Daniel Andrews has today repeated his Water Minister’s folly saying there’s no point in building dams when it’s not raining.
On Melbourne radio this morning the Premier dismissed calls for the state government to look at building dams as “spurious debates” stating “dams don’t make it rain”.
Labor has sat on its hands for five years now, failing to augment the state’s water supplies while our population has grown by more than half a million people since 2014.
The world’s leading climate scientists, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are clear that we face heavier rainfall events and longer dry periods as a result of climate change.
Across the state, we need to ensure we have the infrastructure needed to capture and store water when it falls.
Comments attributable to Shadow Minister for Water Steph Ryan
Labor abandoned the work the Liberal Nationals were doing to increase stormwater harvesting and recycling in Melbourne and reduce reliance on potable water for non-drinking purposes, but now Daniel Andrews and Lisa Neville are also ruling out new dams.
Climate change means we need to look at these options to ensure we have the ability to capture and store water when it falls.
Instead the Andrews Government is sitting on its hands while the state’s water supplies dwindle and our population grows.
Daniel Andrews’ only answer to water scarcity is expanding Melbourne’s desalination plant which is costly for water users and the environment and doesn’t help communities in any other part of the state.
