Diane Bell and John Caldecott were invited to Canberra to give evidence to the Senate Committee conducting the Inquiry into Water (Crisis Powers and Flood Water Diversion) Bill 2010.
Diane Bell addressed
* the distinction between conceptualising the River as a living system and water as a commodity in terms of how we ‘manage’ the Murray-Darling River system
* the Ngarrindjeri and ecological proposition that ‘all things are connected’
* the opportunity the bill provides to discuss the current water crisis
* her work with the Law Reform Commission in the 1980s
* the need to understand the history of the current crisis before proposing solutions
* the capacity of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority to ‘manage’ the syste,
and asked ‘Does the legislation help?’
John Caldecott spoke to the matter of the need for a Royal Commission
WAC, in its submission is arguing that the Bill does not go far enough.We firmly believe that nothing short of a full public inquiry, with powers of a Royal Commission, can unravel decades of bad policy at all levels, gross mismanagement and ongoing exploitation of the waters of the Murray-Darling Basin that has continued to this very day. A Royal Commission is required to determine the systemic root causes and propose solutions fundamental to a proper long-term corrective action process.
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