Taigen Ryan

The inevitable collapse of Pilot Energy last week is a familiar story that leaves the fate of the $200 million clean up of the Cliff Head oil platform hanging in the balance. The Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King has now hurriedly threatened Australia’s remaining oil and gas industry with an emergency offshore clean-up levy – and rightly so. There is no way the Australian taxpayer should be left to pay for this mess. But this reactive panic could have been avoided.

The Coorong and Lower Lakes sit at the end of the Murray-Darling Basin (the Basin) – Australia’s largest river system, which covers over one million km2 of the Australian continent. The Basin’s resources provide $30 billion to the Australian economy every year, and more than 3.4 million Australians rely on it for drinking water.