YOUR SAY: Basin plan, like referendum, shows an out-of-touch Canberra

This week, as the dust settles on the failed referendum, attention will move to other government priorities, including the disastrous amendments to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

These amendments, like the referendum, show how little the Canberra and capital city elites understand about life outside their world.

Already the basin plan has cost thousands of jobs, but this will pale into insignificance if Water Minister Plibersek's bill is passed.

Many more Australians (not those in Canberra or inner cities) will have their livelihoods destroyed in what these elites consider is 'the greater good'.

In reality, it will reduce food and fibre production, therefore increasing the cost at the supermarket.

Instead of clean, green Australian food we will import more without knowing the conditions under which it has been grown.

We will continue to damage the iconic Murray River, which the basin plan is supposed to protect, because for the Canberra and city-based elites it is 'out of sight, out of mind'.

They don't see the damage, they only see their virtue signalling environmental ideologies.

We will also continue increasing flood risk, with a future of more damage like we saw last year, as more water is stored in upstream dams, thus reducing flood mitigation efforts.

Tragically, this is all so unnecessary. There are sensible, viable options developed by the communities who live and breathe the basin and its riverine environments; those who, more than anyone, want it protected.

But our Canberrans and city-elites know better. They'll tell us how it should be done. And if they get their way, which is going to happen unless crossbench senators are able to stop it, our nation will be the poorer for it.

Very unfair the way Bernard Butler's claim for damages caused by potholes was rejected.

What would happen if a pothole caused him to swerve head-on into a truck?

Government departments are responsible and any potholes that are unable to be repaired immediately should at the very least have warning signs erected or painted onto roads.

The general state of the roads is disgusting, and very dangerous to all who use them.

Responsibility rests with government maintenance and no one else.

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