National body will not save lower lakes: Maywald
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Water Security Minister Karlene Maywald says a national body to manage the Murray-Darling Basin will not save the lower lakes. (user submitted: Tony Rogers)
The Water Security Minister, Karlene Maywald, says a new national body to manage the Murray-Darling Basin will not save the lower lakes.
The Federal Government's bill to set up a national authority to manage the Basin passed through Parliament yesterday.
Mrs Maywald says the only thing that can save the lower lakes now is rain.
"The problem that we have at the moment is that we just don't have enough water in the system to meet all the needs, we don't have enough water for the environment," she said.
"We don't have enough water for irrigators, they're currently still only on 15 per cent of their allocations, this time last year they were on 32 per cent.
"So as you can see there is still some critical shortages of water right across the Murray-Darling Basin."
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