00:00We're farmers in the Southern Riverina region near Daniloquin and we're standing here at the Bullittile Creek and the Bullittile
00:08Creek is one of the major environmental assets in this part of the Riverina linking and the flows, the creek
00:17itself links the Murray and Edward River so this is a key flow corridor between the two river systems.
00:24The creek has a very high environmental value, high micro and macro invertebrates and it's a breeding ground for native
00:33fish including the Murray cod etc and we have a whole lot of species here, platypus and a whole ecosystem.
00:45One of the issues that has affected this particular creek is the lack of understanding and value of local knowledge
00:55and how that hasn't been incorporated into the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.
01:00And what we need governments to understand is that people in farming communities are willing to work with governments and
01:10we are one of those people but local knowledge has to be valued and incorporated into decision making.
01:16And too often sort of centralised decisions and remote decisions either by government or bureaucracy or indeed consultants, government consultants
01:27don't value local knowledge and thus we get these mistakes of government made and embedded in decisions.
01:36And ultimately it's the people that live in the regions that become sort of a consequence of poor policy or
01:47indeed the environment itself and in which case this has happened now twice to this creek.
01:52So it really is time for governments to look at their model of community consultation and community collaboration and change
02:03things from a top-down combative approach to one where the only way it can work and that is looking
02:11at genuine cooperative models that balance the needs for social, economic and environment
02:20but do so in a way where local knowledge is incorporated into decision making.
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