“It’s one of the more stupid comments I’ve heard,” she said in response to South Australian Senator Rex Patrick’s plan to introduce legislation to ban the export of Australian cotton. 

“It’s political gainsmanship. How irresponsible for an Australian senator to want to destroy a very large industry which exports a huge amount of product which helps Australian trade deals.

“Agriculture and mining are two of the last big deals that we have a product to export. Why would anyone want to play games with people’s livelihood?

“However I’m not surprised. I’m continually seeing our country heading towards socialism. I recently made a comment that communism is alive and well. People have been very supportive of my comment.

“I suggest people take a look at a very interesting book called The Tragic Pages of Lithuanian History, which talks about how the Moscow Communist Party undertook to ‘Sovietise’ Lithuania very quickly.

“I am gravely concerned about where we’re heading. I keep seeing it all the time.”

READ MORE:

Cr Humphries said it’s time for Australians to stick up for Australia.

“These are dangerous games that are being played,” she said.

“I think it’s a ridiculous statement for a senator to make when we in the Northern Basin have no allocations, while South Australian irrigators have 100 per cent allocation. People need to know that.

“We know through history that the Darling river has been dry on many occasions, well before irrigation. What we need to do is stop pointing fingers and blaming everyone and come up with a solution. We should start with the grey water out of south east Queensland.

“If we’re going to invest money, invest in improvement.”

Cr Humphries is currently campaigning to get environmental flow water out to Bourke, which only has about two months of water left.

Instead of politicians pointing fingers and playing the blame game, she believes they need to work together to help communities in western NSW which are being significantly affected by the current drought.

“We are wanting very much to get environmental flows out to Bourke,” she said.

“There seems to be a reasonable willingness to do this but now there are some authorities suggesting it doesn’t happen because it may cause fish kills. What would happen to the fish if there’s no water?

“There’s environmental water still in Copeton [dam].

“Bourke’s got about two months of water left and it will take about six weeks to get water down there. Bourke’s in trouble. Walgett’s just turned their bores off.

“There needs to be embargoed environmental flow, embargoed from irrigation pumping. There’d be enough water there.

“I believe human beings, stock and kangaroos and other animals are as an important part of the environment as fish are.”

As far as the impact a ban on cotton exports would have on Moree and much of western NSW, Cr Humphries refuses to even entertain “such stupidity”.

“I won’t even entertain this ban happening because it’s too stupid to give oxygen to,” she said.

“It’s not just Moree [it would affect], but the bulk of western NSW. This is an effect for a very, very large part of the state west of the Great Divide.

“I won’t even entertain such stupidity of potentially banning an industry that does a lot for Australia’s bottom line. Australia’s fiscal bottom line needs all the help it can get.”

Cr Humphries added that people in Australia like to wear cotton and sleep in cotton sheets, and that a ban on exports would not only affect irrigators, but all the other industries that Australian cotton producers support such as the fashion industry, women’s sanitary industry and the manchester industry, as well as cotton seed products which are used for stock feed and cooking oils.

“Through the drought, cotton seed has been a wonderful supplement for drought-affected cattle,” she said.

“It’s high time the Australian fashion industry and all the other users of cotton products spoke up.”