With only a few days left in the 6-week ministerial comment phase, we thought we’d take a look back at the 20-week public consultation, which began on 28 November 2011 and ended on 16 April 2012.
We’ve put together an infographic with some of the more interesting stats.
Conversations in the Basin
Conversations in the Basin
In all, we spent 140.66 days consulting with people – which is the same as 3,375.84 hours or 202,550.4 minutes or 12,153,024 seconds. To put it another way: that’s enough time to re-enact Apollo 11′s historic trip to the moon – complete with small step and great leap – 17 times over!
Number of stakeholder meetings = 175
- 56 Round table and technical meetings with community leaders and key groups
- 30 Meetings with Indigenous communities in 30 towns
- 24 Public meetings
- 10 town hall meetings
- 14 public open houses
- 18 Social and economic briefings for representatives from rural financial organisations
- 17 Presentations at conferences and workshops for organisations (e.g., Rice Growers’ Association, Murray Darling Association and Conservation Councils)
- 15 State bilateral meetings
- 8 Basin Plan Working Group meetings (Basin states)
- 5 regional briefings on water trade issues
- 2 Joint Murray Lower Darling rivers Indigenous Nations (MILDRIN) and Northern Murray-Darling Basin Aboriginal Nations (NBAN) meetings
Approximate number of people at meetings = 19,000
- 13200 at town hall meetings
- 3000 at conferences
- 1400 at round tables
- 750 at indigenous community meetings
- 300 at open houses
- 270 at financial briefings
- 80 at MILDRIN and NBAN
- 50 at water trade briefings
When you do the maths…
19,000 people at 175 meetings – plus all the other Basin Plan-related activity all across the Basin – led to 12,000 submissions. From there, we made 300 changes to the draft Basin Plan. You can see the result – the revised plan aka the Proposed Basin Plan and the Consultation Report – on our website.
And, finally, a thank you to all the people who made up the 10,569 views right here on Free Flow. We appreciate your taking the time to stop by and share your thoughts. We hope you keep coming back!
I just wish we had environmental flows fifteen years ago. The damage done to our river system during the drought would have been minimised. Around Echuca the river and it’s banks would not be choked with dead and dying redgum saplings. I believe at least 50 per cent of the ...
... vegetation has grown up during the drought with no floodwaters to limit it. The bushfire risk around here will be massive in a normal summer. Houseboats struggle to find places to tie up and water skiers risk serious injury from so many unseen snags. Environmental flows would have meant smaller black water events and less chance of the heartbreaking deaths of hundreds of mature Murray Cod and crayfish that we witnessed last January. Environmental flows would have meant more tourism in those drought years when the media told everyone the river was “empty”. Environmental flows would have meant that all the birdlife that has bred so well over the last few years would have been here every Spring.
Keep up the good work!