Release: Government throws money at farmers hoping drought will go away

Release: Government throws money at farmers hoping drought will go away

The Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance, the nation’s largest grassroots advocacy group representing taxpayers, today called for an investigation into corruption within the Murray Darling Basin Authority and condemned the Morrison government for spending $1billion in taxpayer dollars to subsidise farmers without addressing the actual causes of the drought. 

“The coalition government’s $1 billion drought package is reminiscent of a passerby giving a beggar his spare change to alleviate guilt,” says ATA Communications Manager, Emilie Dye. “But the homeless person still sleeps on the street and the farmer still watches his crops and animals die.”

“While environmental activists cry climate change, they fail to realise mismanagement of water for so called environmental purposes caused the drought. The Murray Darling Basin Authority, a $13 billion leech on the taxpayers, has restricted farmers from using 70 percent of the available water. The MDBA instead floods forests, panders to foreign corporations, and flushes fresh water out to sea.”

“As long as MDBA water restrictions remain in place, no amount of money can save the farming industry. Farmers can’t water the their crops or feed their livestock with plastic bills.”

“Just as back burning restrictions have destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares in bush fires, water restrictions have left huge swaths of Australia desolate. Pollies cannot make it rain, but they can end bureaucratic water policies.”

“It’s time the federal government gave the water management role back to the states and the farmers themselves. Inserting a government agency with nearly unlimited resources into the water buyback market has disrupted the agricultural ecosystem. Forcing hard-working farmers onto the government dole threatens to destroy the agricultural industry entirely.”