‘People before fish’ the Premier said by the dying river
They should establish a plinth with advice
On how to kill a river which would include:
Let industry set up on its banks and treat it as a drain
Over stock. Introduce animals to eat the vegetation along banks
These animals should have hard hooves which compact the soil
So that native grasses cannot re-establish
Exhaust the creeks, streams and springs that are the river’s tributaries
Tell people to clear the trees and be productive
Assure them the river will last forever
And that they have some ‘right’ to exploit the river
Sell irrigation rights (which you do not have)
To mono croppers who use pesticides and herbicides
And apply chemical fertilisers when things turn brown

Use drought as an excuse for failure
Let political concerns over-rule science
Forget your responsibility to future generations
Denigrate the successful custodians of 60,000 years
Undermine their ethic which insists on responsibility to the river
Replace it with an ideology that a river is a resource for exploitation
And if you have trouble understanding these instructions
Hire a consultant preferably Australian
For no-one kills a river better than we

© 2019 Tony Smith

A former academic, Tony Smith has written extensively on a wide range of subjects as diverse as folk music and foreign policy issues in the Australian Review of Public Affairs, the Journal of Australian Studies Review of Books, Overland, the Australian Quarterly, Eureka Street, Online Opinion and Unleashed.