Alice in Wonderland Australian Senate Committee on Regional Affairs and transport jokes about the real agenda

home page That is, more gems from the Senate Committee on Regional Affairs and transport, Queensland Senator IAN MACDONALD - Using that picture for a demonstration, can you explain to me? and this is a bit hard for Hansard, I am sorry? what is supposed to happen? Mr Currie - What is supposed to happen is this. There is supposed to be an adequate water flow at the bottom of the ladder in the fish lock. The lungfish are naturally attracted to the water flow and they will go in there. Once a certain number of them have actually been identified or sensed, the thing is closed up and they are towed up the ramp and they are taken over the top and down the other side. The problem at this stage is that when they get let out the other side there is a 25-metre drop to the water. Senator JOYCE - It is the ladder of opportunity! Mr Currie - It is. It is the ladder to paradise?that is what we call it. However, in essence, if some poor lungfish actually manages to get stuck in there and gets thrown up the side and over the top, they would be dead when they hit the water anyway or severely brain damaged. Senator JOYCE - It sounds like it. Mr Currie - That red circle you can see shows the leaks. The dam is actually leaking there, though I would not say it is a torrential leak. You can see that it is next to the fishway. A patch job has been done there to make out that it is not really a leak. They have sprayed tonnes of concrete over there to cover up the issue. Mr Messenger attempted to deal with that situation, and of course they just denied it. Senator IAN MACDONALD - If the water level was higher on the other side, would that fish ladder system work? Mr Currie - I would say the ladder works but, as Jean Joss pointed out, nobody has actually found a lungfish going up there. It appears as if it does not work down the bottom because lungfish just do not like it, and that was that issue with the Ned Churchwood Weir. Andrew Burgess's paper and Andrew is the officer who has been working on it quite clearly proved that of the 2,000 lungfish that went in there, only seven of them managed to get trapped. That one is ineffective just in getting them up to the top of Walla, and if they can get to Paradise they cannot get over the top. If they do get over the top and are dropped, they are dead when they hit the water. You do not need rocket science to show that the Beattie government is bloody useless at designing something that works and then they claim that it does work with nothing to back it up. As Jean said, the decision on Traveston must be withheld and postponed until such time as we know that we have an effective fish ladder and an effective turtle protection system, instead of just catching turtles somewhere else and chucking them in and using cameras to make out that they are scientifically? Senator IAN MACDONALD - Did you have any response to your accusation that that was a fraudulent claim about the turtles? Mr Currie - No, because they can say whatever they like, can?t they. Beattie said, ?It is an effective fish ladder.? We said, ?Show us the documentation. Show us the data.? It is not there. They are full of it! Senator IAN MACDONALD - You made that point. Thank you.