Australia government rules out buying cotton farm for water
Date: 25-Jul-02
Country: AUSTRALIA
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has called on the national government to purchase Cubbie Station, an 80,000 hectare farm about 600 km (372 miles) west of Brisbane whose dams can store up to half a million megalitres of water - more than Sydney Harbour.
But Regional Services Minister John Anderson dismissed the A$160 million purchase point blank this week after the government's environmental sub-committee met in Canberra.
"We don't think that is a realistic proposition at all...in terms of economic sense and reasonable apportionment of taxpayers' responsibilities," Anderson told reporters.
He said there was a set of environmental problems in that area of Queensland, with issues related to water flow, salinity and possibly land clearing.
"We will indicate to the premier of Queensland that we are prepared to enter into an assessment process...which involves the local community, identifies the issues that need to be addressed and comes up with realistic solutions," Anderson said.
A salinity hazard map for the Murray-Darling basin, released by the Queensland government this month, showed up to 26 million hectares within the basin area could become salinity wasteland without urgent steps to improve land use practices in the region.
Cubbie Station is owned by a trust of seven growers and irrigates over 14,000 hectares of cotton.