Senator Fiona Nash

Brothers voice their opposition

WHITTON brothers Tim and Roger Commins have built their world's best practice farming operation through skill, ingenuity and old-fashioned hard work.

They do not take kindly to the federal government's attempts to tear it all down in the name of boosting environmental flows in the Murray-Darling Basin.

The duo made exactly that point to a group of visiting Coalition senators conducting a "listening tour" of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area yesterday.

Senators Barnaby Joyce, Fiona Nash and Simon Birmingham were left in no doubt as to the devastating impact the Murray-Darling Basin plan in its current guise would have on basin communities.

Founded in 1989, Commins Enterprises has evolved into one of the most innovative and diverse operations in the basin. And, according to Tim, it is focused on a single, over-arching principle. "Everything we do is based on maximising our return per megalitre," he told the senators as he stood atop one of his farm's wine storage tanks.

"The problem (with the basin plan) is the water they want to take from areas like this, that are producing, is not going to change the so-called health of the river."

Senator Joyce said hearing the brothers speak about their farm made him even more determined to ensure a basin plan that ignores the social and economic impact of reduced allocations never passes parliament.

"It makes me absolutely focused on making sure we don't stuff this up," Senator Joyce said.

"We have to do what is responsible for our nation because it is enterprises like this one that gives us the wealth which we are all the beneficiaries of."

Senator Nash, who organised the tour, said the biggest impediment to achieving a balance between the needs of the environment and irrigators was the Water Act. "I think the basin plan is a complete mess and if there is any ambiguity that social, economic and environmental considerations cannot be treated equally then we must amend the act," she said.