The Murray – Darling Basin

This Authority overlaps at least four states which is odd from a political point of view. Too many governments are involved while the environmentalists have their oar in too. The farmers are deeply worried. It is said there has been far too much water allocated to irrigation. Particularly excruciating to food growers must be the extensive allocation to cotton farmers on the Darling, with big properties, but above all they are irrigating with huge arrays of water sprays. Surely evaporation must result in huge water waste in that warmer climate— and as they say on the Murray—cotton ain’t food.
The basin authority reminds one of the Tennessee Valley Authority in America which also extends over several states through the catchment area of the Tennessee River.
It was ‘created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly affected by the Great Depression.’. A comprehensive development tool, ‘TVA was envisioned not only as a provider, but also as a regional economic development agency that would use federal experts and electricity to rapidly modernize the region's economy and society.’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee Valley Authority) .
But for the Murray - Darling Basin the driving force is environmental—the water-starved condition of the river system itself. The question is: does the authority have the same comprehensive development agenda as the TVA. It seems not—hence the substantial worry for farmers’ and their business infrastructure communities.
Authoritarian control is likely to lead to serious financial loss and community discouragement throughout the basin.
All residents in the catchment area have a real stake in the decisions to be made and need to have a voice, to allay their fears of unjust outcomes. The answer, to give coherent policies and stakeholder confidence would be for the basin to have its own democratic regional government possibly one hundred electorates, overlapping the several states involved, with independent representation throughout.