What do Advisory Group members value in the Murray-Darling Basin?

Terry Court, Goulburn Valley Environment Group:
I'm Terry Court and I'm from Tatura but I'm representing the Goulburn Valley Environment Group. Well, I think it's really so important, this plan, know what I mean, and we've gotta get the long term vision right for the Murray Darling Basin, so we shouldn't be thinking about short term situations here, we've gotta be thinking about long-term, and what we've gotta be is strategic in that assessment, and we've really gotta reduce the footprint of irrigated agriculture so that it is sustainable into the future. And we've gotta move that irrigation against the backbone and higher up the catchment as we can because if we don't do that we haven't got a sustainable irrigation industry and we haven't got a sustainable basin.

Juilet Le Feuvre, Environment Victoria:
I'm Juliet Le Feuvre, I work for Environment Victoria as Healthy Rivers campaigner, and I'm a member of Minister Walsh's Basin Plan Advisory Group. Well, I don't live in the Basin, but it's really important to me -- it's well-being is crucial. I go there for holidays, some of my favourite memories, my favourite places are in the Basin so I want to see as many people as we possible can who care about the place getting involved in this process. And we all eat food that's produced in the Basin; those rivers, those wetlands support us all, so it's really important that we get involved.

Andrew Young, LMW Customer Service Advisory Committees:
I'm Andrew Young, I'm a private diverter - vegetable grower -- from the Robinvale area and I'm here to represent Lower Murray CSAC Committee. Economically, I think that's a real tricky question at the moment because it's so difficult in Sunraysia at the moment, most of our commodity groups are really struggling. And yet we are a very productive district and we have huge potential and I'm very confident that one day it'll turn around and that's mostly to do with the current exchange rate. We are going to play a very significant role in feeding Australia and the world in the future, so we've gotta be there and we've gotta be adaptive, and I know Craig talked today about being adaptive and I just think that's so important. The social and economic run together. I mean, the social Sunraysia Robinvale if you like, it's all about people with a few bucks in their pocket, and if you've got a whole lotta people with no money and no future and really can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, well, that answers the social. I know life's not all about money, but if you've got a good environment and
you've got a happy enough income and you can see some future for yourself and your kids well, that's probably about as good as you can do.

Emelia Sudholz, Horsham:
Emelia Sudholz and I'm from Horsham in Western Victoria. In the Wimmera, we've actually got, we're looking at a proposal to sell our irrigation water; a whole-system buy-out or closure. So we think that's a win win win for the environment, putting water down the Wimmera River; environmental flows to terminal lakes one of which is Lake Albacutya, which is a Ramsar listed site. So, win for the environment, win for irrigators who will get bought out by the Federal Government and there'll be no ongoing costs for restructure etc. and also an economic win for those irrigators, so we're hoping that proposal gets up.

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• MDBA
• Victoria
• basin