Archives for August 29, 2005

Paul Sheehan writing in today’s Sydney Morning Herald blames the Queensland National Party for Cubbie Station and the water it holes up. Water that goes to grow cotton in Queensland instead of sheep in NSW. Sheehan writes:

“The Sinkhole, for example, breaks every rule of communal morality. It is better known as Cubbie Station, and it is an act of economic war by one state, Queensland, against another state, NSW. Cubbie is a source of rage for the former NSW premier, Bob Carr. Privately, he urged his fellow Labor Premier, Peter Beattie, to buy the station and take it out of production for the national good. Beattie was sympathetic, but Queensland is Queensland, the bulldozer is still king, and the Queensland Nats will die in a ditch to protect Cubbie Station.

This applies doubly to the Canberra press gallery’s latest pin-up boy, Senator Barnaby Joyce, whose political base is dominated by Cubbie and whose Senate campaign was funded in large part by Cubbie.”

I don’t have much sympathy for Cubbie Station, the Queensland Nationals, or Barnaby Joyce, but I am not sure Sheehan has told the whole story.

Cubbie managed to get its water, and keep its water, by playing and beating consequtive state and federal governments (Labor, National and Coalition)at their own game.

Cubbie’s story as told by ‘Smart Rivers’is at http://www.smartrivers.com/background.htm .

What is most striking to me about the Dirranbandi and St George communities that support Cubbie is their holistic approach to survival. They work in with, and employ the local aboriginals. They work in with, and employ the best scientists. They somehow managed to get Barnaby Joyce to Canberra.

Cross over the border from Dirranbandi into NSW and it looks and feels different. Many of the town centres are boarded up – they obviously have a crime problem. Aboriginal problems I’ve been told. It is so bad in at least one town that they are using plastic instead of glass in the windows of new government commissioned homes – I was told.

I have previously written expressing concern for the NSW graziers, and their Coolibahs, that have lost flood waters, see
https://jennifermarohasy.com.dev.internet-thinking.com.au/blog/archives/000629.html .

As explained in the above post of 26th May, I offered to plot the river height data against rainfall to help illustrate the problem – but they still haven’t manage to send me the data file in a format that I can open.