Water Action Coalition at the Australian Civic Trust calls for a Public Inquiry with the Open Letter to South Australian Members Parliament House.
The Water Action Coalition (WAC) is a diverse and broadly represented group of concerned South Australians that are calling on all members of the South Australian Parliament to support WAC’s call for a Public Inquiry into management of water and the environment. This call was made at a rally on the steps of Parliament House on the 10th October 2009.
At the request of WAC, both the Hon Mark Parnell MLC and Mr Mitch Williams MP read WAC’s Rally Proclamation
into Hansard on the 28th and 29th of October respectively.
WAC has since prepared a “South Australian Public Commission of Inquiry Water and Environmental Management
Terms of Reference” to provide a framework for the consideration of Parliament to support its call for a Public Inquiry.
Those that support the motion will be sharing the concern of most South Australians that our river systems and iconic wetlands are collapsing. Interdependent ecosystems are dying and our fragile Gulfs are being destroyed.
The WAC movement, at its rally held on 10th October 2009, rejected the State Government’s current water security
strategies. We demanded that the River Murray and its rivers and creeks flow freely again to the Lower Lakes and to the sea. The Coorong must be reconnected to its freshwater sources in the South East.
Our urgent plea to Parliamentary Members during its final days is to rethink your position and to support the community call for an urgent far reaching Public Inquiry with the authority of a Royal Commission. Our right and that of generations to come is for a sustainable water future not only for the rights of human beings but the rights of our environment.
A sustainable water future without compromising our environment is the only acceptable outcome. We will be
monitoring the vote of every MP in the hope that our legislators will finally recognise that a quantum change of attitude is required if we are to avoid environmental disaster.
Yours sincerely,
John E. Caldecott Convenor
http://civictrust.net.au/index.htm
right to strike on the environment
For the River Murray and its rivers and creeks to flow freely again to the Lower Lakes and TO THE SEA, the 7km stretch of barrages need to be removed. Does this mean that your coalition is for the restoration of the Lower Lakes and Coorong as an estuary?
Our group http://www.lakesneedwater.org also supports increased water flow to the river. We also support getting more freshwater for the environment. But we cannot turn our backs on the simple fact that the barrages have created an artificial freshwater ecosystem at the expense of an estuarine ecosystem.
Continuing to claim there is freshwater when there is none is only delaying what needs to be done.