Reply to Malcolm Turnbull's letter to the editor

"Pants on fire

 

THE Federal Minister for Environment and Water Resources, Liberal MP for Wentworth, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, must have set his pants on fire when penning that litany of political half-truths [DE letters,17.08.07].

  He tells the Clarence Valley that: "The Commonwealth has no plans whatsoever to dam the Clarence or any other river in Northern New South Wales."

  He may be technically correct, in that there is no actual site chosen and no engineering blueprints in existence, but Clarence catchment water diversion is definitely on the Howard-Turnbull wish list.

  His own department gives lie to his weasel words by telling us that the National Water Commission (which contracted the SMEC desktop study) has been approaching the NSW and Queensland governments as well as NOROC, in order to create terms of reference for the next stage of investigation of the SMEC diversion options and other unspecified Northern Rivers options.

  Mr. Turnbull obviously thinks Clarence Valley residents are fools. That many of us have not noticed that whenever we discover his metaphorical footprint in the dirt, a call will shortly go out from somewhere in the Murray-Darling asking the Howard Government to look at damming the Clarence.

  One has to suspect that Mr. Turnbull's recent letter to the editor was simply an attempt to hose down this issue in the lead-up to the federal election.

  I would be surprised if many in the Clarence Valley were fooled by such a ploy.

 

JUDITH M MELVILLE"

[The Daily  Examiner,Grafton,letters,18 August 2007,p.12]