‘North-South’ Pipeline.

 Senator Wong has previously gone to great lengths to insist that the Commonwealth is not funding Stage 1 – the pipeline - and that the Rudd Government has nothing to do with Stage 1 other than to approve the pipeline under the terms of environment protection legislation.

 “It is inexplicable for her now to be making Stage 2 funding conditional on the actions of non-Labor MPs who happen to be opposed to unrelated Stage 1 water savings being piped to Melbourne,” Mrs Mirabella said.

 “Having promised to end the so-called ‘blame game’, it is extraordinary for the Rudd Government to be using promised water infrastructure funding to meddle in a Victorian issue because the Brumby Government can’t otherwise get support for its bad policies.

 “I commend the Victorian Opposition for having the courage to stand up for local people against the Brumby Governments disastrous pipeline,” Mrs Mirabella continued.

 The Victorian Labor Government has been obstructionist at every stage of the water reform process, Mrs Mirabella said, adding that Senator Wong should be insisting they deal with water entitlements from Stage 1 and Stage 2 of the project separately rather than colluding in their destructive game playing.

 “Senator Wong and the Rudd Government have already invested far too slowly in water saving infrastructure upgrades that will actually return water to environmental flows.

 “They must not now use politics to hold the Murray-Darling to ransom,” Mrs Mirabella concluded.