‘New Bradfield’: rerouting rivers to recapture a pioneering spirit
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The “</span><a href="https://www.deb2020.com.au/newbradfield/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">New Bradfield</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">” scheme is more than an attempt to transcend environmental reality. It seeks to revive a pioneering spirit and a nation-building ethos supposedly stifled by the </span><a href="https://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/townsville/townsville-enterprise-to-receive-24m-for-hells-gates-dam-case-after-months-of-bureacratic-delay/news-story/492dba14afd4ce71ffd08f12d38c15a6"><span style="font-weight: 400;">bureaucratic inertia</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> of modern Australia.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is not a new lament. Frustrated by bureaucracy, politicians in North Queensland have long criticised the slow pace of northern development.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In 1950, northern local governments blamed urban lethargy. </span><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/63184273?searchTerm=concern%20at%20drift%20in%20north%27s%20population&searchLimits="><span style="font-weight: 400;">One prominent mayor</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> complained: “</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">… these young people lack the pioneering spirit of their forebears, preferring leisure and pleasure to hardships and hard work.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">These sentiments were inspired by an agrarian nostalgia that extolled toil and toughness. Stoic responses to the challenges of life on the land are part of the </span><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9284258"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Australian legend</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">With drought devastating rural and urban communities and a state election looming in Queensland in 2020, </span><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/queensland/leaders-tout-bradfield-scheme-options-in-queensland-election-fight-20191101-p536o2.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">both sides of politics</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> have proposed a “New Bradfield” scheme.</span></p>
<p><strong>An idea with 19th-century origins</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Civil engineer John Bradfield devised the original scheme in 1938. His plan would </span><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/97050378?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FQ%2Ftitle%2F379%2F1939%2F05%2F04%2Fpage%2F10280686%2Farticle%2F97050378"><span style="font-weight: 400;">swamp inland Australia</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> by reversing the flow of North Queensland’s rivers. Similar proposals go back to at least 1887, when geographer </span><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/35590102?q&versionId=44284267+219718360+231090219"><span style="font-weight: 400;">E.A. Leonard recommended</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the Herbert, Tully, Johnstone and Barron rivers be turned around to irrigate Australia’s “</span><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/13361128"><span style="font-weight: 400;">dead heart</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">”.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As the “dead heart” became the “</span><a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/finlayson-hedley-herbert-14881"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Red Centre</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">” in the 1930s, </span><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/6707892?q&versionId=7723963"><span style="font-weight: 400;">populist writers</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> revived the dreams of big irrigation schemes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">These schemes have always been contested on both </span><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-18/fact-file-bradfield-scheme-drought-relief/11216616"><span style="font-weight: 400;">environmental and economic grounds</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. A </span><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/20252029"><span style="font-weight: 400;">compelling history of Bradfield’s</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> proposal reveals many errors and miscalculations. But what the scheme lacked in substance it made up for in grandiose vision.</span></p>
<p><a href="https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/the-water-dreamers"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Water dreaming</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> has been a powerful theme in Australian history. The desire to transform desert into farmland retains appeal and </span><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/97099323?searchTerm=bradfield%20AND%20%22Nimmo%22&searchLimits=exactPhrase=Nimmo%7C%7C%7CanyWords%7C%7C%7CnotWords%7C%7C%7CrequestHandler%7C%7C%7CdateFrom=1944-01-01%7C%7C%7CdateTo=1948-01-01%7C%7C%7Cl-advstate=National%7C%7C%7Cl-advstate=New+South+Wales%7C%7C%7Cl-advstate=Queensland%7C%7C%7Cl-advstate=Victoria%7C%7C%7Csortby"><span style="font-weight: 400;">discredited</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> schemes like Bradfield keep reappearing.</span></p>
<p><strong>Contempt for nature and country</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">While less ambitious than the original plan, the “New Bradfield” scheme still engineers against the gradient of both history and nature. It would have irreversible consequences for Queensland’s </span><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/experts-dismiss-new-drought-proofing-bradfield-scheme/11666006"><span style="font-weight: 400;">environment</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, society and culture.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">What’s more, the new scheme manifests much the same mindset as the old.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It’s an attitude that privileges the conquest of nature: in this case literally up-ending geography by turning east-flowing rivers westward. Its celebration of the human struggle against defiant nature reprises the pioneering ethos.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Like many pioneers, “New Bradfield” proposals disregard the interests and land-management practices of Indigenous people. The bushfires ravaging the eastern states show the folly of </span><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-14/traditional-owners-predicted-bushfire-disaster/11700320?sf223598160=1&fbclid=IwAR2UkvGj_wyO4s6tbRqyI5sI6UgEI6SvqkoMwxCFEkKEV6FO7ZGJfGMP3Kc"><span style="font-weight: 400;">ignoring traditional ways of caring for country</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> .</span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.hcourt.gov.au/cases/case_d1-2018"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Overlooking native title realities</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> can also cost governments and communities.</span></p>
<p><strong>Polarising debate neglects more viable projects</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“New Bradfield” is promoted as “</span><a href="https://www.deb2020.com.au/newbradfield/?utm_source=Digitaliyf&utm_medium=GSearch&utm_campaign=NBradfield&gclid=CjwKCAiA8K7uBRBBEiwACOm4d-0xBRkgojO1Wykl937_rMhWhPhAb2ZsKhcKHOqdM2OuG11V34XdHBoCxBMQAvD_BwE"><span style="font-weight: 400;">an asset owned by all Queenslanders for all Queenslanders</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">”. But </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-darling-river-is-simply-not-supposed-to-dry-out-even-in-drought-109880"><span style="font-weight: 400;">environmental destruction</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/drought-and-climate-change-are-driving-high-water-prices-in-the-murray-darling-basin-119993"><span style="font-weight: 400;">disputes over water sales</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> in the Murray-Darling Basin sound a warning.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Queensland Farmers Federation has </span><a href="https://www.qff.org.au/media-releases/qff-welcomes-lnp-commitment-new-bradfield-scheme/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">cautiously welcomed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the new scheme. Others have dismissed it as a “</span><a href="https://www.queenslandcountrylife.com.au/story/6479100/cold-water-poured-on-bradfield-mark-ii/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">pipe dream</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">”.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Thus, northern Australia again sits amid a polarised debate about its utility to the nation. Such polarising contests diminish the likelihood of more viable projects being implemented.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Extravagant expectations of “untapped” northern resources have been </span><a href="https://scholarly.info/book/northern-dreams/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">proffered for nearly two centuries</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. Distant governments have fantasised the Australian tropics as a land of near-limitless potential. Northern communities have many times been disappointed by the results.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Today’s promises to “</span><a href="https://www.townsvillebulletin.com.au/news/opinion/flow-of-jobs-water-vital-for-nq-says-lnp-leader-deb-frecklington/news-story/053bb635b9cb86461ead6eedd39756ca"><span style="font-weight: 400;">drought-proof</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">” large areas of Queensland rely on similar images. “Drought-proofing” aims to keep people on the land but often defies economic and social reality.</span></p>
<p><strong>Dam developments have an underwhelming record</strong></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The “New Bradfield” rhetoric echoes the inflated expectations of myriad disappointing northern development plans in the past. The </span><a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781349905737"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Ord River project</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> was touted as an agricultural wonder that would put hundreds of thousands of farmers into the Kimberley. Its success lies forever just over the horizon.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Much closer to the present proposal is the Burdekin Falls Dam. It sits in the lower reaches of the same river earmarked for the </span><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-01/bradfield-scheme-is-moving-water-from-north-to-south-feasible/11662942"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Hells Gates Dam that would feed</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> the “New Bradfield” scheme. Damming Hells Gates has been advocated since at least the 1930s and has </span><a href="https://www.townsvilleenterprise.com.au/news-media/news-centre/advocacy-alert-hells-gates-funding-agreement-signals-boots-on-the-ground/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">new supporters</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Back in the 1950s, damming the Burdekin was expected to generate hydro-electric power and irrigate vast swathes of farmland. After decades of political squabbling, the dam was completed in 1988. It does not generate hydro power. Although it irrigates some land downstream, the anticipated huge agricultural expansion never happened.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Burdekin Falls Dam has helped the regional economy and could help to overcome the water shortages of the nearby city of Townsville. But it has not met the inflated expectations widely proffered decades earlier. The benefits that would flow from another dam further upstream are likely to be even more meagre.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Grandiose visions of northern development have a habit of </span><a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8505121?selectedversion=NBD660057"><span style="font-weight: 400;">failing</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. A “New Bradfield” scheme, animated by an old pioneering ethos, is unlikely to be different.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Drought-affected communities would derive more benefit from sober proposals that acknowledge the past, integrate Indigenous knowledge and incorporate agricultural innovation.</span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-weight: 400;">Written by Patrick White, Russell Mcgregor. Contribution by Janine Gertz. Republished with permission of </span><a href="https://theconversation.com/new-bradfield-rerouting-rivers-to-recapture-a-pioneering-spirit-127010"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Conversation.</span></a></em></p>
