Breaking down a Murray wall

Australia's long-term aspirations depend on us becoming part of the Asian community. Right now, our aspirations are confined to Australia being the quarry of the community. But if we are to take our place as a developed country within that community, we are going to have to be smart. And there is no more important area for us to show intelligence than in the management of water.

That is why I want to talk this morning about the Murray Darling Basin, because this is an issue that affects all Australians, whether they are capital city residents, politicians, environmentalists or farmers.

It was always my intention to write about water when the initial furore had died down after the Murray Darling Commission report, but I was given extra inspiration to file copy on this subject by a remarkable KGB interview yesterday with the chief executive of Elders, Malcolm Jackman.

The current problem is not caused by drought but rather a very stupid action that was taken in the early part of last century where we interfered with nature by erecting a large wall, which created two artificial lakes. The simplest solution to the Murray Darling problem is to go back to nature and allow the sea water and the Murray River water from further upstream to interchange in the Coorong (A Murray mouth who's talking sense, April 11).

As David Bryant of Rural Funds Management explained, we erected the wall because the salt water came too far up the Murray. However, modern technology would not only enable us to keep the mouth clear but to limit how far the salt water progressed up the Murray.

Now, the burghers of Adelaide will oppose this idea because they like having their fresh-water lakes. So we may have to seek other solutions. The solution that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever is to simply remove farmers from the land and decimate major rural centers like Burke, Walgett, Forbes, Rochester – that's the end-game of the greenies' current proposals.

Unfortunately, the current government has very few seats in the Murray Darling Basin. But it is time for them to take heed of the national interest. The late Richard Pratt did an enormous amount of work on ways to manage water better in the Murray Darling. At the time, the buffoons in Canberra shook their head and said it was too expensive – but decimating rural centres will be far more costly and an incredible waste.

We should obviously return to the Pratt proposals. But since Richard Pratt undertook that work, there have been big improvements in technology and my guess is that for a fraction of the outlays the greenies demand, we can achieve reasonable targets in water flows by using water technology and slashing water waste.