General News
15 July, 2026
LAZY POLICY JIBE
THE call has been made for a return to sensible water and agricultural policies to sustain rural development in Australia,
THE call has been made for a return to sensible water and agricultural policies to sustain rural development in Australia,
Federal shadow water minister Michael McCormack on Tuesday said during a visit to Calmo Farms, Calivil, that current governments and bureaucrats should visit rural areas to see the impact of current policies.
“We’ve got a situation where the Government just doesn’t care about regional Australia and I’m not playing political. I’m just playing truth ... that’s the way it is,” he said, saying current policies were lazy politics.
Mr McCormack inspected the Clymo family’s 120‑unit rotary dairy parlour that went into production last month.
Jade Clymo told him that the dairy used 8000 megalitres of water a year and while Mr Clymo said he had never seen such wet winter conditions, the price of water was high and “buybacks are making things tighter.”
Mr McCormack said the Nationals were opposed to buybacks.
The Federal Government has spent more than $430 million buying back almost 86 gigalitres of water for the environment under the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
“Buybacks are cruelling these country communities,” Mr McCormack said. “We need to invest more in infrastructure - on farm off farm channel lining, more weirs, more dams. We can and we will do that, when we get back into government,
“We need to make sure that we stop the buybacks, we stop water recovery by stealth and we make the commonwealth environmental water holder accountable for every drop they use, because these farmers, they pay for every drop they use, they have to be accountable for every drop they use otherwise they go broke now.
“The environment water holder already has 72 per cent available water in the Murray Darling Basin.”
Mr McCormack said rural business like Calmo Farms could not produce without water.
Mallee MP Anne Webster, Loddon Mayor Dan Straub and Cr David Weaver joined Mr McCormack on the visit.
Read More: Loddon Shire