Prime Minister John Howard recognised this in 2006 when he and then Water Minister Malcolm Turnbull set us on the path to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

The original $10 billion plan has now grown to a $13 billion plan. 

It’s hard to think of any sector, let alone agriculture, that is receiving this level of taxpayer support. 

Yet in the renewed outcry over the impacts of the Basin Plan, this massive investment seems to have been forgotten.

While some communities are undoubtedly doing it tough and facing challenges, it’s can’t all be blamed on the Basin Plan.

Commodity prices, weather conditions, exchange rates and terms of trade all influence farming.  

It’s time to separate myth from reality and check out what the impacts of the Plan really are. Here are four overlooked facts.

Fact one. Market forces are the main driver of higher water prices, not the Basin Plan.

Water is in short supply due to drying conditions and drought in the northern Basin and high demand from new and existing users in the southern Basin.

Fact two. Water is not being ‘taken back’ from irrigation communities without compensation. This is 

where the bulk of the $13 billion comes in – investment in recovering water for the environment.

Fact three. The volume of environmental water will not be sufficient to cause more than brief, minor flooding even when the Basin Plan is fully operational. Regular, prolonged flooding of private property is a furphy.

And finally, fact four – the biggest of all.

To implement the Plan, the Commonwealth government is investing over $2.5 million per day in ‘the future of irrigated agriculture’ every day for the next four years.

This money is going into making irrigation infrastructure more efficient so that more value can be created from less water.

In fact, in terms of farm productivity, the overall value of irrigated production is already rising.

The Basin Plan is a convenient scapegoat, but it’s not responsible for all the challenges in irrigation communities.

Years from now we’ll look back and wonder what we were all so worried about.

What the Basin plan does is look after the river that looks after us.

As Mal Thompson, conservation project officer with the Mallee Catchment Management Authority, recently told The Australian: 

“This river is the most important thing we have in this country and it has to come first…the Murray is truly the lifeblood of this land.”

I find the comments being made in regards to the survival of the Discovery Centre very negative and they also apply double standards to how it should survive and to warrant funding and support.

If this facility is required to have a survival plan to stand on its own feet, then why don't the same set of rules and requirements apply to the Capital Theatre, Bendigo Art Gallery and the newly established Ulumbarra Theatre would come under the same guidelines.

These facilities are being subsidised quite heavily as figures show that they are not covering costs and outlay.

May I ask why the Discovery Centre that supports and educates our young is being told it has to be accountable?

Where is the level playing field in this situation, or doesn’t this line of thinking apply any more?

It appears to be another situation where once again double standards are in action.