We need the loaves to feed ourselves.

Substitute the word 'irrigation', which the MP uses pejoratively, for 'food and fibre production' employing tens of thousands of people and producing the bulk of the nation's sustenance and Craig the fisherman's simple world view is suddenly less clear cut.

Do we really need a miracle for Craig and co to see the light?

Note the adjusted flow volumes after the increase in catchment water yield from clearing in the NSW part of the Snowy catchment.

"And that means that the current mean annual flow (of the Snowy River) of 1.644 million Ml is actually 96 per cent of the pre-settlement flow. In effect, all but 44,000Ml of the 513,000Ml that is diverted from the Snowy to the Murray is already compensated for by the increased runoff (into Victoria) from clearing in the NSW portion."

Note also that the upper portion of the river goes through a large 270 degree loop that would enable the full restoration of river flows in that section by pumping each days normal flow back to the starting point for the next days flow.

As long as the pumping cost of a megalitre is less than the price per megalitre of irrigation water, then this form of multiple recycling is fully viable.

It is doubly viable when the existing flows down into Victoria can be used to drive hydraulic rams for the recycled portion.

The current Snowy River policy is being driven by ignorance and predatory, anti-farmer agendas.

They should instead talk about "irrigation losses", that is unnatural water losses. Rivers are being treated like drains to carry water between irrigation schemes.

Inter-valley water trading is a classic example - just because all the Murray-Darling Rivers meet at the end, it does not mean that you should pull large amounts of water out of one river, just because there is water in another one.

We should probably take a leaf out of Peter Andrews' book, and slow down the flows in some of our rivers. Replacing rock bars in the Darling would be a good start. They were blasted in the paddle steamer days, and now the river runs unnaturally fast, with fewer remnant pools at low levels.

This is clearly 98pc wrong and one must ask when, if ever, so-called experts like Williams will stop making serious misrepresentations of fact to the policy process.