The amount of water spilling over Ross River Dam earlier this week was around 2,000 cubic metres per second - or more than 170GL a day – that’s equivalent to nearly two full Chaffey Dams every day.
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This is just one of many rivers in far north Queensland inundated with water but in the south, the conversation is that they have no water.
At St George in south-west Queensland, only 6GL of environmental water has been released through the gates of Jack Taylor Weir so far this year.
At Cunnamulla no water has flowed over the Allan Tannock weir since April.
In the lower lakes they want full water for environmental purposes and the Bradfield Scheme could be the answer; an expensive answer, but an answer nonetheless to this problem.
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It would move water from the north to the south via the Warrego catchment at the top of the Murray Darling Basin.
The Bradfield Scheme would be cheaper than the Sydney to Melbourne bullet train, it would be cheaper than the nbn and its economic returns would be massive.
Parliament for the year is about to start and this is an election year so every party will come forth with their vision of what they want for their electorate and their nation.
For me, I believe we have to look after the small issues as well as the big picture.
Just this week we saw what our funding can achieve at Currabubula tennis courts and the pony club.
Recently we also secured money for the Upper Horton tennis courts, more than $140,000 there, as well as $50,000 for Armidale Tennis Club, on top of grants for the Dungowan courts.
Even though building of the APVMA in Armidale is near completion, the Labor Party is still complaining that we had the temerity to decentralise.
It is absolute rubbish that it has put the APVMA back five years as reported in the Northern Daily Leader on Friday.
For the future, I’m fighting for further funds for a university in Tamworth which will complement the jobs delivery of the flight training school in Tamworth, which I have also been fighting for with other levels of government, creating one of the biggest flight training schools in the southern hemisphere.
But these projects all need more water to grow.
The expansion of our abattoir industry and poultry industry requires more water, the expansion of the residential areas requires more water, and more water requires more dams.
There are many sites upstream from Tamworth where we can build these dams.
Whether it is Swamp Oak Creek on the road to Weabonga, or Mulla Creek further down past Limbri, or expansion of Dungowan Dam or expansion of Chaffey Dam, we need to build further water storage facilities.
I fought for and secured $75 million in funding for Dungowan Dam but if we can’t get that, we must see if we can transfer that money to other water storages before it is taken away.
Barnaby Joyce is the Nationals federal Member for New England
