CANBERRA - The Australian government flatly rejected a proposal yesterday to
buy and close the nation's largest cotton farm in Queensland state to divert
water into the stressed Murray Darling basin and fight rising salinity.
Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has called on the national government to
purchase Cubbie Station, an 80,000 hectare farm about 600 km (372 miles) west of
Brisbane whose dams can store up to half a million megalitres of water - more
than Sydney Harbour.
But Regional Services Minister John Anderson dismissed the A$160 million
purchase point blank yesterday after the government's environmental
sub-committee met in Canberra.
"We don't think that is a realistic proposition at all...in terms of economic
sense and reasonable apportionment of taxpayers' responsibilities," Anderson
told reporters.
He said there was a set of environmental problems in that area of Queensland,
with issues ...