The Greens have responded to the release of a secret Ernst & Young Audit report that has shown state governments, including South Australia have been mismanaging taxpayer funded environmental water throughout the Murray-Darling Basin, creating \u201cunique fraud risks\u201d.
\n\u201cThis audit shows the environment and taxpayers continue to be ripped off by both State and Federal Governments, including here in South Australia,\u201d Greens spokesperson for Environment & Water Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.
\n\u201cThe SA Government must answer to taxpayers and respond to audit findings that shows water purchased for the Coorong and environmental flows has instead been taken for industry purposes, leaving the internationally significant wetlands to suffer.
\n\u201cThe SA Water Minister must reveal who in his department knew of this, how much it has cost taxpayers and what action has been taken.
\n\u201cOnce again, we have another report showing that the Basin Plan is being mismanaged and is at risk of defrauding taxpayers. The Plan is meant to be securing water for the environment to keep the river system alive, and yet again we see it is riddled with fraud and water theft.
\n\u201cTax payers deserve better, we need a healthy river \u2013 it is the lifeblood of our country.
\n\u201cThese audit documents, hidden from the public, until the Greens pushed for release in the Senate, have exposed that the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder has mismanaged $3.2 billion tax payers money and has expose the Commonwealth to \u201cunique fraud risks\u201d. It is South Australia, our Lower lakes and the Coorong that will suffer as a result.
\n\u201cWe have an international obligation to protect the Coorong wetland and lower lakes at the end of the Murray River system, but the South Australian government is more interested in cost cutting than saving our Murray and delivering the environmental water it needs.\u201d
\n\u201cThe Coorong is unique and a special place for South Australians, we need a healthy river which means more water.
\n\u201cThe audit by Ernst & Young has produced more proof the Basin Plan is being mismanaged and is failing. We need a proper plan, free of corruption, mismanagement and that puts the environment back at the centre.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Greens have responded to the release of a secret Ernst & Young Audit report that has shown state governments, including South Australia have been mismanaging taxpayer funded environmental water throughout the Murray-Darling Basin, creating \u201cunique fraud risks\u201d. \u201cThis audit shows the environment and taxpayers continue to be ripped off by both State and Federal … Continue reading “South Australian Government rips off the Coorong, environment and taxpayers, secret audit reveals”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}