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NSW selling out national heritage, irrigators and environment: IngramVictorian state independent MP, Craig Ingram, today firmly criticised the NSW government’s position to go it alone and totally sell its 58% share of Snowy Hydro. By Craig Ingram - 19th December 2005 - Back to News "The NSW decision to totally dispose of its shareholding in Snowy Hydro undermines the two other shareholders (Victoria and the Commonwealth), the security of irrigator entitlements and future needs of the environment," Mr Ingram said today.
"The Snowy corporatisation agreements lock the delivery of water in for the next century and any changes during that time to the needs of the irrigation industry or environmental flows would be almost impossible under a privatised Snowy Hydro.
"Does the NSW government believe that there will not be any need for adjustments in the irrigation industry or the environmental flows in the next 100 years?
"The NSW government should be condemned for its blatant grab for cash in flogging off part of this country’s nation-building infrastructure which was built with taxpayers’ dollars without addressing the security of the environmental flows, irrigation entitlements or the ongoing sovereign risk to both NSW taxpayers and the other shareholding governments."
Mr Ingram has called on the pro-privatisation Federal Government to guarantee it protects farmers’ entitlements and environmental allocations before it joins the great Snowy sale.
"The NSW government needs to address the legitimate concerns of those living downstream of Snowy Hydro’s dams before it again sells out those communities for the quick political cash fix to prop up their increasingly dodgy balance sheet," Mr Ingram concluded.
Source: http://gippsland.com/ Published by: news@gippsland.com
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