The Moree community has voiced its frustration over South Australian politicians’ lack of understanding of agriculture and its significance to rural and regional towns, after the Centre Alliance party announced its plans to introduce legislation to ban the export of Australian cotton.
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Ninety per cent of cotton grown in Australia is exported and almost 20 per cent of Murray-Darling irrigation water allocation is used to grow cotton, and this does not include floodplain harvested water, according to Centre Alliance.
“Exporting cotton is like exporting water,” Senator Patrick said in his statement.
“It makes no sense to do this. We are quite literally sucking the life blood out of the Murray-Darling river system at the expense of downstream food producers, the towns and cities dependent on our rivers for water supply, and the overall environmental health of the river system, all the way to the Coorong lagoon in South Australia.”
The Border Rivers/Gwydir region, which encompasses Moree, accounts for 32 per cent of the cotton produced in NSW. This is valued at $278 million on farm, however it is worth $605 million to the community, according to Agricultural Commodities, Australia data.
Eighty-four per cent of the income in the Border Rivers/Gwydir region is generated by agricultural production (according to Farm Management and Demographics NRM data 2015-16), while agriculture, forestry and fishing employs 25 per cent of the workers in Moree Plains Shire, according to the latest census data.
With Moree and surrounding towns and villages heavily reliant on the cotton industry, as these figures indicate, a number of members of the community took to the Moree Champion’s Facebook page to voice their concerns over the “stupid” proposal.
Luce Cush said the impact to Moree if this was introduced would be “huge”.
“A diabolical situation,” she said.
“As a senator of the nation his view is incredibly distorted. ‘If you can’t understand the facts of the industry then ban them.’ Sorry, not going to stand for this. Moree, Mungindi, Boomi, Garah, Rowena, Narrabri, Wee Waa, Gunnedah, Trangie, Narromine ... shall I go on? All these communities will disappear.
“We’ve seen what the water buy backs have done to rural communities like Collarenabri and Wee Waa, banning the export of xotton will ruin the remaining towns and our regional economies.”
Julie Frost said it won’t just be cotton farmers who are impacted.
“Farmers and family’s [sic] vilified thrown under the bus Moree will definitely be affected if cotton goes under. Jobs, people who rely on cotton farmers for business, as well as tradesmen, retailers, [it] will have a real flow on effect,” she saod.
Terry Piening-Cochrane added that it “will put Moree six foot under”.
“Oh yer [sic] ban cotton just because they can’t get the water situation right. What about the millions of people that would be out of work?” Ricky Lawson asked.
A number of people criticised the Senator for what they believe is a “stupid” idea.
“Is this for real? I mean fair dincum [sic] that would be the dumbest thing I have heard for years,” Phillip Morgan said.
“So they ban cotton exports and the farmers then uses [sic] the water on less water efficient crops to prove nothing. This is just a joke.”
“That senator should resign, he has no bloody idea,” Dean Hearne said.
“A stupid idea, and I am am afraid it is indicative of the quality (lack of) of some of our politicians,” John Stevens added.
“A stupid idea from a SA senator who wants to be relevant, but just shows he is out of touch and has no idea about the cotton indusry,” Clifton Esquilador said.
“Maybe the weather has something to do with the amount of water in our river systems also.”
John Nott said politicans “don’t care about facts”.
“You can’t reason with stupid and in reality all they want to do is divide everyone even further,” he said.
“Political point scoring by idiots like this with nothing to loose [sic] may appeal to the uneducated but in reality rural NSW and QLD depends on it. Country towns only really survive on mining and agriculture, they are both under attack and in the grand scheme of things common sense will prevail in the end because without the tax revenues they both provide the state and federal governments would be totally stuffed, along with the rest of us.”
Other people suggested alternatives to a ban on exports.
“We can put man on the moon and we can build tunnels under sea from England to France, we build fast trains - WHY can't we direct some of this water to places that are desperate,” Georgina King said.
”Be brave Australia and build some infrastructure for the next generations to be proud of .Stop all the point scoring and blame and build it please.”
Jude Costello suggested the government create incentives to encourage change, rather than impose a ban.
“Perhaps the greens could fund the transition to hemp or flowers or whatever greens want to replace the cotton industry with and maintain jobs and people in country towns,” she said.
“I don’t know about banning the export of cotton, but something has to be done about the amount of water being taken from the Murray-Darling river network,” Sue Johnston said.
“You cannot allow an industry to pillage the river system. The river is literally dying before our eyes!
Meanwhile, there were a few people who supported the ban.
“Get rid of cotton,” Jamie Smith said.
“Do it,” Garry Johnston added.
