Members of our Centre often provide policy advice to politicians. The last couple of months has been busier than usual.

Firstly, on 26th July Tony Burke (the shadow Federal Minister for the Arts, for Environment and Water, and for Citizenship and Multicultural Australia) requested to visit GFAR for a research briefing. Professor Wendy Umberger provided an overview of our Centre, our projects and research goals while Associate Professor Sarah Wheeler provided an update on our current water research in the Murray-Darling Basin.

On 23rd August, Associate Prof Wheeler and Dr’s Loch and Adamson, appeared before the House of Representatives, Standing Committee’s public hearing into Water-use efficiency in Australian agriculture to discuss their joint submission. The inquiry was at the Parliament of South Australia and the three House of Representatives on the committee were: Mr Rick Wilson (Chair of Committee & Member for O’Connor, Western Australia); Ms Justine Keay (Deputy Chair and Member for Braddon, Tasmania); and Mr Matt Keogh (Member for Burt, Western Australia).

L-R: Dr Adamson, Assoc. Prof Wheeler, Hon. Justine Keay, Hon. Rick Wilson, Dr Loch and Hon. Matt Keogh

The draft Hansard transcript of the day (is here), and our session starts at page 13. Overall we think our testimony was well received, and we will be interested to see the final report due in December.

Finally, in August Associate Professor Sarah Wheeler presented to the SA Greens agricultural committee and provided advice/suggestions to help them develop agricultural policy goals.

Blog Written by Dr David Adamson and A/Prof Sarah Wheeler.